{I want to say that I know foster care is not for everyone and not for every season. Right now, we feel very sure that this is what we are meant to be doing but it may not always be this way. There is nothing special about us, we get frustrated and worn down. We feel a little lost in this from time to time and wonder if we are doing the right thing for our family. But, I feel pretty confident that you don't have to have all the answers or be the perfect parent to foster a child. }



There is a 5 week old baby boy asleep on my chest as I type this.

He's my baby but he's not really my baby. I have maybe just a few weeks left to call him mine. There really are no words to describe what it feels like to fall in love with a baby knowing they won't be yours to love for long.

As I am rocking him to sleep, I look down and wonder how many more nights I will have this time with him. As I am pacing the floors at 2 am while he cries in my arms, I am thinking about who will be there to do the same in a few weeks. As I am passing the baby clothes at the store, I am wondering what it would be like to pick out clothes he would wear for the next season.

Sometimes, I just don't let my mind go to these places. I use all my energy to focus on just today.  I push those thoughts of what will the next few weeks may bring away again.

But it comes up again and again and eventually I am walking around Target with a sweet baby strapped to me, trying not to cry in the diaper aisle.

The most common thing people say to us when they learn we foster is something like "I don't know how you do it, I could never give them back."

I don't know how we do it either.

I don't know how we say goodbye to a baby who has only ever known us as his family. I don't know how we explain to our kids that, once again, this baby will be going to live with his forever family.  I don't know how we unbuckle the infant seat from the van and close the door to the nursery one last time. I don't know how we do it.

But we do it.

Because when we walked into that NICU to see this baby boy laying in his bed, with no one to hold him or even name him, all of that wondering how we would do it...just didn't matter anymore.

All we knew was that we could do it. Somehow, we could do it because he was worth it.

It was a privilege when I changed him from his hospital shirt into the outfit I had picked out for him before we left the NICU that afternoon.

It was a privilege to give him his first bath.

It was a privilege to take him to church for the first time.

It was a privilege to spend hours of sleepless nights with him on my chest, pacing the floors while we figured out what he needed to feel comfortable at 2 am.

It was hard, it was exhausting, it was heart breaking and it was a privilege.

I don't know how we do it but I keep praying for the strength to keep doing it just one more time.