We love kids. There are kids who need love.

August

We love kids. There are kids who need love.
We have a home. There are kids who need a home. 

It’s simple math.

September

You don’t accidentally become a foster parent. You plan, you research, you train. Hours of meetings, hundreds of pages of paperwork, countless strangers walking through your door. All of it a quest to ensure you are ready to share custody of a child with the most erratic of co-parents: the government.

October

Married with no kids, we have so much time. We fly through the training and inspections, some more reasonable than others. A two-page trampoline safety plan is completed in black ink, scanned, and uploaded into our portal. We do not have a trampoline. 

November

Everyone is fingerprinted—the two of us, family and friends we deem will be “frequent visitors” to our home. My husband was born without his left hand, leaving the woman behind the desk at the fingerprinting office in a dilemma we find hilarious. I’m not sure what to put, she says, hovering over her keyboard. But she presses on, and so do we.   

Every outlet is covered, every medication locked. Surely we will be licensed by Christmas.

December

The politicians, the social media brigades, the talking heads, they seem to have a favorite phrase: “the system is broken.” It’s easy to float these words into the ether. It’s different to meet the agency workers straining against this system, hoping to transform it from the inside out. We see their efforts, how true and good their hearts are. But they work from under an ever-growing mountain of requests and red tape: buried, always behind.      

Christmas comes but our license doesn’t.

Then that night, we get one last gift. Two pink lines.

January

By the first of the year, we’ve decided. 

We love kids. There are kids who need love.
We have a home. There are kids who need a home. 

All that’s changed is our home will now have two. It’s simple math. Surely we will be licensed soon.

February

We start setting up the nursery. We learn we’re having a girl. On yet another visit, a case worker turns the room and asks, Is this for her, or the placement? 

We shrug. Whoever gets here first.

March

We both work, so the agency suggests we start the hunt for daycares that accept the government-subsidized payments available to foster kids. Through dozens of calls, half end in seconds. 

Hi, do you accept CCMS?

No.

If they say yes, we might make it to a minute or two.

Do you have any openings?

How old is the child?

I’m not sure yet. Younger than five. Maybe closer to 2? Or an infant?

Rarely, we’d make it to a final question from a confused but empathetic daycare director. 

And when would this child start?

I don’t know. Hopefully soon?

April

It’s 7:00 p.m.. I’m at dinner with friends, laughing over pizza. My husband is across town with friends of his own, getting ready to watch a game. And we get the call. The interruption we’d been waiting for, preparing for, praying for. A baby girl. Eight months old. Removed today, needs somewhere to land tonight. Can you take her?

Yes, we’re ready, yes.

We’ll be there in a few hours.

It’s 9:45 p.m. A knock on the door. She’s here, dropped into my arms. We quickly sign some papers, the investigator leaves, and it’s just the three of us. The three and a half of us.

From our first agency meeting to this moment has been nine months on the dot. It feels significant. Serendipitous, maybe. I did not carry this child, but for nine months we’d prayed. We didn’t know where this child was, but God did. We’d spent nine months asking for his protection, his presence, his peace to flood their life. We didn’t know who this child would be, but God did. And here she is.

I did not carry her to term, but I will carry her in my arms, as long as she needs me.

It’s 10:00 p.m. There’s a deep dissonance. We’ve been waiting, we’re excited, the day is finally here. But this is not a day she ever wanted. The fact that she is in our arms means that things are not as they should be. This addition to our world comes out of a subtraction from hers—a deep loss. It’s terrible math.[1]

She doesn’t know what’s happening, but she knows she’s not home. She knows she doesn’t know us. We don’t know what this day held for her, what her past eight months held. But she is here, and we are rocking her back and forth, back and forth.

It’s 12:30 a.m. Of course, it takes a while for her to let down her guard and fall asleep. We watch her precious face relax.

There are kids who need love.
There are kids who need a home. 

Welcome to our home, little one. Welcome to our love.

May, June, July

Through stomach bugs, daily paperwork, hours of appointments, and a revolving door of state and agency workers, we can’t help but delight in this precious girl. The setbacks and intrusions and throw-up are all undoubtedly, 100% worth it. It’s simple math. We love her. Oh, how we love her.

Her future is an equation we can’t solve. The lack of communication on the goals, the plan, the services can’t help but make us laugh—it’s either that or bash our heads into the wall.

So we try to take things a day at a time. And we watch as she grows, she beams, she blooms. She is the happiest, most lovely girl.

From the beginning, my husband and I have been clear: we are for reunification. We write in a notepad tucked in the bag she takes to visits, cheering her mom on. We pray for redemption, for broken things to be made whole. But it will take a while, we think.

We try to take things one day at a time, but we are weak. My heart and my belly swell day by day. We can’t help but look ahead. Big Sister, here and beautiful. Little Sister coming soon, already kicking, rolling, wanting to play.  

What joy it will be to watch them laugh together, we dream.

August

She is one now. She only has two teeth, but we are at the dentist because I go where the paperwork tells me to go. The phone rings, but I send it to voicemail.

In the car, I call the caseworker back. We missed something. A family member has been licensed and ready to have her this whole time. We don’t want to keep them waiting anymore. We’ll move her on Monday.

My due date is Wednesday. It’s Thursday. There’s nothing to say but, Okay.

We know a family member is a good thing. She will be happy there. And we knew what we were signing up for. Still, my husband and I fall into each other’s arms and weep. Dissonance. Addition, subtraction, division, wrenching. Terrible math.

The next few days are the night in April turned inside out. Now, she watches while we cry. She doesn’t know what’s happening. But this time, she knows our home. She knows our love. And she will be leaving both. So for now, we rock her back and forth, back and forth, and pray that Little Sister does not come early. I suppose she’s not a sister anymore.

Monday—We kiss her, we bless her, we let her go. Standing on the sidewalk we watch the car drive away and out of our sight. Our arms hang empty.  

One of the first lessons in training was that we’d likely hear from well-meaning friends and family, I could never do that, I’d get too attached. The response to that is simple: That’s the point.

There are kids who need love. There are kids who need a home.
It’s terrible, simple, beautiful.

September

People really do say the darndest things. You’ll feel better once your baby’s here. As if they are dolls I’m trading out. (They’re not.)

In God’s mercy, our baby girl arrives late. One Monday, the groans of grief. The next, the groans of labor. The heartbreak of a goodbye followed by the heart swell of a hello. They don’t cancel each other out. It’s not that kind of math.

May, now.

We haven’t heard from Big Sister. We don’t know where she is, but God does. We don’t know who she’ll become, but God does. So every morning, Little Sister and I step outside and look up at the sky and ask for his protection, his presence, his peace to flood her life. Both of their lives. We know he works the math.