Foster Thoughts

I have to start with a confession. When we started foster parenting, I really thought every Christian should do it. After all, the Bible tells us to take care of widows and orphans, and there are plenty of orphans who need homes, and I heard other preachers say things like "if one member of every church in America just took in one orphan, the problem would be erased" and I (pretty judgmentally) thought every Christian should do it.

No more.

I still think every Christian needs to be about caring for orphans and widows (otherwise, please go ahead and tear James 1:27 out of your Bibles and/or admit that you don't consider the Bible authoritative), but I don't think everyone is called to be a foster parent.

The county offers good training, but it falls painfully short of what is actually needed training for what happens when you open your home to a child. In fact, it doesn't prepare you for the hardest parts: what happens when the county lies to you again and again? What happens when a child is damaged far beyond his young years simply because he was left in a toxic situation (or returned to a toxic situation from a foster home)? What happens when a child knows much more than he or she should? How do you guard your heart against the moment when the county moves the baby you daily commuted to and from the hospital to visit, stayed up with at night, changed countless diapers, and fell in love with? How do you know what services are available to foster parents when nobody seems to know (and none of the services are linked, and none of them communicate with one another - and communication within the agency is terrible as well)? And the realization that the foster parent has no say in the most basic of decisions (a foster parent is not even allowed to give a foster child a haircut without agency approval - so when there's a life-or-death surgery, you'd better have an emergency phone number handy - they're probably not going to have one on their answering machine).

This isn't to say that we're done foster parenting. Quite the contrary. Because Jesus calls his followers to deny ourselves, and that pretty much defines parenthood (I don't care if you're a birth parent, an adoptive parent, or a foster parent; parenting is all about self-denial) and if you haven't learned humility, foster parenting is a quick study on it. I feel for the county agency, always strapped for money, and for the caseworkers, daily forced to make difficult decisions, never having full information, and having unbelievable caseloads.

If you are called to be a foster parent, get as much education as possible, and get in there and love some kids. If you're not called to it, don't. But that's no excuse - find out some way to care for orphans and widows. They need it, and God calls it true religion that God loves.

The Waiting Game

Anyone who has had a baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) knows the waiting game.  The first question is always "when can I take my baby home?"  It seems pretty common for "them" to tell a parent of a preemie "we want to keep him until his due date" so the waiting game begins.

Not only do we get to wait, but we get to drive back and forth to the hospital.  And get to know the wonderful, compassionate nurses who work in the NICU.  And the check-out folks in the cafeteria.

Then they give some good news: when the baby gets to (insert milestone here), we'll start the release procedure. A good thing to remember when you hear this is that this doesn't mean the baby gets to go home whenever he reaches that milestone; that's just when the procedure begins, after which the baby goes home.

The procedure includes them showing the parents a video about shaken baby syndrome (lesson learned: don't ever, ever, ever shake a baby. it's not even funny to joke about).  We get re-trained in CPR (all the rules are different these days).  They make sure Peanut will fit in the car seat (and if he won't, they issue a new one - that's right, issue. That means they give us one).

Then the doctor has to check him out one more time and he can go home after the paperwork is done.  Which might take longer than thought, as (in our case) paperwork has to be done by the caseworker as well. And if the baby has had any other issues, those can hold up the release, triggering... more waiting...

The good news is that Peanut's nasal feeding tube is out and he's gaining weight.  The bad news is he had an "episode" last night - nothing to be alarmed at, but they want to make sure that he's out of the woods.

This is all the long, roundabout way of saying that our little guy isn't home yet; maybe tomorrow?

Could This Be the One?

Or... Wait and See

Even before we were married, Tara and I talked about adoption.  Our eventual wish was to adopt children.  After a lot of prayer and conversations, we determined that we would attempt to adopt domestically, rather than overseas (note that this was what we felt like we needed to do; we don't have anything against those who adopt from overseas), so we went through our county training to be foster/adoptive parents.  Our adoption of Andrew was a private adoption (we hadn't necessarily planned that, but it was how God worked it out).  Through all of it, we only once got a call to foster (and it was a placement that wasn't right for us).

