I am so excited to share this post with you today. I am officially a first time foster mom.
Well, I am officially a real life foster mom. We recently had the joy of welcoming a sweet baby boy into our family. He is a tiny little guy, and has a very demanding feeding schedule, more so than an average healthy infant. This is why I have been MIA around here for a while. Adjusting to a baby schedule again, especially with 2 preschoolers at home has been quite a difference!
My house is a MESS! I am trying but I cannot get on top of everything. I am hoping we can settle into our schedule a bit more, and order can be restored over here. It’s driving me a bit crazy! I like to keep my home tidy, and being organized just makes me feel better.
Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely times I drop what I am doing to just play and say forget the mess, but this is just wowza! Life with 3 littles I guess! The mess, and surviving on quick meals of scrambled eggs, and sandwiches is just the way it is right now, and that is OK!
I am so thankful to those who have supported our foster care journey so far. Your kind words, and messages give me all the feels!!! After 2 baby girl placements didn’t end up coming home, I was feeling a little bit discouraged.
All this training, and preparation we had put in just seemed like it was going to waste.
My last post was on patience, and we ended up getting the call for our little guy the very next day, after I hit publish on that post.
It is amazing what can happen when we let go and let God. His timing is always perfect and His blessings, always rich.
Our boy, our sweet baby boy is here. I finally don’t feel like a fraud when I say I am a foster mama. I am living the nitty gritty, real life, hard stuff.
As I have mentioned in the past I can’t, and won’t reveal much.
I can say that the feeding schedule is very time consuming, and tiring. I can say that the appointments, and visits are even more time consuming, and I feel like my life revolves around this baby eating, and driving him places.
I can say my whole family is in LOVE, with all the heart eyes!! I can also say that I have so, so, so much joy in my heart.
Unlike many of my friends, and maybe many of you, I LOVE the tiny baby stage. The newborn sounds, the little grunts, the way a baby’s head smells (Some of you must agree on that one), the way that, that little life completely and totally relies on you for their survival. I thrive on that. It is a very large part of why I wanted to foster babies. Heck I’m not a great sleeper anyways, so why not! There is just something so amazing about staring at that little face in the middle of the quiet night. No one up but you, and the baby. I didn’t know how I would feel doing this whole thing with someone else’s baby, but its just the same as if he was biologically mine.
I may not be his mother, but right now I am his mama, and he is my boy. As I snuggle his tiny swaddled body in the still, and peace of the night, I reflect on what a true miracle he is. What God has done. Everything that had to go right, and that had to go wrong for him to be in my arms.
He is a little gift. A gift who is finally thriving, and smiling. A gift who looks up at me like I am his be all, and end all. A gift that is a tense, screaming baby but when snuggled up against me his fears, and discomforts melt away. This guys, is why I knew I was being called to be a foster mama.
All the hard stuff aside. He is worth it, he may not be mine forever, but he is mine for now. He is worth my tiredness, he is worth my busy schedule, he is worth my time, he is worth my love, and he is worth having my heart ripped apart when he leaves.
I am involved in the reunification process, and am thankful that the agency is giving me a say in what I think is a good way to integrate him back home, and to help out his biological parents. I am thankful that I can help be a role model to his mom. Even though the goodbye will be hard for me, I know they hurt that he is not with them, and if they can do what they need to do to get him back then its a win. This is what I signed up for.
Yes, our end goal is hoping to be able to adopt one of these precious lives who wil really need a forever family, but in the mean time, I am just thankful he is mine for now, and I can give him the best start possible. There are many lessons to be learned in this journey, and I am just happy to be on it, learning as I go.
If you have ever considered foster care, or are already in the throes of it, I would love to connect with you. This community of people doing foster care is tight-knit, and only we know what its like to go through.
Support is important, and I am so thankful to have met an amazing friend who I can text any time of the day, and she is there for me to just listen, to give advice, or just to complain with me. It’s a pretty awesome thing being a foster mama, I would love to help others do the same. There is a great need for quality foster homes. If you feel the call, I urge you to answer it.
