Today marks three total years in foster care for our foster daughter. It’s hard to even type “foster daughter”, because soon she will just be our daughter… but even with court orders for adoption and adoption consent from birth parents, she is still in state wardship, and there she will remain, until a judge orders her legally ours.
I love this photo of Miss M, because I don’t have to hide her identity! She’s used her “barky boat” (Bluey fans will know what that is) to cover her face! In the state of Indiana, kids in foster care must have their identities protected unless birth parents consent to their photos being shared.
On some levels it’s a sober number. So much of her life spent in foster care. She came to us at only three weeks old.
I remember that day so clearly. It’s actually the anniversary of the day Sam & I first met in person, so we had dedicated the day to celebrating that milestone- we went for a short freezing winter hike, then swung over to Panera Bread for soup to warm up, then planned to spend the rest of the afternoon trimming our Christmas tree.
For whatever reason, probably a nudge from God, I actually checked my phone that afternoon while untangling Christmas lights, and saw a voicemail from a family we had been trying to help. The voicemail was from the mom, begging us to consider taking their three week old daughter, because she’d be entering the foster system. I relayed the message quickly to Sam, who said “Of course we can.”
A phone call, a trip to the local ER, four hours and a stack of paperwork later… we were kinship foster parents! It was an absolutely crazy whirlwind that holiday season. We had a baby for Christmas, though we never did finish decorating our tree!
My youngest helping that first night we added our first foster child… a bigger adjustment came a few weeks later when we also took in one of her siblings, doubling our children!
In addition to missing a lot of sleep those first few weeks, I look back & realize we didn’t fully know just what we were taking on as a foster family…
But as I sat down to write this post, I realized there’s so much good that came with her (and her brother)… We got first smiles, first steps for both of them, first teeth, and to watch them develop their personalities. And even though there were definitely times we debated no longer being a foster family, we could never do it because we were all they had ever known.
One of our foster daughter’s favorite things is to “fly in the sky” via Daddy’s arms!
So while three years in foster care is a long time, I decided to adjust my mindset today to look at the positive parts of her life… She’s been able to have a steady & secure home, we’ve been able to share our love & home with her and let her know how valuable and loved she is to our family.
I sometimes say I don’t know if we would have said yes if we had known this would end in a 3 year foster case, hiring lawyers to help us intervene in the DCS case & get adoptions prioritized, plus adding two kids permanently to our home…
But God knew we had it in us, and say yes we did… and what a blessing & challenge we’ve had ever since. ~Naomi
0 Comments