The Lucky Ones

When attending social events with strangers or casual acquaintances, Laurie and I are often asked for intimate details about our children’s adoption stories. We’re reluctant to share such details, not because we’re private people (readers of our blogs, testify!) but because we view these details as the children’s stories. In other words, since it’s not our story to tell, we don’t tell it.

Through experience, Laurie and I’ve found a comfortable middle ground where we share our journey through fostering and adopting, thus limiting as much background of their birth families as possible. Nevertheless, what little we share includes some unpleasant facts, as a certain amount of grief, loss, and trauma accompanies every foster or adoption story. These unpleasant facts inevitably inspire the listeners to respond, “Those children are so lucky to have you.”

While I’m fine with saying “Thank you” and hoping to move on to a new topic as soon as possible, Laurie takes every opportunity to educate people. “We feel we’re lucky to have them,” she says. Then our audience nods their head, as if we gave them the response they expected. It feels to me like the entire conversation was part of a prearranged script, with Laurie and I reading the roles of “Saint” and our audience reading the role of “Inspired Listener.”

It’s an awkward statement – one that would seem ridiculous if the roles were reversed. Were a biological parent to be going on about their child’s grades or soccer team, it would never occur to us to say, “Your kids are lucky to have been born to you.” Furthermore, calling our kids lucky might seem more genuine to me if it came from an informed and credible source. At a recent parent/teacher conference, Isaac’s kindergarten teacher told Laurie, “Isaac really lucky to have you guys for parents. I can tell you guys are really involved with him.” Since she’s intimately acquainted with Isaac on a daily basis, her compliment was sincere.

But strangers have no idea if the kids are lucky to have us for parents or if we’re lucky to have them for children. It might not feel so forced from strangers if I agreed that the children were lucky to have us. The last time we acted out the screenplay was at a dinner party a few weeks ago. We were late getting out of the house, and in the car on the way to the babysitter’s house the kids were especially rowdy. The catalyst involved a toy laptop designed for children younger than our oldest, older than the youngest, and for boys the same as age as our daughter. Long story short, each of them was claiming the toy.

After what seemed like an eternity of arguing, crying, and bad attitudes, and several warnings and threats from their mother and me, I commandeered the toy and announced, “That’s it! If I hear anyone else say another word, or if anyone even looks at their brother or sister, they’re gonna be sorry.” There was a sad silence that lasted almost two minutes before one of them started fussing about something else. To avoid another outburst, I kept my mouth shut.

Later at the party, we met an older couple and started talking about the kids. Laurie whipped out the little photo album she keeps in her purse and gave the couple a short history of the last few years. Each time she turned a page, the wife touched her cheek and said, “Oh they’re precious!” Then she put her hand on Laurie’s knee and said, “They’re so lucky to have you guys as parents.” Laurie had been going on and on about the kids for at least ten minutes, so anyone listening could tell how proud we were of our kids. However, I couldn’t stop thinking about the incident back in the van.

Announcing that the children were forbidden from speaking to each other was the kind of statement an evil supervillain announces right before he casts the hero into a pool of angry sharks, but not something a grateful father says to the children he loves. After the party, we picked up the kids and on the way home, Isaac said, “Dad, you can let Vivi or J play with the laptop.” He handed Vivi the toy and she responded, “Thank you, Isaac. Look, Dad, I play so nice.” Then J said, “Fifi (Vivi), I play next my turn, please?”

Were I a suspicious father, I would have wondered if the kids had planned this conversation with the sole intention of making me feel like a heel. It just seemed too much – the kindness, the politeness. Where was this coming from? I gave Laurie a “What the?” look, and she smiled and hugged my arm. “They’re good kids,” she said. And I had no choice but to admit that I’m lucky to have such good kids.

This story is also posted at www.wearegoodkin.com.

New Kin

In foster care training, we learned foster kids have a history with missing pieces, that there can be large parts of their past that are either traumatic or completely forgotten by the kids. So when our oldest son, Isaac, came to us at sixteen months old, Laurie and I were prepared to know nothing about his story.

For a while, we mourned missing Isaac’s first year, hearing his first word and watching his first steps. Then our curiosity shifted and we wanted to provide him some background for his own sake. In our foster and adoptive parents’ playgroups and support groups, parents shared stories about their children asking about their birthparents.

