It's been one year and a couple days since we started the process of being licensed for foster care. It's cool how God brings things into your life and heart to draw you to do something about it. For us, after contemplating the idea of getting involved with foster care for a little over a year, we went to a nearby church for a foster care orientation (the first step in the process here in Arizona). I remember so well how it felt as we heard about the huge need for foster homes and how God was speaking to my heart about it all.
It's crazy to think that it's already been five weeks since our first little foster guy left. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone and how much has happened since he left, but I guess that's the way time is. My mind is always buzzing with thoughts about foster care and ideas for the next time, and so I thought it might be a good time to try to pin some of those thoughts down. So here goes...
We kind of knew we would be in for a lot of changes when we got our first placement. We've had six babies of our own, so we already knew about the changes that happen when a new baby arrives. Still, there were a lot of things that were different with a foster baby than with our previous experiences.
It had been nearly twelve years since our youngest was born, so having a baby in the house again was kind of like starting all over again. Experience came in handy in a lot of ways, though. We already knew which baby products were helpful to us before. So the day after he came, we went on the quest for a bunch of those items that you kind of forget about until there's an actual newborn in your house. It was so fun having a little baby in the house and shopping for baby stuff again.
But a lot was different because this wasn't "our" baby. All the questions, which started that first time we went out with him...
"Oh, how old?" a lady asked, and when I answered, "Five days," she looked me over, head to toe, presumably to see how I looked after having a baby so recently. That felt really weird.
One night when he was eleven days old, an older woman said, "Oh, honey, when I had my first, I didn't go out for a month!" Matt and I both smiled at how cute she was, to think that we, a middle-aged couple with two adult kids and three others, had just had our first baby. And then there was the lady who, at seeing how much hair the little guy had, exclaimed how I must have had heartburn while I was pregnant. Haha, okay... I just laughed & smiled.
At first, the questions made me feel so awkward. But after a while, I got used to them. I got used to the looks of wonder when people noticed his dark eyes, hair and skin in comparison to our paleness... the questions people had but didn't dare ask. I finally started to realize some of the seemingly rude questions were really just people's way of saying they noticed us and wanted to know what the story was. Like the waitress who wouldn't stop asking, "Is he YOURS?" until we finally said something that made us sound like kidnappers. Yikes. I've yet to figure out the best way to gracefully bow out of telling all the details because they're not ours to tell, but I do think people for the most part are just curious.
Having a baby in the house again felt so good, so normal. But there were a lot of reminders that this was different, that he wasn't "ours" like our biological kids are. Bottle feeding and night times and being prepared for when we went out had a bit of a learning curve, when our previous experience was with breastfeeding and co-sleeping. The weekly visits with his parents--sending him off with a case aid for a long car ride, 4-hour visit and another long car ride back--were more reminders that this was different. The times that we supervised visits with his parents were surreal, handing him off to them and watching as they held, comforted & fed him while we tagged along at the library or the mall. Then there were also the monthly visits from our licensing agency and his case manager and the random phone calls from various agencies. At the beginning, I joked that he needed his own calendar just to keep everything straight.
Knowing the transition to living with relatives was coming, but not knowing when this would happen was a hard time for me. I felt like I was living every day on pins & needles, half expecting a call saying he was going to leave that day. (It does happen like that sometimes.) As it turns out, we had plenty of time to prepare ourselves and transition a bit before the big day. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't spent most of the summer worrying about how it was all going to go down. Hopefully I can remember that for the next time.
In those weeks of waiting and wondering, I read a lot about foster care transitions and how painful they are, things that said, "If it doesn't break your heart, you're not doing it right." So when we actually drove away without him and I didn't feel heartbroken and torn apart in the days and weeks afterward, I felt like something was wrong with me.
After a while, I came to realize that I had done a lot of "pre-grieving" in those weeks leading up to his actual departure. It helped knowing he's in a really great home with relatives who love both him and his bio family, people who know the Lord. We honestly couldn't have picked a better home for him to move into.
I think that it's easy to compare ourselves with other people and judge ourselves wrongly. We're not all the same, we don't all have the same background, and I suspect each foster care goodbye will be different. I imagine (and have been told) it must be really difficult to see a child you've loved and cared for go back into a situation that seems uncertain and potentially dangerous. We're still new at this and I want to remember to give myself grace with how I'm feeling, whether it's the way all the stuff I've read says I'll feel or whether it's not.
Looking ahead to the next placement, it's weird because this time we're already licensed and we're not waiting on anyone to tell us we can have a foster child come live with us. It's up to us when we want to go back on the "open bed" list. Matt has said it's up to me when we tell our agency we're ready, since I'm the main caregiver. I've got a date in mind, based on some family, health and art business things going on.
It's shocking to me how quickly I've grown accustomed to sleeping all night long and how easily Matt & I can go out on an evening alone, almost to the point of taking it for granted. I look forward to doing it again, to having a sweet baby in the house again... but at the same time, I do remember how hard getting up every two hours at night is. I also remember how it was so much harder to go on a date, because you have to have somebody 18 or older watch foster children, and we don't have any college students nearby.
At the same time, though, having experienced what it's like to love on a baby that I didn't birth and to get to know his parents and unexpectedly kind of fall in love with them, I can't help but wonder about the next one and his/her parents. I read something the other day on an online foster parent forum about reunifications and goodbyes and how they've added new family members to their family with each new placement, referring to their foster childrens' families. I really liked how she worded that, and I find myself missing little guy's parents and knowing what's going on with them almost as much as I miss having him around.
