[Vince]

Courage, Jasmine. A lot of foster parents are in your situation. In many ways, adoption is a bigger step than marriage; you also have to put more in and get less out.

We dearly love our eight year old foster son, and he might be with us for another ten years. But we are not going to adopt anyone.

You and your husband are kind, caring parents who have done a wonderful job for these boys. It really sounds like God sent them specifically to you. But no one is under a moral obligation to adopt
a child.

The future is too long and difficult to predict. Currently, all four of you are doing well. If it were me, I would continue to do well and deal with the future whenit gets here.

How do you explain to the boys that you will not adopt them? We told our former foster son the truth: he was not suitable for adoption. He wanted to return to his bio mom (and we still have him over about three times a month), she lived in the same county as us, and things were doing well with him in foster care.