Three Under Three

I picked up the boys the next day at noon.  Baby O had gotten big and I teared up when I saw him.  W had gotten big too, but he wasn't my baby that I had at three months old six months ago.  W remembered me from all the times he had been to my house.

"Do you want to come live at my house?"  I asked him.  "Yup!"  he said, without hesitation.

Neither of the foster parents was there, just a babysitter with her own two or three kids.  I helped W on with his shoes.  The babysitter handed me two enormous black garbage bags of clothes.  "All their stuff is in there," she told me.

This made me sad.

Before I even became a foster parent, I learned (I think from watching Ellen) about different non-profit organizations with one goal:  to make sure kids in foster care had duffel bags and luggage to hold their belongings in.  When Baby O came to us, he had nothing, but I made sure he left us with a huge duffel bag that was bigger than he was.  Where was that duffel bag?  Where was W's?  How could they just send these kids to a new place with garbage bags?

If this outrages you as much as it outrages me, there are several organizations you can donate to:

Check out: Together We Rise, Comfort Cases, It's My Bag, My Stuff Bags, and Suitcases for Kids



I strapped the boys into their car seats and headed home.  I was shocked that W didn't seem the least bit upset to leave.  It stuck me as heartbreaking... how often had this child been moved from home to home that he came to expect it?

I drove home where Tiernen was waiting with Bram.  I sat down and suddenly it hit me:  I had three kids under three (two nine month olds and a three year old).  Darryl worked nights and traveled an hour and a half each way to get to work.  I was working 8-3.  Bram was in Early Head Start from 8:30-2:30 Monday - Friday, but it was still a lot of hours with a lot of babies.

Was I crazy???

When Shade Pays

Because I'm a teacher, I get the whole summer off, right?  Not exactly.  For the past five years, I have worked as an English tutor for Upward Bound.    During the summer, they have Summer College for five weeks, where students take academic classes, attend enrichment events, and visit colleges.  It's a good gig and I enjoy it very much (or I wouldn't do it).  

This summer, I was sitting in orientation.  It's really orientation for the kids, not the teachers, but I like to show my face and be a team player.  Go me.  We were on a break, and I glanced down at my phone.  I had a voice mail.  It was The Agency.

Now remember, they had no idea that Bram was still with me five days a week.  As far as they knew, my house was empty. Kid-free.  Open for fosters.  Of course, it could be another foster... and I was NOT doing that again.  Ever.

But maybe it wasn't.  Maybe another baby was coming my way.  I excitedly listened to my voice mail.

"Hi, Rebecca, this is XX from The Agency.  It looks like Baby O and W are in need of a new foster placement.  I know you had expressed interest in the past, and we were wondering if you were still interested.  Please call me back."

At this point, they had been with the other family, the couple I had gone to foster class with, for almost two months.  After The Agency told me that they weren't going to move them back with me, I disassembled the toddler bed and put it in the attic.  I did text the couple every other week and ask how the boys were.  I asked if I could see them too.  I never got a response.

In retrospect, I don't really blame them.  After all, I pretty much went after those kids hard and tried to have them taken from them.  (Shade.) They probably thought:  we won; leave us alone.  There was a very good chance they could adopt.  Who the hell was I to even ask?

I listened to the voice mail twice to make sure I heard right before I called back.

Turns out that the couple wasn't interested in fostering the boys anymore because the three year old was "too difficult."  She then described some relatively typical three year old behaviors (tantrums, talking back, not listening) that were "unbearable" for them. Without checking with Darryl, I told her I was indeed interested in still taking them, but I needed a day to prepare.  She told me that the foster dad would call me to arrange a time for me to pick them up.

He called within the hour.  He wanted to know if I could pick them up that day, but I said I couldn't.  I had to get their room ready and work out daycare with Tiernen.  Had I known that I was getting the boys, I probably would not have agreed to work seven hours a day five days a week.  But I had, and now I needed to figure things out.  Reluctantly, foster dad agreed to keep them for one more night.  

How kind of him.

