Foster Care Fridays: The Beginning

A relative gave our son I've Loved You Since Forever on his first birthday.  I read it to him that night, and it didn't quite make sense.  It was sweet, but it wasn't until my mom told me, "Yeah, Hoda Kotb wrote that about her daughter who she adopted" that it clicked.  Of course, this is primarily a tribute to adoption, I thought to myself.  After all, the story follows a mother and a child who exist independently of one another until they find each other and become one, in which moment the mom realizes she's loved the child since, well, forever. 

My son is two now, but I revisited the book several times between his first and second birthday and at some point along the way, I knew.  I don't know for sure when I knew but it must have been around the time I stopped being able to read the first two pages without dissolving into a bucket of tears.

And that must have been between springtime and fall because my son turned one in the spring and on November 28, we submitted our application to DHS for adoption/foster care.  

In the weeks and months that have followed since November 28, I have learned so much that were we to begin the process again, there are only about 4,000 choices we'd make differently.  But it doesn't quite matter now, because it hasn't changed the fact that within the month, we could have a child (or children) placed with us.

There is a chance that this is the last month we will ever spend as a family of three. 

In other words, I'm basically eight months pregnant.  

There is so much more I have to say and want to share.  This journey has not been one free of tears, sleepless nights, heated arguments, tense conversations, and whispered midnight prayers.  There have been many moments in which I doubted our ability to partner as teammates in this endeavor, given that there is so much uncertainty before us and we're walking into it headfirst and blindfolded.  

But there is one thing of which I've been certain from day one: there is a child (children?) I have yet to find and who has yet to find me.  We may not get to spend the rest of our lives together, or maybe we will.  But either way, I have loved that child since forever.  And it's only a matter of time until we meet face to face.