Some kids grieved the loss of their former family while other children couldn’t have cared less. Laurie and I knew that a relationship with Isaac’s birth family was unrealistic. But we wished we had some pictures or maybe even a letter or a card—something that would make them real people to us rather than simply names on the pages of official court documents.

Nevertheless, Laurie and I made our peace with the mystery of Isaac’s birth family. We adopted him just after his second birthday, and his baby sister, Vivianna, was born four months later. As we developed an open adoption with Vivi’s birthmother, Laurie and I prepared ourselves for any potential questions or grief Isaac might have watching his sister look at pictures, read cards, and even play with birthday and Christmas presents from her birth family. We expected this to one day bother Isaac, but we did not expect the phone call we got from his former CPS worker in July this past year, informing us that Isaac has a younger brother who just entered foster care. “We want to place him with you as a kinship placement,” the caseworker said.

Laurie called me at work to tell me. “I told her I’d have to talk to you,” she said. It took me less than two seconds to say absolutely. “I told the caseworker you’d immediately say yes,” she said. “But can you believe it? Isaac has a little brother!” Laurie called the caseworker back and learned that J had been in foster care for just over a week and that he and his birthmother had already had one visitation meeting. Moreover, the caseworker had supervised the meeting and took pictures of J and the birthmother he shared with Isaac.

When I got home that night, I sat at the computer and watched the slideshow with Laurie sitting next to me. I saw little two-year-old J playing a toy piano in baggy blue clothes. His skin complexion and forehead matched Isaac. “That’s him?” I said to Laurie. She nodded. I clicked on the next picture and saw a woman feeding him out of a fast food bag. “That’s her?” I said to Laurie. She nodded. A few weeks later, Isaac’s little brother came to our home.

Although his first two-and-a-half years were a mystery, J adapted to our home quickly, and Isaac and Vivi accepted their new roles as older siblings. Laurie and I couldn’t have been happier to welcome him into our home. It thrilled us that he got to share memories with us like Isaac’s first day of kindergarten and Isaac’s sixth birthday. Then, J’s caseworker informed us that two of our boys’ older cousins had entered foster care. When CPS decided the cousins – a teen boy and a preteen boy—would remain in foster care and not return to their family, they told their caseworker they wanted the chance to tell J goodbye. Laurie and I told our caseworker we had a better idea. The two caseworkers set up a meeting at the CPS office, and we got to meet the cousins.

During most of the visit, Isaac played swords with the preteen and the teen tended to J, wiping his nose, feeding him the cookies we brought, and instructing us on J’s likes and dislikes. Everyone got along great, so we invited the boys to Thanksgiving dinner. Isaac and I picked up the boys around lunchtime and we spent the afternoon eating snacks, watching parades and football on TV, and playing kickball outside. Both cousins took three helpings at dinner, and slept soundly in our boys’ bunk beds. Just before we left the next morning, they asked if they could come visit us every weekend.

A few weeks later, Isaac and I picked the cousins up again for the weekend to celebrate Christmas. That Friday night, we gave them gifts and stockings, took them to a light show, and came home for cookies and hot chocolate. Saturday, we took them out for pizza, and Sunday, they came with us to church. Everywhere we went, the younger cousin played with Isaac while the older played with J and told us stories of about their birth family.

Laurie and I are thrilled at all the memories we’ve been able to share with our new family. Annual activities like watching football on Thanksgiving and driving around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights are now more significant because we’ve done them with members of our boys’ birth family. We’d spent years praying for photos or a letter, but we didn’t expect we’d get a new extended family.

This article can also be read at wearegoodkin.com.

First Attempt at Fertility

Note: this article is about our first test at a fertility clinic. I've made every attempt to make this as discrete as possible. But as those who have struggled with infertility will tell you, discretion isn't always possible.

Laurie, and I started trying to get pregnant a month before our first wedding anniversary, and, about a year later, we started looking for help. Laurie had dreamed her whole life of becoming a mother. She got her first babysitting gig when she was eleven – the type of parents who would hire a preteen to babysit is a mystery to me – and she even went to college to study child development. When we met, she had already received her bachelor’s degree and was a nanny for a two-year-old boy. By the time we married, bought our first house, and were ready to build our family, the boy had started kindergarten and Laurie was working in a candle shop.