Respite: The Aftermath

Immediately, I stripped the crib and disinfected every surface I could think of.  The entire house reeked of Lysol and the garbage cans were overflowing with poopy diapers.  The child hadn't even been with us for 24 hours.  It felt like we had been run over by a bulldozer.

I don't know if it was the lack of sleep or the overwhelming scent of Lysol, but I felt sick to my stomach.  I begged Darryl to let me go to back to bed.  He took Bram out so I could rest.

I didn't rest long before I was headed right to the bathroom.

Uh oh.

I was sick.

Suddenly I realized how sick that little boy was, how achy and uncomfortable and just miserable he felt.  Ugh.  

And here is what was worse:  the next day was my birthday.

I spent the rest of the week (my entire spring break) in bed and miserable.  I shut off my phone and missed all the phone calls and texts of people wishing me happy birthday. I couldn't have cared less.  I shut the door and Darryl continued to sleep on the couch with Bram in the Pack N Play downstairs. I didn't want to eat or celebrate or anything.  I.  Was. Miserable.


 I vowed right then and there that I would never take a respite again, no matter how much I loved the case worker, no matter if I had a placement or not.  This was terrible.  

Not only did he get me sick, but Darryl, Tiernen, and to a lesser degree, thank goodness, Bram.  Nope, I would never, ever take a respite again.

By the time I felt better, it was time to go back to work.  It was one of the worst spring breaks I had ever had.

On Monday, I got a call from the little boy's case planner.  She said his foster parents were back and that when they unpacked his things, he was missing some clothes.  They wanted to know if I had them.  I explained that no, I did not. I also explained that I had spent $75 on clothes for him, money I would never see again.  (I left out that now I had a refrigerator full of food that, other than the fruit, no one would eat).

Nope, never doing respite again.

Big, Big Mistake

I called my foster friend with the four siblings and told her I had a respite for the week.  She asked who it was, and when I told her, she said, "Oh yeah, I've had him and his sister a couple of times.  They are in respite a lot."  

Okay, I get it.  As much as we love kids, we all could use a break every once in a while.  I know when I was a little girl, my  mother got a break every weekend when my brother and I went to my grandmother's house.  Truth be known, I slept over her house every weekend from ages three until sixteen when I moved in and had permanent sleep overs!  I get it.  We all need breaks.  No shade here.

But according to these notes, it looked like this little boy was spending multiple weekends every month in respite care.  How many breaks did these foster parents need?  And if they needed that many breaks, maybe foster parenting wasn't for them.

I suddenly felt very sorry for this little boy and very angry at the parents.  And... very, very angry at The Agency for not telling me how sick he was.  I had a baby (Bram) in my house who could get sick too, not to mention exposing us to the jerks.

I didn't sleep at all that night because the little guy kept waking up every time he had a bowel movement (which was very often).  Even in his sleep, he cried, "daddy, daddy!"  It was horrible.  

At 6 AM, Darryl and I decided that we we COULD NOT DO THIS.  He wasn't well.  We decided we would call the On Call number and tell them they would have to find another respite placement for him.  I felt horribly doing it; he had been bounced around so much.  I just couldn't.

The On Call case planner told us to pack up his things and bring him to daycare (did I mention that in addition to being in respite every other weekend, this foster parents had him in daycare from 7 AM - 5 PM every day?  When WERE they with this kid?)  and they would find a new placement for him.

So we followed those directions and that's what we did.  

I had never felt so guilty or so relieved in my entire life.

Sick Toddler

He had more than a little bit of diarrhea.  

The kid was sick.  I had to change his diaper every 20 minutes or so, which wasn't the problem.  What was the problem was that his little bum was sore and red and cleaning him caused him to scream in pain.  I knew even the unscented wipes would hurt, so I used soft cloths and water, but it still hurt him to no end.

He didn't want to eat.  He had a slight fever.  We tried to make him comfortable on the couch with blankets and pillows.  We put Paw Patrol on the television.  Darryl went to the store and bought some Pedialyte and the little guy held his sippy cup without really drinking.

Because he was two, he was verbal enough to tell us when he needed to be changed.  Every time he had a bowel movement, which was very frequently, he would scream because it hurt so badly, calling, "change, change!"  It was heart breaking.

