Yesterday I took our foster baby in for a visit with her dad. I was so nervous before the visit. Normally before a visit, there is supposed to be an Ice Breaker. An Ice Breaker is supposed to offer an opportunity to meet the birth parents and for them to meet the foster parents. Questions can be asked and ideally I think it's supposed to help set the tone for how families work together. Our Ice Breaker took place right before the visit. I have a hard time starting conversation with people I don't know; especially when I am nervous. I am having to force myself to put myself out there...and I did and it went really well.

Foster care can bring up lots of different emotions. Last weekend I couldn't help but feel like I wanted to keep this little baby for our family. We aren't doing foster care with the absolute intent to adopt again but there is always the possibility it could be presented to us again in the future. When you are up in the middle of the night with a baby, taking them to multiple appointments and bonding with them, how do you keep from wanting to keep them? I think this is something I will struggle with with each placement we have.

The whole point of foster care though is to reunify families if it is safe for them. If you want to adopt, foster care isn't the way to do it unless you are looking for an older child who is waiting for their forever family.

The visit though with this baby's dad helped put everything back in perspective. It's easy to want to keep a child when you have not met the family. All week leading up to the visit, I had been trying to process my feelings and meeting him gave me some peace of mind. We are just going to love on her until she goes home and I know it will still be hard to say goodbye, I know in my heart it is the right thing for her when the time comes.

I spoke with another foster mom on the phone this week. We are going to do respite this summer for their little one. We talked about how we hear all the time how other people could never temporarily keep someone else's child. I haven't had many opportunities to come up with a good response when we hear that but she told me her response is always that they are not doing foster care for themselves; they are doing foster care to help the child...it's not about them, it's about the child. Does this mean she doesn't bond with the child or have a hard time saying goodbye? No, all those things happen but it just helps keep everything in perspective.

Foster care really is about helping a child in need until they can be reunited with their family or who ever their forever family might be.