We had no idea how to get started with infertility treatments, so we asked our gynecologist who recommended the most recognized and expensive clinic in town. She told me they’d probably start by taking my sperm count, and I asked how were they going to do that. She stared at me blankly for a moment before she said, “They’re going to analyze your semen.” And I was about to ask again how they were going to do that when Laurie touched my arm.

When I called the clinic and asked for an appointment, the receptionist asked, “For what purpose are you making an appointment?” I had no idea what to say and I panicked for a moment, wishing I had prepared something discrete to say. The lady on the phone must have had experience with embarrassed men and bailed me out. “Do you need a count?” she asked. And I quietly said yes.

I arrived at the clinic early for my appointment and sat in my truck for a few minutes psyching up my courage to go in. I tried to prepare something to say to the front desk. Was it like a bank? “I’m here to make a deposit?”

When I finally went in, I told the lady at the front desk that I had an appointment. She pointed to the electronic screen on the counter, which directed me to sign my name. After I signed in, my name and info immediately disappeared. I thought, “This is innovative. In case my mother or a busload of nuns or any other symbol of purity comes in after me, they won’t see my name and ask me what I was doing there.”

I sat down across from a sad-looking couple; the man was reading a sport magazine, and the woman’s head lay on his shoulder. She had a look of utter despair on her face. Normally, I would break the awkward ice with a joke, but something told me that asking the couple, “So what are you here for?” wouldn’t inspire a genial response.

A nurse called my name and led me to a private room in which a small cup sat on a cabinet. She told me I could leave the specimen in the room when I was finished. Then she shut the door and I sat in the room, staring at the lock on the door. I got up, checked the lock, and sat back down – I did this three or four times. Then I looked up to make sure there wasn’t any recording equipment mounted to the ceiling. There was a cabinet beside me with some drawers, and I wondered if there were men’s magazines in there, but I didn’t look. I heard telephones ringing and voices outside. Why hadn’t they soundproofed the room? I got up and turned off the light switch, thinking this might provide me some illusion of privacy. But the darkness only amplified the ringing phones and voices. An inch of light glowed from the bottom of the door, so I crouched down to make sure anyone who just happened to put their cheek to the floor wouldn’t recognize my shoes.

As I sat in the room, flipping the light switch on and off and delaying the inevitable, I remembered that our gynecologist told us to start with a sperm count because it was the easiest and least invasive test we’d take. While I worried that my count might be too low, I also worried that if it was fine that the next few tests would all involve Laurie and be much more painful and intense. I thought about the sad wife I saw in the waiting room and wondered what kinds of procedures she had already endured. Months later, after I got to know couples who had struggled for years with infertility, I would recognize couples like them as common, in which the wife’s dreams of becoming a mother had been annihilated by years of unfulfilled promises from doctors and the husbands walked around in a confused daze wondering what had happened to the woman he’d married and the happy marriage they’d once had.

When I exited the room, I looked back at the cup sitting on the cabinet and felt relieved that I didn’t have to carry it around the office and hand it to the lady at the front desk. I walked down the long hall, turned a corner, and approached the front desk where a new receptionist sat. I thought, “This lady has no idea who I am and what I’m here for.” I worried I’d have to explain, but I first assumed she knew the situation. So I cleared my throat and asked, “Anything else?”

The receptionist said, “No, thank you. We’ll call you in a few days with the results.”

On the drive home, I wondered if people could tell that I’d just undergone a sperm test. It was as if I’d crossed a threshold in which I stood on one side and the rest of the normal, fertile world stood on the other. This became a harsher reality when my count came back normal and the clinic invited Laurie to return for a series of treatments including regular blood tests and sonograms. They injected dye into her and prescribed daily doses of golf-ball-size pills. And when I refused to give her shots of hormones into her stomach, she injected them herself. After a very painful, expensive, and unsuccessful IUI, we quit infertility treatments and began the process of becoming foster parents.

The Staffing

A month after J came home, we received an official letter in the mail addressed to any parties with an interest in the child. We were invited to attend a staffing at the Department of Family and Protective Services – a meeting to discuss the future placement of J.

“So this is when they decide who gets custody of J?” I asked Laurie.

“No, its too soon,” she said. “More than likely they’ll proceed with reunification because they’re legally required to give the birth mom a chance to work her service plan. Then they’ll reconvene in a few months to reevaluate.”

