“If we can’t have another biological child, maybe we can adopt again.” 

At first, after our fourth miscarriage, we were done. Done trying to have another baby. Done trying to grow our family. Done hurting. Just done. We didn’t want to keep being disappointed, so we said we would stop trying.

But as the months passed, that desire inside my heart didn’t go away. I kept praying for it to go away, but it didn’t. I wanted a baby, and the months–years actually–that passed after our last miscarriage didn’t make the desire for a child any less.

Finally, I asked my husband, “What if we try to adopt again?”

The first time we adopted a child, it was like God dropped him into our family. We hadn’t even been looking to adopt at that time.

What if this time it didn’t work out? What if we never found a family that wanted us to adopt their child? What if we spent thousands of dollars and never came home with a baby? Should we look into domestic adoptions? Or International ones? Or adoptions through the foster care system?

There were so many questions, and so much uncertainly. So, when I overheard a conversation at church about foster parenting training classes that were due to start the next week, I thought maybe God had his hand in it.

We signed up for the classes and figured we’d go from there. Maybe God was in the middle of this just as he’d been in the middle of our son’s adoption….It turns out He was, but not in the way I originally expected.

My Story: Part 7 (Foster Parenting and the Lessons We Learned Through It)

After finishing classes, we couldn’t wait for that first phone call! We were so excited.

But then the first call came. And it was for a sibling set that we knew we couldn’t take in. Oh, it broke my heart to say no that first time.

A few weeks later, we got another call…for another sibling set.

Over and over again, we got phone calls about children that needed foster families. And over and over again, my husband and I didn’t feel right about saying yes.

By November of that year, we started to wonder if maybe we weren’t supposed to be doing this after all.

But then we got a call. 

It was for a newborn baby girl who needed a temporary home. It would only be for a month or two, they told us. It wasn’t going to lead to adoption.

But my heart, for the first time since being licensed, wanted to say yes….even though I knew we would probably never be able to adopt her.

So we did.

We look this sweet child into our home and loved her just as if she was our own. Goodness, we loved her. I still miss that sweet girl who took a piece of my heart with her when she left our home.

She only stayed with us for about a month or two and then left. We haven’t seen her since.

Two months later, we got another call. This time, it was for a baby boy. He was in the NICU and needed a mother figure to come stay with him.

Again, my heart said yes. So the words left my mouth, “We’ll do it.”

I stayed with him that night in the hospital and then took him home the next day.

“This one,” they told us, “looks like it will lead to adoption.” 

For some reason, though, even though they told us it looked like adoption was down the road, my gut told me it wasn’t. (Actually, I don’t think it was my gut. I think it was God, preparing me for what lay ahead.)

Not even two months later, they found a distant relative who wanted to take home our sweet foster son. So we said goodbye again.

I learned in those two placements that if you’re doing foster care correctly, it’s going to break your heart. 

But I’m so glad we did it. We had the opportunity to love those children when they needed someone to love them. And they deserved that.

I read a quote after we said goodbye to our foster son that went something like this, “Every child deserves to have someone cry for him.” I got to be that someone for two sweet babies. 

God also did something else through those months of foster parenting. He helped me let go of my dream. 

Right after we said yes for our second foster child, I got this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. It might have been God preparing me for him to leave our home. That’s very possible. But I think it was also God trying to help me let go.

Because when he left, something clicked in my brain, and I realized it was time to stop.

It was time to stop-not just stop trying to have a biological child-but time to stop trying to grow our family in any way.

It was time to let go of the dream. 

And for some strange reason, foster parenting helped me do that.

That uneasy feeling I had in the pit of my stomach stayed pretty much the entire time we had that second baby in our home. And I could never put my finger on what it was. But when he left, it went away.

It wasn’t that I didn’t love him. Goodness, I loved that little boy. But I think my heart knew he wasn’t meant to be ours, so it was trying to prepare me for it. Trying to make me see that I already had a pretty wonderful family. We didn’t need another child.

Did I still want  a baby? Absolutely. I still do.

My heart still hurts a bit when I see pregnant women or newborn babies.

But it was foster parenting that led me to finally say, “Ok, God. I accept your plan for my life, even if it’s not what I originally wanted. I don’t need any more children. I don’t need you to fix this hard situation. I give.”

And with that surrender, I thought this chapter of our story was over. 

Turns out, it wasn’t. Not completely. 

Come back next week for more of my story….