Before we even got married we had a brief, casual conversation about adoption. I asked my (future) husband, “So, if we can’t have kids do you want to adopt?” Brad said, “Yes”. We were always really open to the idea. I always wanted to be a mom and I didn’t really care how I became one.
14 months into our marriage I started on fertility medication hoping that would help me get pregnant. 19 months in I talked to my cousin about struggling to have kids, she mentioned to me that one of her neighbors had adopted their kids through foster care. I didn’t think too much about it. 1 week later we were traveling with my in-laws. We had given them a CD for Christmas, so we attempted to listen to that, but it wasn’t working. We listened to the radio instead. I tried to sleep, after all it was around 7 am, but could not sleep. Then... an ad come on the radio for the Utah Foster Care. I had never heard a radio ad for them before and I knew that was my sign that we were supposed to do foster care, eventually. 9 months after that, still never have gotten pregnant, I decided it was time to pursue foster care!
We filled out all the paper work, took the classes, awaited our background checks to clear, I even quit my job so I could be at home with the kids. Finally everything went through and we were approved to do foster care. After getting approved we went to the store to get some groceries. It had been only 15 minutes and my phone rang. I joked with my husband that it was a call about a placement. It was! Yes, only 15 minutes and we had our first little one! It took a few days to get him though.
We had been married less than 3 years, but it felt like so much longer that we had been trying for a baby. I was so hopeful that our first little guy would be ours forever. The second I saw him, I knew he wasn’t meant to be mine. I still loved him so much. He was my first little baby. 3 months after we got him he went to a family member who adopted him.
3 months later we got our second placement, a sibling group of 2 little ones. I also knew that we were not meant to adopt them. 3 months later they went to a family member who adopted them.
After doing foster care for just 9 months I felt like foster care was not for us. We decided to close our file and pursue private adoption.
14 months later, still no kids. One crazy night my friend said to me, “We should do foster care again!” I meet my fiend in our foster care training classes. It took a little convincing, but my husband agreed to re-open our file. We had to start from scratch, re-do our paper, background check and re-take some classes. 8 months later we were approved to do foster care again. Finally, 6 months later we got a call about a baby girl. They didn’t know much other than she was about 1 month old. A few days later we found out that the birth mom had fled the state with the baby so that DCFS wouldn’t take her. It was the longest wait of my life, and yet I felt so patient about it. I knew that when our baby was meant to come to us they would and I didn’t need to rush it.
5 weeks after that we got another call about a 4 month old baby girl. 45 minutes later she arrived at our home. My husband was at work when she arrived. He had never really attached with any of our previous foster kids. He walked in the door from work, saw her in my arms and said, “Awww. I want to hold her!” We were both completely in love with that baby girl. We felt that she was meant to be ours, but we didn’t want to get our hopes up too high. 2 months later her birth mom decided she wanted to place her for adoption and she wanted us to adopt her! 10 days before her first birthday we finalized Emma’s adoption.
A few months later I was talking to Emma’s birth mom, Samantha, and she told me that a month before we got Emma she moved to Nevada with her so that DCFS wouldn’t take her. I had never told Samantha about the call we got before we got Emma. I asked more details about when it happened and figured out that Emma was the same baby girl we were called about 5 weeks before we got her!
11 months after we got Emma, we re-opened our foster care file for more placements. 3 months later we got a little baby boy placed in our home. Once again, we knew he wasn’t going to be ours. He left 3 weeks later to a family member.
7 months later we got a little boy placed in our home. We knew right away we weren’t meant to adopt him. 1 month later he left to go to another foster family.
About 6 weeks later we got a phone call from my husband’s co-worker asking if his (the co-workers) friend could request her son be placed in our home. We knew nothing other than it was a boy, but told him yes. We later found out that he was 11 months old. We didn’t know his name, we had never met him before or had even seen what he looked like, but we knew that he was meant to be in our home. Utah Foster Care decided that we were not the right fit for this little boy and placed him in a different home. We were crushed, we knew that he was meant to be in our home. A few days later, much to our surprise, we were once again asked if we wanted him. YES! Later that afternoon we went and picked him up. We were told that his birthday had been the day before. I looked through his paperwork and discovered it was actually 10 days away, and he had the same birth date as my mom. I knew that was my sign that we would adopt him. 4 months later his birth mom decided to place him for adoption and asked us to adopt him. We finalized Brax’s adoption 8 ½ months after getting him.
We had numerous other calls about placements throughout the years. Sometimes we said yes to a placement, but ended up not getting them. A few times we said no to a placement because we knew they were not meant to be placed in our home.
On our 6th anniversary we still have no children. By our 9th anniversary we had 2. I always wanted 7 children and we had 7 foster kids placed in our home. My husband only wanted 2 or 3 kids and 2 it is! We have completed our little family.
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