Laurie and I arrived at the CPS building a few minutes early and had the front desk page J’s caseworker. While we waited, we reminisced about our first foster child who we brought to this office for visitations with her birth mother. We said goodbye to her in the parking lot when we dropped her off for her weekly visit, knowing afterward that her caseworker would drive her to a distant relative. I remembered wondering what she would be thinking after her visit when we weren’t there to pick her up.

J’s case worker, Jen, came to the front office and led us through a series of halls with small visitation rooms with donated toys and cartoon murals, past a set of doors with a sign reading “No Children Beyond This Point,” into a room with fold-out tables arranged to look like a conference room. Several people were already seated with notepads and file folders ready. No one introduced themselves to us or asked who we were. Jen, who was also Isaac’s caseworker three years ago when he was a foster child, is petite, soft-spoken, and awkward. Her demeanor seems better suited for work in a library rather than with troubled children. I hoped she might introduce us to the group, but when she sat down without saying anything, I waited until someone acknowledged us.

I’m not sure who initiated the conversation. More than likely, someone mentioned J and Laurie jumped in. She rarely needs an invitation to show off our kids. We might be in a meeting with adoptive families or at the grocery store with total stranger and, within seconds, she whips out the little photo album she keeps in her purse and passes it around. Ordinarily, I’m amused that she is so proud of them, but here it seemed unprofessional. These were hardened caseworkers who didn’t seem interested that he liked playing in the pool or that our dogs loved him for his many odors.

Finally, a woman sitting across from us said, “Well, let’s get started. Why don’t we go around the room and introduce ourselves and what our role is with the child.” Jen started, followed by her supervisor, a lawyer representing CPS, a lawyer representing J’s attorney ad litem, someone representing CASA, their supervisor, someone representing kinship placements, their supervisor, and an attorney representing kinship. The facilitator asked Jen how J came into foster care. Jen nervously cleared her throat, picked up her file folder, and pretended to look through it. She spoke for less than a minute and said “um” no less than ten times. At first, I thought she was being discrete, but when she didn’t even know if the bio mom was working her service plan, I worried that Jen had no idea what was going on. While she went to a lot of trouble to locate Laurie and me to place J with us, she also allowed Isaac to wallow in a neglectful foster home when he was a baby. Now, J’s fate as our legal child rested in her hands. With the exception of the birth mom Isaac and J share, I’ve never had more conflicting feelings toward another human being.

At first, I felt intimidated by everyone’s credentials. But after two minutes of discussion about the case, I realized Laurie and I were clearly the most informed people in the room. The group took twenty minutes before they got caught up on facts Laurie and I knew off the top of our heads.

I entered the meeting knowing that CPS is required by law to give the bio mom a chance to work her plan, regardless of her past. So I was not disappointed when they concluded by giving her the chance for reunification. After years of foster parenting, I’ve learned that CPS typically talks more about the rights of bio parents and less about the long-term well being of the child, although they claim the two are synonymous.

Jen walked us back through the maze to the front entrance. She and Laurie talked about J’s next visitation with his bio mom, but I was too distracted. While I may have been a little embarrassed when Laurie passed around the photo album before the meeting, I now worried I’d missed the chance to represent J. The group of caseworkers had been in meetings for hours and we were one of the last of the day. To them, J was another name on the page and I had failed to bring him to life. I wished I’d made a scene. “I want to be his Daddy. I’ll do whatever it takes.” I wished I’d shown them pictures of J on my phone eating watermelon and reading books. For that matter, I wished I’d have brought a slideshow, a PowerPoint presentation, or the frigging laptop, which has over two hundred pictures devoted just to his first week with us. “Here’s J playing with Oscar in our playroom. Here’s another one of him playing with Oscar in our bedroom. Here’s one of him playing with Oscar and Lucy. Here’s one with him, Oscar, Lucy and Vivi playing in the playroom. Here’s one with them in the back yard.”

In my head, I know this wouldn’t have made a difference. While these antics make good prime time drama, real life doesn’t work that way. Several in the group had used the word “reunification” with a wink and a nod, and someone even said, “We all know where this case is heading,” meaning that termination was inevitable. So until then, the fate of our family rests there.

The Good Fight

When I became a foster parent, I had no idea how the role would affect me. Of course, I understood how radically my lifestyle would change, but I was not prepared for how radically I myself would change.