Foster care is definitely an adventure, and Matt and I feel like we were eased in fairly gently with the case we were involved with. We're still so new at this, but it's fun to look back at the beginning of the process a year ago and to see where God's taken us so far on this journey.
It's crazy to think that it's already been five weeks since our first little foster guy left. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone and how much has happened since he left, but I guess that's the way time is. My mind is always buzzing with thoughts about foster care and ideas for the next time, and so I thought it might be a good time to try to pin some of those thoughts down. So here goes...
We kind of knew we would be in for a lot of changes when we got our first placement. We've had six babies of our own, so we already knew about the changes that happen when a new baby arrives. Still, there were a lot of things that were different with a foster baby than with our previous experiences.
It had been nearly twelve years since our youngest was born, so having a baby in the house again was kind of like starting all over again. Experience came in handy in a lot of ways, though. We already knew which baby products were helpful to us before. So the day after he came, we went on the quest for a bunch of those items that you kind of forget about until there's an actual newborn in your house. It was so fun having a little baby in the house and shopping for baby stuff again.
But a lot was different because this wasn't "our" baby. All the questions, which started that first time we went out with him...
"Oh, how old?" a lady asked, and when I answered, "Five days," she looked me over, head to toe, presumably to see how I looked after having a baby so recently. That felt really weird.
One night when he was eleven days old, an older woman said, "Oh, honey, when I had my first, I didn't go out for a month!" Matt and I both smiled at how cute she was, to think that we, a middle-aged couple with two adult kids and three others, had just had our first baby. And then there was the lady who, at seeing how much hair the little guy had, exclaimed how I must have had heartburn while I was pregnant. Haha, okay... I just laughed & smiled.
At first, the questions made me feel so awkward. But after a while, I got used to them. I got used to the looks of wonder when people noticed his dark eyes, hair and skin in comparison to our paleness... the questions people had but didn't dare ask. I finally started to realize some of the seemingly rude questions were really just people's way of saying they noticed us and wanted to know what the story was. Like the waitress who wouldn't stop asking, "Is he YOURS?" until we finally said something that made us sound like kidnappers. Yikes. I've yet to figure out the best way to gracefully bow out of telling all the details because they're not ours to tell, but I do think people for the most part are just curious.
Having a baby in the house again felt so good, so normal. But there were a lot of reminders that this was different, that he wasn't "ours" like our biological kids are. Bottle feeding and night times and being prepared for when we went out had a bit of a learning curve, when our previous experience was with breastfeeding and co-sleeping. The weekly visits with his parents--sending him off with a case aid for a long car ride, 4-hour visit and another long car ride back--were more reminders that this was different. The times that we supervised visits with his parents were surreal, handing him off to them and watching as they held, comforted & fed him while we tagged along at the library or the mall. Then there were also the monthly visits from our licensing agency and his case manager and the random phone calls from various agencies. At the beginning, I joked that he needed his own calendar just to keep everything straight.
Knowing the transition to living with relatives was coming, but not knowing when this would happen was a hard time for me. I felt like I was living every day on pins & needles, half expecting a call saying he was going to leave that day. (It does happen like that sometimes.) As it turns out, we had plenty of time to prepare ourselves and transition a bit before the big day. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't spent most of the summer worrying about how it was all going to go down. Hopefully I can remember that for the next time.
In those weeks of waiting and wondering, I read a lot about foster care transitions and how painful they are, things that said, "If it doesn't break your heart, you're not doing it right." So when we actually drove away without him and I didn't feel heartbroken and torn apart in the days and weeks afterward, I felt like something was wrong with me.
After a while, I came to realize that I had done a lot of "pre-grieving" in those weeks leading up to his actual departure. It helped knowing he's in a really great home with relatives who love both him and his bio family, people who know the Lord. We honestly couldn't have picked a better home for him to move into.
I think that it's easy to compare ourselves with other people and judge ourselves wrongly. We're not all the same, we don't all have the same background, and I suspect each foster care goodbye will be different. I imagine (and have been told) it must be really difficult to see a child you've loved and cared for go back into a situation that seems uncertain and potentially dangerous. We're still new at this and I want to remember to give myself grace with how I'm feeling, whether it's the way all the stuff I've read says I'll feel or whether it's not.
Looking ahead to the next placement, it's weird because this time we're already licensed and we're not waiting on anyone to tell us we can have a foster child come live with us. It's up to us when we want to go back on the "open bed" list. Matt has said it's up to me when we tell our agency we're ready, since I'm the main caregiver. I've got a date in mind, based on some family, health and art business things going on.
It's shocking to me how quickly I've grown accustomed to sleeping all night long and how easily Matt & I can go out on an evening alone, almost to the point of taking it for granted. I look forward to doing it again, to having a sweet baby in the house again... but at the same time, I do remember how hard getting up every two hours at night is. I also remember how it was so much harder to go on a date, because you have to have somebody 18 or older watch foster children, and we don't have any college students nearby.
At the same time, though, having experienced what it's like to love on a baby that I didn't birth and to get to know his parents and unexpectedly kind of fall in love with them, I can't help but wonder about the next one and his/her parents. I read something the other day on an online foster parent forum about reunifications and goodbyes and how they've added new family members to their family with each new placement, referring to their foster childrens' families. I really liked how she worded that, and I find myself missing little guy's parents and knowing what's going on with them almost as much as I miss having him around.
Foster care is definitely an adventure, and Matt and I feel like we were eased in fairly gently with the case we were involved with. We're still so new at this, but it's fun to look back at the beginning of the process a year ago and to see where God's taken us so far on this journey.
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