Foster Care to Adoption

I have often been asked, "Why did you and your wife become foster parents?". I usually took the easy way out and replied "why not" or "or we had nothing better to do" or if a business customer would ask, I gave a reply something like "we wanted to help kids" trying to impress him.
There was another reason that was a little selfish on our parts. We had a five year old son and we did not want him growing up as an only child. When my wife gave birth to my son, after a troublesome pregnancy, she had a terribly long painful delivery. So much so, she knew it was something she would never be willing to go through again.
We didn't have the financial resources to even consider some of the adoption alternatives. Fortunately, my wife befriended a neighbor who happened to be a foster parent. Until then, we had no idea about foster care or the types of kids that are in the foster care system. We did have a lot of pre-conceived notions. This neighbor had one foster daughter about six years old. Every inaccurate opinion I ever had about foster children, this six year old shattered.
She was cute, polite, friendly, obviously intelligent, and if that wasn't enough, the most talented young gymnast I had ever seen. She gave us a demonstration of hand walking, cartwheels, and numerous other tricks that was amazing.
While we didn't end up with any gymnasts, we were foster parents for dozens and dozens of children and were extremely fortunate enough to be able to adopt seven of them. Becoming a foster parent wasn't difficult. We contacted our local county Department of Social Services. There were interviews, some paperwork, and training classes to attend. Since there was a shortage of families willing to be foster parents at the time (there probably still is) "Social Services" treated any family, who they thought of as a good candidate, extremely well. In fact, the shortage was so acute that we received our first foster care placement even before we were certified.
I would describe what my family has done as the "Greatest Adventure". People skydive, ski, ride motorcycles, etc. for the feeling of adventure and excitement. I only had to come home from work. For a while, when we were active as emergency foster parents, (willing to accept kids on an emergency basis anytime of the day or night) I never knew how many kids would be in the house when I came home (anywhere from 8 -14). I can also tell you that while these kids came to us, usually to be removed from a "problem situation", they were, on the whole, no problem to us. In the end, many kids came and left but there were seven who stayed to be adopted. No vacation, no trip to the amusement park and no success at work could ever compare to the excitement and emotional satisfaction that these kids have brought to my life. Yes, there were some problems, disappointments, and "emotional lows", but, they were minor in comparison to the overall picture.

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