His little bum was too sensitive for any rash cream or ointment, and so I gave him a million baths with baking soda to help sooth his raw tush.

He did not eat dinner.

I went though his duffel bag and there were barely three changes of clothes, surely not enough clothes for the rest of the week.  I left him alone with Darryl (who he called "Daddy" and clung to desperately)  and went to Carters.  I bought him four pairs of pajamas, two pairs of pants, and three shirts.

He was happy to put on the new pajamas and kept asking, "for me?"  That broke my heart.  "Yes, baby, all for you."

We put him to bed in Bram's crib, and we decided that Darryl would sleep on the couch and put Bram in the Pack n Play downstairs. I would sleep upstairs in our bed so I could here the little boy.  He laid down without a fuss, clinging to his sippy cup but not really drinking it.


A foster child comes with a big black binder that goes with them wherever they go.  It has all there information in there too.  When he went to sleep, I thumbed through it.  Foster parents, including respites, are expected to write daily notes on how the child does each day.  I saw that this little guy was in respite at least one weekend a month!  I also saw that back in November, while on respite with his sister, he had been bitten on the nose by a dog.

Wait a minute.

I had been called about a little boy and girl who COULD NOT be in a house with a dog because he had been bitten.  This was the boy!  Apparently having dogs was no big deal now that they were desperate. 

Also, where was the sister?  She wasn't in a different respite home for the week (they place siblings together), and then it hit me:  they had taken her on vacation but not him, probably because he was sick.

Those son of a bitches.

Desperate Respite

"How much do you love me?"

It was the on call case worker who had brought us Baby O for the first time.  

I laughed.  "I do love you, but you know we have a placement here, right?"  (this was back when Bram was still "on the books").

"I do, but this is only for four or five days, I swear."

He had called other times, and I always said no (another one of foster parents' "rights" -- right to refuse a placement, woo freakin' hoo).  Usually it was for a teenager (no thank you).  Once it was for a six year old and an eight year old from the city who came with their mother to visit their father in prison (this area has a hub of four prisons).  Mom decided to smuggle in some drugs to dad, got caught, was arrested, and the kids were taken into foster care.  Can of worms!  No thank you.

This time, it was for a two and a half year old boy.  It was spring break and The Agency was having a hell of a time finding anyone who would take him.  His foster family was going on vacation -- and they weren't bringing him.  (jerks).  I couldn't imagine going on vacation without my foster baby, unless it was for a romantic get away or something.  

I don't know what made me say yes, but I did.  I was off from work, so it wouldn't all be on Tiernen.  Plus, a little boy would be a fun playmate for Bram.

I went to the store and picked up some food I thought would appeal to the average two year old:  peanut butter and jelly, pizza bagels, mac and cheese, bananas, juice boxes, grapes, string cheese...  I doubted he would eat the pad Thai or avocado toast that we ate at home. on a regular basis.  

We picked him up on Monday.  He was at a temporary overnight foster home.  I kid you not, when we walked into the house, there were 10+ foster kids there from infants to tweens in every color of the racial rainbow.  The house was huge and gorgeous.  The kitchen table had twenty chairs around it, complete with booster seats and high chairs.  There was only one adult there and she couldn't have been more than twenty-five.

She told me that this was her aunt and uncle's house and she was over babysitting and doing laundry.  These were all her foster children.  Some had been adopted over the years.  It was a LOT of kids.  She told me this was one of the slower years:  they had had as many as twenty.  Damn.  I love kids, but not that much.

She gathered the little boy's things:  his duffel bag of clothes, his favorite blanket, a half-empty bag of Pull Ups, and a sippy cup. 

The little boy was lying, half asleep, on an ottoman.  He did not look well.

"Oh, he's had a little bit of diarrhea," she added casually, rousing the sleeping toddler.  He, not unexpectedly, started to cry.  She picked him up and said she would walk us to the car, leaving the tweens in charge of the rest of the masses.

Darryl put his car seat in the car and the twentysomething strapped him in.  I asked him if he wanted a banana and he nodded yes, but he didn't eat it. He stopped crying but whimpered every few minutes.

