I’ve heard it said, “I would love to foster one day when my kids are grown and out of the house.” I recognize that the Lord may call individuals or families into Foster Care at various times or stages of one’s life but my family made the decision to start our foster care journey 5 years ago, when our youngest of three sons was born. I was just coming out of the fog of sleepless newborn nights when my husband declared, “I know we want to foster at some point but let’s just do it now while we are already ‘in it’ with babies, diapers, and nap schedules!” You can imagine my surprise and initial resistance to jump right back in for more sleepless nights but his premise stuck with me. We were already “in it” so to speak and I agreed that if we got “out of it” for too long, we may just lose our conditioning and therefore resolve to foster down the road. So, we did it! We jumped in, got certified, and our home was officially opened to foster when my youngest turned one.
Since then, I’ve only grown in confidence that fostering while raising our family was a good decision. Here are three reasons why fostering while also raising my own kids has been a blessing for our family:
Adding more children into our home felt natural
My husband was right. We were in the thick of little kid rhythms when we started fostering and that made it seamless to add another in. When we received a newborn placement, we only had to go to the nursery, go into the closet, and grab the boxes of newborn diapers and clothes and we were ready to welcome the child into our home. When we had to wake up to feed the baby in the middle of the night, my body was used to springing into action to feed the child and soothe them back to sleep after eating. And as the baby grew, our house was already toddler-proofed so no extra work needed to be put into preparing for the stage when a child might want to investigate an outlet with their finger or turn the nob on the gas stove to see what might happen. While I wasn’t experienced and used to caring for children who had been through trauma, I had some parent experience to draw from that came easily because I had been going through it for the six years prior.
My children have been blessed with an abundance of love as they’ve grown up alongside the foster children who’ve stayed with us.
Yes, its been hard at times and yes, our biological children have sacrificed at times for the sake of their foster siblings. But on the whole, I believe my children would say that they are glad we participate in Foster Care and I know they are more nurturing, compassionate, and loving humans because of the experiences they’ve had with their foster siblings.
We’ve had many a challenging bedtime conversation about why a child’s biological parent can’t care for him/her, how God’s desire would be that they have a safe home until their forever family is determined, and how God is able to use us as we step in and provide for that need in the waiting. Over time, I’ve seen each of my three biological children step up in their own way to nurture their foster siblings. My middle son is notorious for being the first one to hear when a foster baby is awake in their crib in the morning and bolts to their bedside to chat with him or her and make them laugh while mom and dad make their way eventually to get them out of bed. All three of them have seamlessly grafted foster siblings into their tribe and accepted them as their own and each of them have cried when sending a child they’ve loved off to their forever home. They’ve also, with much relief and joy, accepted their foster sister as their forever sister through adoption. Through the ups and downs and unknowns of each child’s story, they’ve experienced and embraced God’s call for our family and its shaped them for good.
God has used the challenges to draw us into deeper intimacy with Him.
There have been days along this journey that have felt like too much is being asked or required of me. When we received our first foster placement in the Fall of 2021, we met him in a hospital room where he had been living for the first four weeks of his life, undergoing supervised withdrawal management from opioid and stimulant exposure in utero. We spent the following three and a half weeks continuing that process with him in the hospital, spending sleepless nights in his room and then driving home the following morning to engage and parent my boys at home all day. It was exhausting and all the while my husband and I passed like ships in the night as we would switch off roles, not wanting to leave this beautiful baby boy without a loving parent in his hospital room for too long a spell. The stress of holding it all together while not getting time off work began to take its toll and I deeply needed a physical and emotional strength above and beyond myself. Prayer became my life source where I would release my fears at the feet of Jesus. I needed the Word of God throughout the day and night to focus my mind on a Sovereign, Good, Powerful God in the midst of the hardship I was experiencing. And while I still felt much weakness, my bond tightened with the One who was strong enough to handle the healing of my foster son, all my emotions, and the well-being of my children at home. There have been different challenging situations throughout this journey that have all culminated in God bringing us close and walking with us through the joys and heartbreaks of saying “yes” to Foster Care. I wouldn’t trade the hard along the path because what I’ve gained in the friendship of Christ and nurturing from the Father is worth far more than an easier road would have offered.
We never could have imagined all the ways God would use foster care in the shaping of our family when we first jumped in 5 years ago but I am glad that my husband gently nudged me in that direction when he did. Might I give you that gentle nudge now to consider jumping into foster care while you’re already “in it” raising your own family?
A glimpse of our family today! Last summer we celebrated our family’s adoption day! Our youngest was previously in our home as our foster child for nearly 2 years.