[marythemom]

I knew too much about child abuse and neglect and knew that I could never take in a child, love him/her, and then allow that child to go back to a situation that could potentially be abusive. My nieces and nephew were removed from their mom's custody many times and kept going back. They all have PTSD and many other issues.

We took the "easy" way out and took in children who were up for adoption with parental rights already terminated. We wanted older kids instead of babies or young children though so that was more likely.

I admire foster parents so much. My kids had fantastic foster parents who helped them make so much progress. Because of our younger children, we could not have taken our kids in when they first entered foster care. They were too dangerous.