Fostering Hope

Life is just kind of hard right now.  We know that our foster daughter's time with us is wrapping up.  We've known for a long time.  And everyone is feeling the tension of trying to hold together, but also prepare to let go.  It's hard for us as adults to stick with her through this stretch of time.  But she's six.  SIX.  And we are working to prepare her to navigate a future filled with complete unknowns.  Because of the uncertainty, we really make a big deal out of the special moments we have to look forward to.  One of those was her visit with her bio mom yesterday.  For an hour and a half, every other week, she gets to see the one person she wishes she could be with in the entire world.  Looking forward to the visit was the one thing that helped her power through an otherwise emotional morning.  "You get to see your mom today!" we kept telling her.  Except, she didn't.  Due to an unexpected family situation, h...

Our six-year-old foster daughter and her sister came into my care on August 1, 2018.  At that time, we were all hopeful that reunification with her biological mother would happen relatively quickly.  But as the case moved forward, new information was disclosed that revealed that the ability to reunify the family would be much more complicated than we originally thought.  This was really hard news for us to absorb.  I became interested in foster care because there is a real need and I had the resources and space in my home to support that need.  I also wanted to support the efforts a biological family made to recover from whatever tragedy and trauma led to the separation of parent and child.  Because while adoption can be a beautiful thing, it is not the natural order of things.  And it doesn't occur without significant grief and loss. A couple months in, the question was raised whether I'd be interested in adopting the girls.  Early on in the ...