TRUE STORIES // Being a foster parent

TRUE STORIES is a guest post series sharing honestly about adoption and foster care. My hope is to create a culture of support for the adoption/foster community.  If you would like to share your story, click here. Today’s post is written by Lydia Brownfield.

There is a little baby boy sleeping soundly on my chest as I write this. He doesn't weigh much. Only a smidge over 9 lbs. However, one would think - judging from the heaviness of my heart - that he weighed a couple tons.

I have only known Mr "I" for 7 days. I firmly believe in love at first sight. It's happened to me a couple times in my life and last Wednesday morning was no exception. The adoption of our daughters had been finalized only a week and a day when we got "the call." Fellow foster parents know what call I'm referring to.

 "...baby boy...almost 2 months old...dropped off at our office...adorable...needs a bath...length of placement is guessed to be short-term...adorable...baby boy..."

We hadn't really planned on being ready that fast, but there is nothing quite like a call like this. In my years of reading as a teenager and young adult, I always loved the stories of foundling babies. Babies who appeared on your doorstep or young ones left on church steps. There is something inside the heart of a mother that aches and longs for the idea of a little one that needy. Someone unable to care for themselves who needs you to love them. Love them, snuggle them, care for them. A little one who has experienced the opposite of this kind of care creates a cry for love that you simply cannot resist. 

These calls from DCS are the modern day equivalent to that. And you fall in love. Hopelessly, fully, completely in love. Maybe because you know its right. Maybe because you can't help it. Maybe because you know that every child - no matter how long they will be in your care - deserves to be loved with the unconditional, secure, unending love of parents. Of a daddy. A mommy.

There is the weight of moments lost to you that you will never know, the weight of responsibility to cherish the moment you are in now - not knowing how many you will have, and there is the weight of handing the child back to another person - probably forever.

There is the weight of knowing that you have given this child a place in your heart. Forever. And the weight of knowing that you will not always be there. You won't always get to heal the hurts, or calm the fears. They will probably have to experience those again and your arms will not be there to hold them.

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Thank you, Lydia for sharing very openly about the pain and weight that comes from being a foster parent. To read the rest of the story about Mr. "I" click here. 

There is a great need for dedicated and trustworthy foster parents. Many times children need a safe place while their parents work out the bumps they may have created in their own lives. Kids deserve to have kindness and care at all times and what better way to serve the community that to give that to a child whose parent is unable to work out their person problems and parent effectively?

Foster parenting is a unique opportunity because it is temporary, always different, and so deeply all-consuming. Taking full time supervision of another child or children is a large undertaking, but a very necessary one.

If you are able, would you consider helping to meet a need in your community by contacting your local Department of Child and Family services and attend an informational meeting about what a foster parent is and what the requirements are? In never hurts to learn more, and who knows? You might just become a foster parent yourself.

Or would you like to contribute your own adoption/foster story? 

It can be humorous, heart warming or an honest struggle. 

Submit your story here.