As a young adult, I never felt comfortable with confrontation. The notion of getting into an argument intimidated me. When I first got promoted to a supervisor position, I had to deal with employee performance issues like dress code and time and attendance. When I had to coach someone’s performance, I worried for days about the conversation, planning how I should phrase my words and preparing for retaliation. Maybe I worried I’d lose the argument or that the employee wouldn’t like me anymore, but I had a job to do and, through practice and some feeble trial-and-error, I improved and learned not to let their reaction bother me.

Nearly a decade has passed since I received my first taste of responsibility as a young adult. Since then, my wife, Laurie, and I have fostered five children, all under the age of three, and adopted two – one from foster care and one from a private agency. Currently, we are a kinship placement for our oldest son’s biological brother, a two-year-old boy we call J.

J came to us with multiple medical issues; the most serious concern was his need for oral surgery. A week after he came home, Laurie booked an appointment with a reputable pediatric dentist who accepted Medicaid (a battle itself). The dentist found eight cavities and recommended the only oral surgeon in town who accepted Medicaid. Unfortunately, this surgeon worked on children once a month and was booked until the following month.

During the month we waited for his surgery, J had three head colds. Laurie took him to the doctor three times and each time the doctor sent her away with a prescription for over-the-counter medication. J’s third cold came the weekend before his surgery and Laurie and I worried that if he were placed on an antibiotic his surgery would be postponed.

Our fears came true when Laurie took him in first thing Monday morning. The doctor diagnosed J with strep throat and said that his surgery would have to be postponed. Laurie called me at work and broke down crying. Had she been in good health herself, she might not have fallen apart, but she was on her way to her doctor who would diagnose her with strep throat as well.

I took a half sick day, rushed home, and booked an appointment for my three-year-old daughter, Vivianna, to see her pediatrician since she’d had a runny nose for a couple days. While I was gone, Laurie called the oral surgeon to cancel Thursday’s surgery. The office informed her the surgeon was booked the following month and that we’d have to wait two months. When Laurie called me with the news, I lost my temper.

I called J’s pediatrician’s office and told the receptionist that if J had been put on antibiotics the two earlier times we’d brought him in, then he wouldn’t have gotten strep, given it to his mother, I wouldn’t have had to take a sick day, and J’s surgery wouldn’t have to be postponed. The receptionist transferred me to the doctor’s assistant who asked me to repeat the entire story. I repeated everything at a higher volume and added, “This is your office’s fault and you need to make it right.” It was a pathetic bluff; this wasn't a restaurant that had messed up our meal and could comp the ticket. Nevertheless, it surprised me when she said I could bring him back in for a penicillin shot.

“You want me to bring him back today?” I asked.

The assistant said, “As long as he doesn’t have a reaction to the shot he can still have the surgery.”
I was more angry than relieved. “Why didn’t you give him the shot earlier in the day when he was in?” I asked.

She offered no explanation. She only said, “I’ll have to check with the doctor to make sure we can fit you in today.”

By now, it was after three o’clock in the afternoon and I started to worry about rush hour traffic and what we were going to do about dinner. At 3:30pm, the assistant called and said I could bring him in. I drove J myself and we were in and out in thirty minutes. He had no reaction to the penicillin and, three days later, had the surgery and came out fine.

I don’t like that I got as frustrated as I did with the pediatrician’s office. Yet, I don’t understand why i had to get so upset to get results from them. Had I not yelled at the assistant, she would not have offered the penicillin shot and J’s surgery would be postponed two months.

I have to remind myself that although the doctor’s office takes Medicaid, it is still a business and the staff will not lose any sleep if my son cries and points at his teeth when he chews food. Laurie and I alone are emotionally invested in the well being of this child. Like my role as a supervisor, I consider my role of a father as doing what I have to do because it’s my job, regardless of how comfortable I am. I don’t consider myself I fighter; rather I’m an advocate willing to do whatever it takes to ensure my children are taken care of.

A Second Chance for a Background

When Isaac came home as a sixteen-month-old foster child, Laurie, and I quickly had to accept that whatever happened prior to him coming to us would remain a mystery. Although we closely examined every court document and affidavit we received, we only learned names of his birthmother and his biological siblings and some of their mistakes.

At first, we wanted to know Isaac’s history in order to better parent him and explain some of his behavior. But we made do with the resources we had. We read books on toddler adoption, got involved with other foster and adoptive parents, and sought advice from doctors, play therapists, and behavioral specialists. After only a few months in our home, Isaac quickly bonded with us and caught up on his development.

