Adoption is the permanency plan for more than one-quarter of all children in the U.S. foster care system. In 2022, more than 108,800 children were living in out-of-home care and awaiting adoption. Pre-adoptive placement disruption is one reason children continue to wait. This interpretive phenomenological study explored the experiences of 11 foster parents in a Midwestern state who lived through a pre-adoptive placement disruption. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were used to identify pre-adoptive parents’ motivations, expectations, realities, and the meanings they attributed to the disruption. Data reveal compound loss, lived vulnerability and ambivalence, and lasting consequences related to future foster and adoptive decision-making. Findings have implications for permanency practice and research.