END OF AN ERA

It is with sad hearts that we have recently told Bethany Christian Services that we no longer can be an interim foster family for them anymore.  

We have been providing care to newborns awaiting adoption since 2008.  Over those 8 years, we have had 15 placements.  

I wish I was able to share photos of these 15 beautiful babies because all of them have been super sweet and cute, trust me!

Having the 2 little boys, along with 3 older kids, we realize that it would just be too hard for our family to take on the care of a newborn with all of our other commitments.

We have absolutely loved being a foster family, probably me most of all.  I love having a baby in the house.  

The reason we became a foster family for Bethany was 1) our love of babies, and 2) we wanted to help support birth moms in their decision to choose life for their child, whether they decided to parent or place for adoption.  If we claim to be pro-life, then we believe our actions must show we are pro-life.

Over the 15 placements, I kept a journal where I shared memories of each baby and what the placement taught our family.  Because believe me, we were blessed in our faith through each of these 15 experiences.  Here is what foster care has meant to our family:

1.  Love knows no boundaries- we realized that we could love a child who wasn't ours.  In hindsight, we see the Lord was planting the seed for adoption in hearts back in 2008.

2. God sees possibilities we may not even realize.  God has a plan for these precious children.  We must help support and encourage birth moms to choose life! 

3. Adoption isn't just for families who can't have biological children.  We had never thought of it that way before- again another seed being planted.

4. When one door closes, another door opens.  We had planned on getting a placement which fell through at the last minute.  This was disappointing to us.  Within a day or two, we got a call for another placement which did happen.  You never know...

5. Our 5th baby was a baby with DS- this baby opened our hearts to adopting a child with DS.  When she left, even though she was going to a wonderful adoptive family, our hearts were broken.  We missed her so much, more than usual.  Again God was moving in our hearts and minds, showing us our family was not complete

6. All you can do is trust in the Lord when an adoption falls through, and you see the pain it causes the adoptive family.

7. Sometimes God blesses us with a beautiful gift without any complications or drama.  This placement went exactly as planned which is very unusual.  We just were able to enjoy this baby with no worries about how things would work out.

8.   This was our first placement after Jonah's adoption.  In our placements before Jonah, I always struggled with saying goodbye and having that nagging feeling that we should be adopting.  Now that we had Jonah, I had more of a peace when it was time to say goodbye to the little one.  Interesting to see how God worked in our hearts to lead us to Jonah.

9.  All of us go through a learning curve with our children.  It takes time to learn how to care for a baby, and as I am experiencing now, it takes time to figure out teenagers too.

10. Be understanding when an adoptive family promises to keep us updated and doesn't.  They probably don't mean it personally, they just are really busy.

11. This was one of our hardest placements.  The reality of foster care is we choose the pain of saying good bye to the little one in order to gain the benefits of having had the little one.

12.  Foster care isn't about my feelings.  It is about the best interests of the baby, birth parents, and adoptive parents.  We learned the very hard skill of selflessness.

13.  Insight into the agonizing decision a birth mom makes when deciding about parenting or adoption.  We must never minimize that when we look at the adoption process.

14.  God's way is the best way.  God intended babies to come into a loving home with a married mom and dad.  When we go against this plan, it brings heart ache.  Adoption is a beautiful thing, but don't forget it comes at the cost of pain for the birth parents.  

15.  God's timing is best.  We were in the middle of a huge delay in our adoption of Ben.  God blessed us with this 3 month placement which was a great way to keep me occupied and busy.   Little did I know this would be our last placement....

Giving foster care up is something I don't want to do, but I know we must do.  It was an incredible and precious season of our life that I will never forget. 

Thank you Lord for the honor and privilege of caring for these 15 precious babies.