Then our curiosity shifted and we wanted to provide him some background for his own sake. In our foster and adoptive parents’ playgroups and support groups, parents shared stories about their children asking about their birthparents. Some kids grieved the loss of their former family while other children couldn’t have cared less. Laurie and I knew that a relationship with Isaac’s birth family was unrealistic. But we wished we had some pictures or maybe even a letter or a card – something that would make them real people rather than simply names on pages of official court documents.

Nevertheless, Laurie and I made our peace with the mystery of Isaac’s birth family. We adopted him just after his second birthday and his baby sister, Vivianna, was born four months later. As we developed an open adoption with Vivi’s birthmother, Laurie and I prepared ourselves for any potential questions or grief Isaac might have watching his sister look at pictures, read cards, and even play with birthday and Christmas presents from her birth family. We expected this to one day bother Isaac. But what we did not expect was the phone call we got from his former CPS worker on a warm morning in June of this year, informing us that Isaac has a younger brother who had just entered foster care.

“We want to place him with you as a kinship placement,” the caseworker said.

Laurie called me at work to tell me. “I told her I’d have to talk to you,” she told me.

It took me less than two seconds to say absolutely. “I told the caseworker you’d immediately say yes,” she said. “But can you believe it? Isaac has a little brother!”

Laurie called the caseworker back and learned that J had been in foster care for just over a week and that he and his birthmother had already had one visitation meeting. Moreover, the caseworker had supervised the meeting and took pictures of J and the birthmother he shared with Isaac.

When I got home that night, I sat at the computer and watched the slideshow with Laurie sitting next to me. I saw little two-year-old J playing a toy piano in baggy blue clothes. His skin complexion and forehead matched Isaac. “That’s him?” I said to Laurie. She nodded.

I clicked on the next picture and saw a woman feeding him out of a fast food bag. “That’s her?” I said to Laurie. She nodded.

The next few weeks crawled by. J’s team of caseworkers required a home study on us before he could be placed with us, which took two additional weeks to approve. Finally, six weeks after entering foster care, the caseworker brought Isaac’s two-year-old brother to our home.

Friends donated a bunk bed for the boys to share, which they loved almost immediately. In fact, I had to forbid use of the ladder within five minutes of assembling it.

J adapted to our routine quickly. He ate nearly everything we put on his plate and slept soundly. He had a limited vocabulary, which developed quickly under the influence of an older brother and sister. Both Isaac and Vivi accepted him immediately, with Vivi telling everyone within earshot, “He baby brudder.” She followed him around the house all day asking him, “You come play in my room?” At three years old, she’s only nine months older than he and they make a great pair. She suggested her favorite games – princess dolls and makeup – and he complied unconditionally.

Meanwhile, Isaac accepted his role as the protective big brother. He worked diligently to teach J the word “gentle.” From the other side of the house, we heard Isaac shout, “No, J. Gentle with the dogs” or “gentle with Vivi’s hair.” Then, as Vivi rushed to tattle on him, Isaac shouted, “No, Vivi. Don’t tell Mom and Dad.” We thought it’s sweet that Isaac didn’t want him to get in trouble.

People often asked us whether we’re going to adopt J. When we said we hope so, their follow-up question was, “Aren’t you afraid of the effect it might have on the kids if he leaves?”

It’s a legitimate question, one their mother and I took very seriously. Ultimately, even if we knew he wouldn’t stay with us permanently, we still never could have turned him away. He is our family too. If he leaves, we’ll be devastated and mourn losing him and what could have been. Then, once time has passed, we’ll look back on the time we spent with J and the pictures we have of Isaac’s birthmother and brother and find comfort that at least we have that.

On the other hand, if we do get to adopt him, then one day Laurie and I will have a great story to tell. We’ll share with the boys that we were told their birthmother was thrilled when she found out they had been united.

J came home almost a month ago. So we have no idea what’s going to happen to him in the long term. But we’re grateful for the memories we got to build with J in our lives, moments like Isaac’s first day of kindergarten with us, Isaac’s sixth birthday. We had spent years praying for a letter or a photo from his birth family. We didn’t expect we’d get another son.

The Temp

So here's the story, originally title The Temp. A friend sent me the link to Fostering Families Today starting on page 56. Thanks Debbie!! I can't believe how big it is. I didn't know it would be a feature!!