i have learned to look at fostering as helping a
family more than helping a
child (or myself lol). i firmly believe that the best thing for children removed from their parents' homes is for the parents to get their lives together and be able to care for the children. In so much as we're giving the kids a safe place to stay until that happens, we are helping the family as much or more than the individual child. My DH and i are not yet approved, but i can already tell in reading the threads here that this will be beneficial to us.
Obviously there will be pain every time a child is removed, especially when our opinion is that the birth family *doesn't* have it together again and the RU attempt may fail. That may cause us to burn out, who knows. And of course the red tape is and will continue to be very frustrating. But we are going into foster and adoption not with the intent that the first child to enter our home will be adopted by us and that we'll be disappointed if that doesn't happen, but that we want whatever is best, hopefully for their parents to get it together on the very first attempt and have a fairy tale ending
. If not, we'd love to adopt and build our family that way.