We were going to be fine, I told him repeatedly.

I was trying to convince myself.

The Battle for Baby O

That Monday, I started my battle to get back Baby O and W.  I felt very slighted that they didn't even call me.  And maybe it was totally rude that I was actively going out of my way to take kids OUT of the home of this foster family.  After all, they had been foster parents as long as I had, but they only had short term respites (weekends, etc.) . They were desperate to adopt.  My understanding was that these boys would, by the track record of their parents non-involvement, be freed for adoption.  How shitty was I to take that away from them...

But I didn't care.

Baby O was MY baby first.  I knew those kids; they knew me, had been to my home, felt comfortable with me.  And The Agency didn't even ask!

All my friend had to do was call The Agency and make it known without a shadow of a doubt that she wanted her girls (plus the baby with all the media attention) back, and they were put back into her custody.  I hoped it would be that easy with the boys.

I was transferred to one of the women in The Agency who did placement.  She said she was unaware that I was interested in getting Baby O back.  This upset me greatly.  Wasn't that The Agency's policy?  To call the original foster parent first?  Sure, I wasn't W's original foster parent, but I was Baby O's.  Why hadn't the case planner indicated that in the files?

I was told me that I had to first prove that I had a bed for the three year old.  She said once I did that, I had to have my strong person verify it.  

(A note on my "strong person."  During training, we were told that each foster parent would have a strong person,who would answer questions and advocate for you.  I'm sure that was the initial intention.  However, much like the case planners, each strong person had a tremendous case load -- I think there were only three strong people for the entire agency -- who couldn't really go to bat for you because their hands were tied.  They could answer the most rudimentary questions, but that was about it.)

 I spent that morning buying a toddler bed and mattress.  I called my strong person and asked her if she wanted to come out and verify that I did indeed have it in my home.  She told me to take a picture of it and send it to her.  I did.

I called back the placement woman before noon.

She told me that the boys were sent to the couple as an emergency respite placement (I knew that wasn't true -- the couple that had the boys were willing to keep them, just not their older brother) and that she would talk to the planning team and let me know.

And so I waited.

Yes, in the meantime I did have Bram and loved him and was happy to have him, but the the truth was, he was really "off the books."  As far as The Agency was concerned, I was an open foster home.  Why wasn't I contacted, dammit?

Eventually, the placement woman did call me back.  She said the team decided to keep the boys where they were because they had been moved so many times.  I understood that.  They had been moved an ungodly number of times.  It wasn't fair to them.  But at the same time, they knew my home.  I wasn't new to them, my house wasn't new to them.  

For once in my life, I decided not to argue.  At least they were with people I knew.

Petty...

... but not Tom...

Maybe it was wrong.  Maybe it was petty.  Maybe I shouldn't have flipped out or made calls.  Maybe I should  have just let it be.  

But I didn't let it be and I did flip out and I did make calls.

The first person I called was my friend who had had fostered Baby O after I had.  


"The boys are with XX!" I cried, naming the family.

She, too, was shocked.  The last she had heard, the boys, all three of them, were with the other couple.  They had gone there at the beginning of March and this was the middle of May.  Why were they somewhere else?  She told me she would call me back, that she would make some calls.  In the meantime, she told me to call The Agency.

I did, but it was the weekend, and the only person I got was someone on call.  I tried to control the anger in my voice.

I explained that it was my understanding that Baby O and his three year old brother (let's call him W, okay, because typing "three year old brother" over and over is getting a tad tedious) were with yet another family.  I explained that it was my understanding that Baby O would be returned to me - his initial foster mom - if I had openings.

Now, I did have Bram, but they didn't know that.  It was "off the books" and as far as they knew, Bram was home.  As far as they knew, my house was empty.  Why didn't they call me when Baby O and W left their last home, especially since the eight year old  was NOT in the sibling set for who-knew-what-reason.

On Call said they didn't know anything about that and to call The Agency on Monday.

In the meantime, my friend called me back.  She told me that the couple that Baby O and W called The Agency and asked that the eight year old be removed because he was violent.  They did NOT ask for Baby O or W to be removed, but The Agency did anyway.  She said that the couple said that their time with the eight year old was "the longest five weeks" of their lives.  My friend was not surprised since she too had refused to take in the eight year old.  The Agency had not, however, removed the other two.  The only reason that they were moved was because she took back her former fosters.  

