These are Your Daughters

I have pretty significant "Yes" moments associated with each of my children. I thought that since I committed to writing this blog for a year, that I would journal about each of these times on the birthday of that child. I already spoke about the Yes moment that I had with Kahlan, which began my motherhood journey. Today it is Kayanna's birthday, and the Yes experience I had with her had just as much of an impact on my life.

Around January of 2007, I was sitting on the third floor of the courthouse in the Child Protective Services waiting room. I currently had a placement of three children who we had foster parented for almost two years. It was a difficult time in the placement; we had been told a few months before that the social worker would be filing for termination of parental rights on the parents of our three foster children, but we weren't sure whether that would actually happen.

(I need to do an entire blog entry some night on my experiences as foster mother, but I just need to say here that my goal as a foster parent is always to help reunite children with their birthparents. I feel very strongly that no one should become a foster parent if adoption is his/her main goal. Foster parenting may lead to adoption, but that is the worst case scenario, as the best ending to a case is to successfully bring a family back together.)

As I sat looking through an old copy of Good Housekeeping, the door opened. A lady who I knew from my foster care parent training class came in with two little girls and a baby boy. One of the little girls smiled at me, and I returned the gesture. "What sweethearts, I thought, noticing how much the two girls looked alike.

"These are your daughters." It was not an audible voice, but a feeling. Not a question, but a calm knowledge that came from nowhere. Certainly it was not something that came from me, I knew that. After all, I had three birth children and was possibly adopting the three foster children who lived in my home.

"That's really weird," I remember thinking before shaking away the thought and continuing on with my magazine article.

Four months passed in a blur. The three children who I still love as if they were my flesh and blood ended up returning to their birthmom, and we accepted a case that involved a four year old girl (who I blogged about previously in the entry "Nursery Rhymes and Popsicle Sticks) and her baby sister. Life was definitely busy, but when I was asked to co-teach the course that trains people to become foster parents, I jumped at the opportunity.

Somewhere around the eighth session out of twelve, we have a birth parent come in and speak to the class. Our goal is to "debunk" the stereotypes and myths that the average person believes about birthparents. This first year, we had a mom come in who had recently been reunified with her three daughters. They had spent four months in foster care, but their mom had gotten her life back together and the girls had returned home to her. Imagine my surprise when that same lady I had seen in the waiting room came to sit next to her as the former foster mother!

"Wow," I thought, thinking of those two girls I had seen in the waiting room. "What a coincidence!"

"These are your daughters." There it was again! That calm, certain feeling that I had completely forgotten about. I remember feeling completely shocked and confused. I had never had this feeling about any other children who I didn't know, why would I have it about these same girls twice? I didn't even get to hear most of what the birthmom had to say as I battled the thought that I was probably going crazy. After all, these girls weren't even in foster care anymore! They were home! I determined to put the thoughts out of my head for good.

We had quite a few placements come and go over the next year. By the time January of 2008 rolled around, we had fostered 19 children, and I was unexpectedly pregnant. Since we were going to have the baby in April of that year, we let our foster care coordinator know that we would not be taking any more foster children until after the baby was born.

The phone rang one Friday night in early January. I answered quickly and was surprised to hear my coordinator on the other end of the line.

"I know this is really bad timing, what with the baby coming and all, and I know that you and Steve said that you didn't want to look at adoption until your birth children were teenagers, but...."

Uh oh.

"We have a sibling group that is currently placed in foster care and potentially is going to need an adoptive home," she finished.

I am not sure I even responded for a full minute or so. This was completely shocking to say the least.

"I was wondering if you would be willing to just do a few weekend respite sessions and see if you would be willing to pursue something permanent if the children can't return to their birthparents."

I remember asking some questions, like how old the children were, what their behavioral needs were, and asking some information about their current placement, but I really was only making conversation. After all, there was no way that we were going to adopt three children when we were about to give birth to our fourth! This was not in "Our Plan".

I ended up saying yes to one weekend respite session, mostly because my coordinator indicated that the foster parents really needed a break and that there wasn't another family available to help out on that particular weekend. "No harm in two days of work," I thought.

As the weekend loomed near, however, I started having second thoughts. The pregnancy was difficult on me, and I was tired and feeling sick. "Do I really want to do this?" I asked myself. I really didn't.

I picked up the phone to call my coordinator, when suddenly a strange feeling washed over me and I just knew that if I made that call, I would regret it. "All right, God," I prayed, "I'm listening. You know how crummy I feel, but it's Your call."

I placed the phone back in its cradle and started preparing myself for the task ahead. "It's only two days," I kept reminding myself.

Soon Friday dawned and it was time for the children to arrive. We anxiously watched out the window for the headlights to turn into our driveway.

Moments later I opened the door and stood stunned. There in front of me were the two girls I had seen a year before in the courthouse waiting room, along with their older sister. I had known that we would be watching three girls, and that they had been in foster care previously, but I hadn't for a moment thought that it would be these three girls who I thought had been safely reunited with their mom.

"I'm Kayanna," the oldest girl said, holding her coat for me to take.

"Hi, Kayanna," I responded, still shaken.

"These are your daughters," the feeling spread through me again, making so much more sense than before.

I managed to get them all tucked in bed before really sitting down to think through all the events that were now connected. I remember taking a moment to praise God that I had listened to Him instead of canceling the respite weekend.

He knew, even though I didn't even know at that time, that those three girls would be my children. He was there with me as Steve and I truly did everything we could to support the birthmother so that she could get her daughters back; He was with us when the girls suddenly needed a new foster home (that's another blog altogether); He was with us when we made the decision to move them into our home; He was with us as I testified in court and as the judge made the decision that the best thing for the girls was for them to be adopted.

He knew, way back in 2007, that on October 11th, 2009 Kayanna was going to turn eleven years old in our home. He knew that I would love her and her sisters as I love the children born from my body. He knew.

I can't bear to think of how different my life would be if I had said No instead of Yes. I am so grateful that I listened to Him.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

God is so good.