I want to pull back the curtain a little bit to give people who have never heard much about foster care some insight but before I do, I have one disclaimer: Please do NOT misinterpret any of what I'm about to say as complaining, being ungrateful, or saying that foster care is much harder than <insert problem here> that someone else is going through. This is meant to be informative, nothing more. Ok, let's get into it: What's Hard About Foster Care 1. Spending at least two days a week driving back and forth to visitation and finding something to do with myself while I wait. Baby girl's birth parents get a total of 6 hours visitation a week between the two of them and it.is.TOUGH. Driving 90 minutes round trip twice a week is taxing, I'm coming to learn. Especially if you're halfway there and have to turn around because one of the bio parents cancelled. 2. Doctors and other medical professionals are in baby's home town aka not down the street. It makes it difficult to decide what to do if, as a mom, I get an inkling that I should call the doctor with a concern. I need to be certain I believe something is wrong because in the event they want to see her, I have to take her to the doctor 45 minutes away. Which essentially kills anything else I had planned for that day. 3. Feeling guilty about Ben. This was a complete life change for him. One day he was an only child with mom all to himself and the next day he had a baby in the house. Sure, this happens when people expand their family the traditional way through pregnancy, but there's something to be said for the child getting to watch Mommy's tummy grow bigger and the constant conversations preparing them (as best you can with a toddler) for when baby comes. I would imagine the change isn't quite as abrupt. This change for Ben happened in an instant and I had no way to prepare him. Plus, I now leave for hours at a time to take the baby to visitation. I know he's a kid and kids are amazing adjusters, but it's been a lot for an almost 3 year old to handle and I'm human enough to admit I feel guilty putting him through it. 4. Trying to effectively communicate between multiple agencies, multiple caseworkers, multiple supervisors, etc can get complicated. I had NO idea how many people were going to be involved in the case when I got the call. I should have gotten a sense at the first hearing, but I was probably too overwhelmed and trying to keep my stuff together. I'm a huge fan of communication and probably err on the side of OVER-communication, but I'm realizing that very few people in this area are timely or effective communicators. On the plus side: everyone so far has been a huge fan of my organization. 5. Rooting for birth parents to get their lives together while praying this child will be ours forever. This has been the toughest to navigate. As Christians, we want to see these birth parents come to know Christ as their Savior. To graduate high school or get their GED and then make something of themselves. To get out of their hometown (which is what they both told me they want) and to become thriving, contributing, and upstanding members of society. At the exact same time, we are madly in love with this child and know what her home like would be like with bio parents and their extended families. It physically hurts our hearts to even think about her being returned to them. It's a daily struggle that, to be honest, I personally often shove down and try to ignore. Outside of taking care of and loving baby girl, all I can do is pray for the bio parents and baby girl. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1
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