I made the calculations:  in five months, Baby O had been in FOUR different homes.  W had been in at least that many, since he was in foster care for YEARS before Baby O was born.  All of this seemed... just wrong.   Why hadn't they called me?

I furiously texted the new couple who had the boys.  In retrospect, they weren't to blame.  It wasn't their fault that The Agency called them and not me.  But at the moment, I was mad.  

"Those boys should have gone to ME.  I currently have NO fosters"  -- (a lie; I had Bram "off the books" five days a week) -- "and I am Baby O's original foster mother.  He should have come HERE!"

The woman, timid to begin with, texted, "I hope you aren't mad at me."

I told her I was not mad at her, but that she needed to know this:  I was calling The Agency on Monday to try to get the boys.

What a shady, shady bitch this whole fostering process had made me!

Baby in the Road

During foster class, we were told that another one of the VERY, VERY FEW rights a foster parent has is that if, once returned home, your foster child returns to foster care, you will be informed and, if possible, returned to your home.

Remember that Baby O had been placed with his three year old brother with another couple (who I became very good friends with) because she was open to taking not only the two of them but also their eight year old brother.  She and I talked on the phone regularly, visited each other's homes, and updated one another on our fosters.  She told me that the older brother, the eight year old, still wasn't placed with her because he was just too difficult.  Luckily, they did not remove the other two to try to find a place for all three.  Instead, she got to keep the younger two, whom she loved very much and hoped to adopt.  I had Bram at the time and was happy that the boys were in such a great home.  Tiernen was still babysitting them so I still got to see them all the time.  No one really knew what was going to happen with the eight year old.

And then the baby in the road happened.

https://youtu.be/1jS1FN5o5sk

 It literally made national news:  in Utica, on a cold March night (it snows here until late April) a nine month old baby was found alone in road on a busy road.  A local teen filmed it on his phone, uploaded it to Facebook, and it (of course) went viral.  

Outside of this being my town, what the hell does this have to do with me?

No, I was not called to foster this child.  But my friend who had the boys WAS.  She had never fostered him before, but she had fostered his three sisters before for more than six months.  She loved them and wanted them back.  She agreed to take the baby (who was not hurt) too.

The problem?  She could  not take these four (all under five years old) and Baby O and his brother.  Six kids under five would be a lot for anyone, let alone two working parents (and she and her husband both worked outside of the home).  Even if she wanted to, her home wasn't "opened" for six kids.

She loved Baby O and his brother, but they had only been with her two months.  The other girls had been with her for six.  Her bond was stronger with them, simple as that.

I tried to put myself in her shoes:  if I had to choose between Bram or Baby O, I would pick Bram because he was with us longer.  Sometimes those choices just had to be made.

And so, my friend made a hard choice:  Baby O and his brother were sent to another home, one that would take the older brother too someday.  I didn't know the family they went to and Tiernen no longer babysat for them.  My friend knew the family and kept in touch with them every so often, but she was busy with her four new foster babies. She told me they had other children, adopted from foster care, and that they were doing well.  

My last connection with Baby O had been severed, and I was really sad about it.

On Paper

Two weeks later, Bram went home.  On paper.

As far as The Agency and CPS and DSS were concerned, Bram was no longer in their custody, I was no longer his foster mother, and he was living full time with Erin.  The case planner came to my house to do an "exit interview" and told me she would "see me next case, haha."  

On paper, we had had Bram for four months.  Compared to the ten days we had Baby O, it seemed like a lifetime.  

Erin and I were "co-parenting" more than ever now.  Bram lived with us during the week (Monday - Friday) and he would go home early Saturday morning until late Sunday.  He seemed to do really well with this schedule too with minimal transition issues.

Initially, it felt weird not to have a baby all weekend, but I started to sleep in late (I love to sleep in) and go on more dates with Darryl.  Again, I could have happily continued with this arrangement forever if Erin allowed it.

