The First 16 Hours

Foster Care:

Two words to describe an entire world encompassing joy, sadness, trauma, empathy and frustration.

In this post I will let you in on what I thought foster care was vs. what I had experienced in my first 16 hours as a first time foster parent.

I thought foster care was about children being taken from their parents due to neglect or abuse and getting placed with a family who is intended to take care of them until they can go back to their parents.

I thought foster children spent a small amount of time in care then were reunited with their families.

I thought foster parents had no contact with biological parents and biological parents used resources provided by the state.

What I didn’t know back then was how much emotion and hard work went into being a foster parent.

I didn’t know parents sometimes didn’t get their children back.. or actively want them back.

I didn’t know the amount of empathy and sympathy that was required to live every day in this world.

Our Journey:

My husband and I decided to join the world of foster care in the summer of 2021. We filled out the gigantic packet asking for everything short of your blood type. I spent 3 straight hours writing into that packet about income, house type, our childhoods, parenting styles, physical and mental health. Then we had our first meeting in our home with our caseworker. She went over clearances, documentation for the home and vehicles, gave our home a walk through and a heads up about what we needed to make the house compliant with the guidelines. The clearances were your typical childcare required documentation including mandated reporter, FBI fingerprints, and child abuse history. A handful of training hours with certificates. You also needed a doctor to sign off on your medical physical and list any medications you take and keep in the home. Your house requirements consist of a room designated as a bedroom with a separate bed, blanket and pillow for each child, a fire extinguisher and smoke detectors on each level. All medications and toxic chemicals must be up high or locked. All firearms must be locked separately from the ammunition. For littles you must cover all outlets and have sharp objects out of reach. All of which were pretty easy to find or accommodate. Our caseworker came back to the house to do a final walk through and collect our mound of paperwork. Once all of the paperwork was collected and sent to CYS it took about a month and a half to get our license in the mail.

Our home is legally licensed to care for 2 children birth to 2 years of age.

Another 3 months or so went by before we received our first call about a kiddo needing a place to stay. I was driving home around 7:30pm from my job in Warren County when I received a text from our initial caseworker stating “___ is going to be giving you a call tonight about a baby needing a place to go tomorrow. I wanted to give you a heads up. The baby is 2 days old and will be coming to you straight from the hospital after discharge tomorrow morning”.

WHAT?!? I actually pulled my car over right away.

A newborn? Why did I picture our first foster child to be 1-2 years old.. NOT a newborn!

Within a few minutes of receiving those texts I get a call from an unknown number and my heart starts pounding in my chest. I answer. The supervisor informs me of a healthy little boy by the name of ____ who is 2 days old and being discharged the following morning from _____. He needs a place to go and asked if we were ready to take our first case. I quickly responded yes. She asked if I had any questions and my mind running a million miles a second couldn’t process absolutely anything else so I simply said “I probably do but I will collect my thoughts and ask you tomorrow”.

I hang up with her and immediately call my husband to fill him in. I am so shocked that I spoke incredibly fast (even more quickly than my usual if you personally know me) just spurting out the info I had and told him I’d stop at Walmart to grab a few things.

I find myself in Walmart at 8:30pm on the phone with my sister and walking circles in the baby section. Then realize I came in here so quickly I forgot to even grab a cart! Diapers, wipes, binkies and a can of formula later I am headed home.

My husband was beyond thrilled to start this new journey. We called our moms to share the wild news of a newborn and attempted to sleep.

We both left for work the next morning with the idea that our home dynamic would probably include a newborn that night. As some may not know when a child is taken into care all familial avenues are examined first before another placement is made so there is always a chance after you receive the call CYS will locate a family member willing to take the child and sometimes you aren’t notified of this change in plan until much later.

I leave work around 8:30 as she said they would be to my house around 10:30 that morning. I make it home and spend an hour and a half walking more circles around my home tidying up every possible crumb. 10:30 comes and goes and I start to wonder if they found kin (family) for the baby to go with but right as my mind started to wander an SUV pulls up my driveway.

I stand at the door in anticipation feeling excited, scared shitless and hopeful. ___ comes to my door holding a carseat in one hand and 2 clear plastic bags of supplies in the other. The second I open the door she sets it all down, states “I think he may be hungry”, takes him from the carseat, puts him in my arms and begins to make a bottle. Having no idea what to say besides “He is so little!” I just stand there staring down into these tiny little blue eyes of this small babe in an oversized onesie with my heart again pounding a million beats a second. ___ goes over the small amount of info she received from the hospital which was basically what, how much and when he was eating. She signed the form stating we had medical rights to take him to appointments and make routine/emergency decisions for him. Shows me the hospital bags of lose diapers, wipes, premade bottles and a hat. She asked a few questions, asked if I had any questions, took a look around the house to see where he was going to sleep and was gone just as quickly as she came in.

I watch her leave the driveway.

The house gets quiet.

I look down at this very small newborn baby boy and say out loud

“Well I guess it’s just us now buddy”