Our First Foster Placement

Only two weeks after becoming licensed foster parents, and after FOUR calls with possible fostering or legal risk {likely adoptable} situations, we got a call on Thursday morning for a precious baby girl being discharged from the hospital that very morning. She was born on Tuesday. I didn’t even ask questions. I just said yes. Loudly and over again many times. I called Travis immediately and told him, “We have a newborn coming home in a few hours. Come now.” He of course didn’t even ask questions but instantly came home.

We pulled out everything we had purchased for baby girl this summer {failed match} and prepared for our first foster baby. When they finally came later that afternoon, I was absolutely overwhelmed. I’ve waited so long for a baby, ANY baby to love on, that I was snappy and ugly towards my husband. I think I was completely emotionally drained. I couldn’t believe we were finally getting a baby. I couldn’t believe we were getting a newborn baby! A healthy, beautiful, perfect, precious newborn baby girl.

Four social workers crowded into our modest living room and removed a pink Winnie the Pooh blanket covering the face of our precious foster daughter. I’m delirious from exhaustion as I type this now. The past three days have been full of love from family and friends stopping by to love on her- and us- knowing how long we’ve waited for this.

Everyone has been asking what happens next, and honestly I don’t know. Well, I don’t know in the long run. She is not considered legal risk right now. She’ll have a court hearing after Thanksgiving to determine if she stays with us for now or goes to a relative. There IS a relative who wants her, so I don’t know what will happen. I had a long tearful heart to heart with her amazingly sweet caseworker who also doesn’t know what will happen. I’m so thrilled to be at Buckners were the employees are believers and love Jesus and love children and love us. I could honestly pour my heart out to this amazing woman who I’d only met one time after an all-nighter with a 48 hour old baby girl and say, “But I don’t want her to have some relative take her!” She simply sighed and said, “I know….” The life of a foster mom, right?

I feel like I’m learning ten thousand lessons every day. To love someone as your own child when you KNOW full well she may leave you in ten days…That takes something my heart simply doesn’t have. Our first night with her, I found myself holding back from fully gushing on her the way I wanted to with every fiber of my being, and finally I found myself in prayer weeping to Jesus begging him to be my hands and my heart and my words and everything in my moments when I was too scared to love her. Scared of losing her, scared of never having a baby to adopt…Scared of a thousand things that I shouldn’t be scared of because my God is bigger than any fears we may have.

I’m showing her off to absolutely everyone as if I delivered her myself, and I’m fully okay with that. I’m fully okay sending her picture to my friend in Australia knowing she may leave us in a week. Because I have her now, and after the summer from hell we endured this year, having her now heals a millions wounds I thought would never heal. God put a desire in my heart for a precious baby girl. I thought I would get to love a newborn again and that dream was dashed, so I simply mourned it and let it go when we entered the foster to adopt arena. I was told newborns are rare, so I just stopped hoping to ever cuddle and love on one as my own again. But the Lord is gracious even when we are not deserving, and somehow he saw it fit to fulfill that deep desire of my heart. And let me tell you friends, there is nothing quite like rocking a newborn baby in the middle of the night. It’s something from the Lord, that’s all I can say.

Travis and I had a deep talk tonight, and I think I fell deeper in love with my husband of five years than I ever have before. He’s an incredible man and despite his overall goofiness, his wisdom and compassion astounds me sometimes. I started down the devastatingly pessimistic path of, “But why would God send her to us only for a short time when she is the physical manifestation of EVERYTHING we ever wanted when we entered this adoption world three years ago????” My sweet and wise husband said, “I don’t know. But it’s a blessing. You’re holding a newborn baby girl with all of her coos and little sounds and tiny fingers and little smiles. You NEVER thought you would love on a newborn like this again. And yet, here she is. Everything we prayed for. The desires of our hearts. Instead of feeling like it’s cruel for God to send us a foster baby-who isn’t ours but is the very baby we’ve prayed for all this time- just thank him for sending her to us at all. After all, we had mourned the idea of having a newborn baby girl in this house after this summer. So celebrate her being here and thank God for her, and trust that his plan for us is more incredible and more beautiful than you could ever imagine.”

OH MY WORD, KAT DID YOU CRY??{you ask} You better believe it!!

None of our children really belong to us anyway. I think about that everyday. Buggy is God’s, and for some reason, he decided to bless me with this incredibly smart, hilarious, compassionate and overall amazing little boy. I marvel at His grace through my precious son all the time. He’s God’s. I’m just getting to call him mine for a short time. And this precious baby girl belongs to our Lord. I can’t dwell on the idea that she’s not adoptable, and I can’t let that fact stop me from loving on her with all my heart. I want to coo and cuddle and kiss on her with reckless abandon, and you know what? I’m gonna! We may only have her through Thanksgiving, this perfect baby with the wild hair who fills the  holes in my soul I never thought would be filled. So what a Thanksgiving this will be.

I’m learning in foster care that you have to love like Jesus. You have to pour your heart into these children, love them as your own, risk your own emotional well-being in the process, and then trust in God Almighty to pick your heartbroken self off the ground when/if they leave. You have to trust that in turning your home into a mission field, you are doing the work of the Kingdom of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit is working in ways on your behalf {for your GOOD} in ways you can’t even imagine. I have to trust in the grace of God more than I’ve ever trusted in him… Ever. If I thought I leaned on him this summer, that was nothing compared to now when I’m basically acting as the hands and feet of Jesus for this precious little one who I want to wrap up forever as my own. And I can’t do any of that without the Lord God and his amazing grace and mercy.

Please pray that I don’t let my own fear or my own selfishness get in the way of showering unending amounts of love on this precious girl for as long as we have her, regardless of what happens. Pray that I love on her without abandon or reservation or fear. That’s what she needs, and that is what EVERY child in this country deserves. Praise God that our first placement is the very baby girl we prayed for for so long, even if we end up returning her in a week or two! And I know that God will fulfill the unspoken desires of my heart in ways I can’t even comprehend. He’s just getting started with me and with us in this incredible ministry he’s started.

I’m feeling weak, pathetic, in desperate want, and fearful right now. But I need to trust that I’m doing the work of the Lord right now, and absolutely nothing about that is easy. Nor was the sacrifice Jesus made for me. So I’m gonna push forward. At the very least, when/if this precious girl returns to her biological family, she’ll be spoiled to the amount of love, affection, and attention our little family gave her after the deep wounds created this summer. She’s our first placement and the first step towards healing from a God who loves us. Praise be to Him.

Blessings,

Kat