One Saturday, I was wasting time, scrolling through Facebook, and I got a message from a woman I had foster class with.  She and her husband were one of the couples who were interested in foster to adopt.  While they had had plenty of respites, they had yet to have any full time foster children.  If I had waited that long, I would have gone crazy.  I was impressed with their patience.

She sent me a message:  We are fostering!  Two little boys!  One is seven months and one is three years old!

I was genuinely happy for her, for them:  That's GREAT!

And then she dropped this bomb on me:  I think used to have one of them.

Used to have one of them?  

What?

Baby O!

I almost passed out.

"Pack Him Up"

It was about eight weeks after Erin's shoulder surgery when we had another court date.  We had them once a month, and each time it was the same:  we would all wait in the hallway, the case worker, DSS, and various lawyers would go in and speak to the judge, and then they would come back out and fill us in.

Erin never got to see the judge, let alone speak to her.

If she was lucky, she got to talk to her lawyer for all of five minutes.

Erin was doing everything she was supposed to do:  mandatory drug tests, counseling, etc.  She had been clean since mid-January and was doing great!  She was featured on the front page of the local newspaper for starting a resource for other's struggling with addiction.  (You can check out the article here!)

We honestly didn't think anything was going to change.  Erin's shoulder was far from healed.  She was far from cleared by her surgeon and physical therapist.  And... she had less than six months clean.

The case worker came out of the office and we assumed that she would just say what she always said:  "everything's the same; court in four weeks" which is what she had said every other time we had gone to court.

This time, the case worker stormed out the the court room.  She walked right up to me and said, "Pack him up."  

Erin and I looked at one another, confused.  Huh?

"Your lawyer did one hell of a job.  He's going home.  Today."

Erin started to have a panic attack, a full on panic attack.  She started to cry.  The case worker, DSS worker, and her lawyer surrounded her and tried to calm her down.  They called me over too.

The lawyer kept saying, "You're ready.  You can do it."

But Erin did not feel ready.  And she was crying because she felt so conflicted -- if she said that, would they think she was an unfit mother?  Would they think she didn't want her son?  That couldn't be further from the truth.  She just needed time to put on her own damn oxygen mask.  Didn't they realize this?

They didn't.

Reluctantly, they gave her two more weeks to prepare for Bram's return.  Please know that while he was having unsupervised visits during this time, he wasn't having overnights yet.  She couldn't lift him up and needed Ibro or her mother or one of the boys to physically lift Bram if he needed to be comforted or changed.  Of course, Bram didn't understand why his mother couldn't lift him and he would cry.  She was petrified that if he woke up during the night to be fed or needed to be changed, she wouldn't be able to physically pick him up out of the crib.  Why didn't they understand this?

Two weeks.

During this time, Erin and I decided that The Agency really didn't care about her or Bram.  They saw how well she was doing and wanted to close the case.  They weren't looking at her physical limitations (and lack of help) because of her surgery.  They weren't concerned with Bram's transition.  They just did not care.

So, we came up with our own plan.  Because we DID care about Bram.  Because we WERE aware of her physical limitations and lack of help.  Because we WERE concerned with his transition.

We decided to implement operation Yes Them to Death.

Oxygen Mask

Erin and I talked about Bram going home constantly.  As far as I was concerned, we could continue with this co-parenting, weird foster set up forever.  She and Ibro were working hard on there recovery, attending daily counseling meetings, setting up new support networks for others in the community, and working their steps.  Her mantra was that we needed to take care of Bram during this time so she could work on herself so she could be there for all her children.  If that sounds selfish:  it's not.  She was doing the hard work she needed to battle her addiction. She was following the advice you hear on every airplane flight:  

"In case of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks above your seat will deploy; 

please place the mask first and then assist your child or other passengers”

Why?  It's a pretty powerful metaphor for life, really.  If you don't take care of yourself, you are INCAPABLE of taking care of others.  If Erin didn't use the time that Bram was in foster care to learn the tools to deal with her recovery while raising three boys, she undoubtedly would have relapsed.  It is as simple as that.