August 2009 we got the call to be foster parents for Baby J. We thought this placement would lead to adoption, but the information we got wasn't the full story, and his birth parents did everything they could to get him back.  We got a great opportunity to give him a good start, and though we were sad to have to "give him back" (and we still miss him) we were fine with it.  The system worked like it was supposed to.  Especially for Baby J's parents.

 Then in June 2010, we got another call, this time to foster (and hopefully adopt?) Jesse & Nathan.  The agency already had permanent custody of them and they were looking for a forever family.  After having them for a while, we realized that we couldn't give them the on-going care they needed, all the while, giving our other kids the level of support and concern they need.  The other thing was that their ages were too close to our other kids' ages, and poor Andrew often got the worst of the whole deal. We got to pass their care on to another couple who now is able to give them the attention they need, and we continue to pray for them (parents as well as the kids).

After that placement, we revised the age limits of children we would accept.  We decided we needed a solid break from toddlers, but we would take a baby.  So when another call came in (only a week after we'd cleaned house), asking if we'd take a baby and a 3 year old, we declined.  But when we got a call this week, asking if we'd take a tiny baby boy, we agreed. 

So last night we got to go to the hospital and meet Baby JT.  He was born on December 3, probably about 1 1/2 months premature.  He's a little under 4 pounds, and it was love at first sight.  He is a precious little peanut, as cute as can be.

We understand how the system works; we know that we may or may not get to keep him (keep him? we can't even take him home from the NICU yet! - they're saying probably not until after Christmas), but we're going to get to love him as long as we have him.

Which is the deal we've made with God on our kids in general.  We don't consider any of them "ours" to keep; they're God's, and we just get to "borrow" them from Him for a while - as long as He lets us.

Latest Adventure

I didn't post much about our most recent adventure in foster parenting because I didn't think it would be prudent; first of all, the birth family could read about the boys or see their picture and figure out where they were, and secondly, because it was tough going (and I didn't end up blogging much during those four months partially because of that).  It was tough having four boys, age 6 and under, especially with what J&N had suffered through before they came to our house.

I learned a lot about myself, about others, about spiritual warfare, and about the "system" in the process.

About myself... in Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God, he expresses surprise not in the fact that humans can be so horrendously evil, but in the fact that we're often not.  During the last four months, I came to understand how (often foster) parents can do horrible things.  Not that I ever condone doing evil to a child (or anyone else), but I began to understand how someone could.  But there were many times when I was stretched way too thin.  I was glad to have my "out" - running - where I could get away and reorient myself toward God.

I already knew that there are people who understand "different" kids and people who don't, but I didn't know how much that would show up.  There were some people who I frankly didn't know very well who stepped up tremendously to help out with the boys, especially during church.  Church was a difficult time, because for a while the nursery was not staffed during the early service, (and since both boys have attachment issues, we felt that it was important to keep them with us)... so the boys were in worship... not a big deal, as we always keep our other two in that service... except that J&N had never experienced church before.  Or positive discipline.  Or sitting still.  And so they screamed through the first few services.  Some people just got annoyed and complained.

But there were several others who stepped up and helped.  Tremendously.  They were awesome.

I learned more about spiritual warfare than I ever thought possible, and I'm still learning.  These boys were victims of generational curses - something they never chose for themselves.  Their parents, grandparents - who knows how many generations - were filled with the evil they had inherited and they had chosen.  When J&N first came into our house, they were saturated with those curses. They were tortured little boys.  Happily, and thanks to a lot of prayer, when they left our house, though they still have issues, they were no longer the same tortured little boys.

I was reminded of the system, which doesn't necessarily exist to do the best thing; it sometimes exists to do the cheap thing or the expedient thing.  This isn't a slam on the case workers; I've found that the social workers are one of two things: they are either so jaded and cynical that you wonder why they're still in it; or they're idealistic people who want to help... and they're buried alive with too many cases for one person to adequately handle.  Unfortunately it ends up that lies, misinformation, and lack of communication are the order of the day.

I understand that God calls His people to care for orphans and widows, but with my experience (and the experience I've watched others go through), it does take a special calling to be a foster parent.  It's definitely not for everyone.  If God is calling you to do it, then do it with gusto.  But if God is not calling you to it (and be sure to discern the difference; don't just say God isn't if you haven't taken time to listen), then find other ways to care for the orphan and widow in your community.