“Before he even stepped foot into his new classroom, a child on the playground came up to him. At age 5, my son had to come home and tell our family this as we sat around the dinner table. I had to look away so he wouldn’t see my tears.”
‘You don’t belong here and your color is awful!,’ a child said to my 5-year-old African American son on his first day of school.’: Mom worries for her adopted children at school this year, says despite ‘all the goodness, there is hurt’
‘I can’t introduce you to my kids until I know. They’ll attach to you, and I can’t break their hearts.’: Girlfriend nervous it’s ‘too soon’ to meet boyfriend’s kids, feels anxious to not ‘replace’ mom
“While I waited, my mind raced. Did their mom know I was spending the weekend with them? Do I hug them? I was suddenly anxious. I heard the door open. ‘Natalie,’ Kevin called, ‘Come up here.’ I breathed in deeply and felt jitters. I wanted these boys to not feel awkward. I knew I wasn’t their mom, and I would never think I’m replacing her.”
‘So, do you just not want kids?’ I’d lie, tell them we weren’t ready. No one wants to hear their nurse say, ‘We can’t have babies.’: Woman embarks on foster care journey, turns ‘party of 3’ to a ‘party of 6’
“When others see us, they start looking around, panicked, for my children’s parents. We would have to say time and time again that they’re ours. They ask my daughter, ‘Are those REALLY your brothers and sisters?’ They’ll ask how much I paid for them, where they came from, which I think are odd questions to ask someone.”
‘THOSE. ARE. MY. BROTHERS!,’ she pointed across the courtroom, yelling proudly. The boys stood to their feet, the proudest I’ve ever seen them.’: 3 adopted brothers ecstatic to attend biological sister’s adoption day after ‘tragic’ childhood
“My eyes immediately filled with tears, and I knew. I knew she remembered. She remembered all the days my boys cared for her when they should have been in their classrooms. She remembered the way they protected her. She remembered the way they loved her. She remembered the way they fought to keep them alive. She remembered.”
‘We buckled him into his booster seat in the social worker’s car and watched them drive away.’: Foster parent’s emotional response after beloved 4-year-old goes home to biological father
“That night as we sat on the couch crying, I looked at the clock. It was 8:00, the time we’d usually take him to bed. ‘I hope he’s snuggled into bed after having his favorite book read to him,’ I said. ‘I don’t,’ my husband replied. ‘I hope his dad loves him so much, and missed him so badly that he’s still just holding him, and telling him how much he loves him.'”
‘What about me?’ He sees all the babies getting adopted. He deserves a family too. Our answer was a shaky, scared ‘yes.’: Foster mom on the ‘trauma’ yet ‘joy’ when you ‘Say yes to an older child’
“Within 24 hours I went from mothering toddlers, to a 7-year-old. I wasn’t sure what to do. We were walking on eggshells, wondering when the lid would blow. I was closing his bedroom door. He stopped me. ‘Mommy, you’re a really good Mom.’ I slid down the door in silent sobs. Those words, coming from that boy, meant more than any accolade I could ever receive.”
‘Can you please stop talking about it? Why do you keep talking about it?’ She slammed her cup of milk down.’: Foster mom’s emotional realization that ‘goodbye is coming’
“I was informed today that goodbye is coming. None of us are ready. ‘It is happening for real and it is happening soon.’ I pulled out the calendar. Their eyes got wide as they realized what I was saying. We need more time.”
‘Daniel may have trouble fathering children. He had a botched surgery when he was very young. As 18-year-olds, we didn’t grasp the seriousness of his male infertility. Then I realized something was wrong with me, too.’
“My husband’s counts had dropped to almost nothing. Six live sperm were found. Six! No six thousand. Just six. We got a letter in the mail. The yearly fee to keep his sperm frozen was due. It was hundreds of dollars. We had to make a decision about our future– right now. At 26 years old, I VOLUNTARILY had a hysterectomy. Then, we got the call.”
‘When we were just about done with the foster process, I GOT PREGNANT. I peed on 14 sticks because I couldn’t believe it. We thought we were ready. I didn’t realize the roller coaster it’d be.’
“We had a 6-month-old baby and added an emotional 5-year-old to the mix. There were days where I felt like I was babysitting someone else’s kids. People told me I wouldn’t be able to love these children as my own. You come in expecting everything to fall into place. It doesn’t work like that. I had no idea what I was doing.”
‘Their mom unexpectedly passed. My heart hurt for them, but inside I was glad she wouldn’t fight us for them anymore.’ Family fosters 2 teens who they ‘loved instantly’ despite troubled past
“We were looking into adoption. It was dicey. Their mom was doing JUST enough to make it seem like she was on track to get them home, but barely. And then we got the news. We didn’t think much of the warning signs.”