On top of this, she was dealing with some serious health issues:  an impending surgery.  Her ex-husband (no Bram's dad) had broken her shoulder and she had gone through several surgeries to fix it (it was the opioids prescribed to her that caused her initial descent into addiction).  She had surgery scheduled in March and wanted to be able to manage the pain without the use of opioids at all.  Additionally, she would physically  not be able to lift Bram (who was getting to be a chubby boy!) for months while she was in recovery and physical therapy.  

It was her hope that he would be in foster care until she was cleared by the physical therapist by the end of the summer.  

It was NOT that she didn't want Bram home;  she did.  But she literally lived less than a ten minute walk from my house and saw him regularly.  The nature of our relationship allowed her to have access to him whenever her could.  Both the case planner and Bram's assigned DSS worker were on board with this (even though they both had no idea how close Erin and I were getting as friends or how often she was really coming over to see Bram).  They wanted to make sure she was 1) clean, and 2) healed physically.  

I figured since we were all on the same page, we'd have him for a while.  

Living in the Unknown

No matter how long you have a foster child, there is one thought that is constantly on your mind, gnawing at you, dimming your happiness:  when will he go home?

Of course, in most foster cases, nearly 60% have the goal of "reunification," or returning back home with a parent, which is up almost 10% in recent years. (https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/foster.pdf) .  And yes, I entered into this whole foster care circus knowing the babies would go home.  That's the goal.  But that doesn't mean you don't get used to them.  It doesn't mean you don't love them and want them to stay.  

And, one of the biggest unknowns is also this:  there is no guarantee that after the child leaves how long it will be until another one comes.  The call could come the next day or the next year.  You could literally have an empty house for months and months and not get called (especially since I want babies and not older kids). 

Yes, it would be a great thing if there were no need for foster parents, but there are.  But it doesn't mean that you will be the one who gets the call.

Making The Agency know you want a baby and having them call someone else feels like being picked last in gym class.  Or not being accepted to your first choice college when you know you are qualified.  You are left with a sense of WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME???

For me, it brings up allllll sorts of rejection issues and abandonment issues (which I am aware are MY issues and are illogical, but I'm being honest here).  It activates every loss, every time I was overlooked, every promotion I failed to get, every iota of not being good enough.

When I see a couple I know from The Agency with yet another baby, another one they got from the hospital, another one they are most likely going to adopt, I think:  damn, what am I doing wrong?

Is it the Halloween theme?  The too many pets?  The answers on my application?

Or is it just me?  

Again.

"You Know They Grow Up, Right?"

When I tell people I am a foster parent because I LOVE BABIES, I will often get the snide remark:

"You know they grow up, right?"

As if this was a new revelation.

Listen, I've been a parent for half of my life.  I never once looked at Tiernen and wished she would revert to another age.  I fully enjoyed each and every age she was.  She was a gorgeous baby and toddler.  She was a spunky kid who would tell adults, "I don't like your attitude."  She was and is smart and funny and unique and artistic.  At 23, I don't wish she was a baby again.  I'm glad she is in graduate school, got her BA in four years (with under $10K student debt, I might add).  I'm proud that she buys her cars for cash and makes practical financial decisions.  She drinks responsibly and has nice friends.  She's never been on drugs and has never come home pregnant.  

Is she perfect?  No, of course not, and I hate parents who fall into the "not MY child" cloud of parental ignorance.  

I see her for who and what she is, the good and the bad.  She's shitty at math and often has an attitude with me I think she shouldn't have.  But she isn't a bad kid.  And I certainly don't look at baby pics of her and wish she were little again.  I enjoyed it then.  I enjoy her now.

But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy babies.  A lot.

And no, I don't want to be a grandmother.  At least not any time in the near future.  Maybe at 60?  Maybe never?  I guess Tiernen decides that.  But I will still love babies.

I figured fostering was a perfect solution for this baby mania.  Because yes, babies grow up, but foster babies also don't stay.  They are with you, and even though it sucks, they leave.  

And then, if you are lucky, you get another one.  And you do it all over again.  

Babies forever!  You can be kept in a perpetual state of diapers and midnight feedings and tiny clothes.  

This is torture to some people, but I love it.

Bring them on.