Emergency Placement

He came to me early in the morning. I usually sleep in on the weekend, but the needs of little ones have no sense of time. "They think he's about two or three," the social worker had said. "I'm on my way to the detention center now to pick him up."

I was still in my pajamas when they arrived. She carried him to the door wrapped in a blanket. "We don't know his name," she said. "He's in desperate need of a diaper change." She handed me a small package of diapers and a bottle. "This is all he has."

I took him and she left, promising to call later if she could get any information out of his mother, who was drying out in a holding cell. I'll call him Little Buddy for now, I thought. When I laid him on my bed and unwrapped the blanket to change him, I found his clothes were soaked with urine, and I was grateful, not for the first time, for the multiple totes full of every size and season of baby clothes from newborn to 24 months that we kept on hand for occasions just like this.

He cried, trembling from cold and shock, as I cleaned him up. His poor bottom was red and raw from diaper rash. I spoke softly, calmly, but his eyes were wild. I carefully dressed him in dry clothes, wrapped him back in his blanket, and sat with him on the couch. He leaned into me, desperate. Clinging. "It's going to be okay, Little Buddy," I said, over and over. "You're safe."

By the end of the day, we had learned his name and age, but knew nothing of what he'd been through or what would make him happy. What foods he liked. What his bedtime routine was. He only ate a few bites for dinner and tolerated standing in the tub but refused to sit down in the water. We set up the portable crib and I held him and rocked him while he drank a bottle of milk. I knew he was exhausted. I sang him a song. I hoped as long as he had his blanket, he would fall asleep in the crib.

He screamed when I laid him down. Louder when I shut the door. It's normal for a child his age to fuss at first, I thought. I'll let him cry for a couple minutes. The screaming quickly escalated, and I went back in the room to find he had thrown up in his distress. All over his pajamas. All over his blanket. I shouldn't have left him alone. I peeled the wet pajamas off while Andy changed the sheets, but my Little Buddy wouldn't give up his blanket. I wiped the vomit off as best I could and figured I would wash it in the morning. It reeked of puke, but I wasn't going to take away his one and only possession. His only connection to home.

Little Buddy stayed up until everyone else in the house was in bed except me. He could barely keep his eyes open. I knew I had to try to lay him down again, because he certainly couldn't sleep in bed with me. Co-sleeping is not allowed in foster care, for obvious reasons. I sang him another song and gently put him in the crib, slipping out of the room as quickly and quietly as I could. He screamed. Not the kind of scream that means a child is upset or trying to get his way. The kind that means a child is out of his head with desperation and fear. After raising a dozen or so babies, I can tell the difference, and I knew there was no point in trying to wait him out. I picked him up and kissed his cheeks, which were soaked from crying. "It's going to be okay, Little Buddy. You're safe."

We found ourselves once again cuddled on the couch. The house was quiet and dark. I knew it was going to be a long night, but I had done this before. He had not. In a short time, his body began to relax. He trusted me just enough. "Morning will come, Little Buddy," I said. "Morning always comes."

Eventually, he drifted off as I held him close, the smell of his vomit in my nostrils and the salt of his tears on my lips. And this is why we foster. We can't give every struggling mother the resources she needs to parent successfully. We can't control the laws or regulations that govern CPS. We don't have the ability to solve a problem as large as broken families. But Little Buddy needed a safe place for a short time, and we could give him that.

If grief was a child

 

If grief was a child, I'd find him standing

by my bed at night.

I'd sense him breathing, even

with my eyes shut good and tight.

He'd prod me softly and whisper "Mommy"

in the darkness, cold and black...

then climb in next to me and poke

his knees into my back.

 

If grief was a child, I'd hear his cry

in the quiet dawn of day,

and see his prints on the window, even though

I'd wiped them all away.

He'd slip on his shoes and wait by the door,

patiently tapping his feet,

then ride along to the bank and the store,

watching me from the back seat.

 

If grief was a child, I’d see his smile

on faces everywhere.

I’d look away and rub my eyes,

but he would still be there.

He'd leave his toys around the house,

knowing I can't scold him,

then reach for me to pick him up

as if I could still hold him.

Top 3 Misconceptions About Fostering Babies

We've been foster parents for almost a decade now, which is hard to believe. In that time, we've learned a lot. One thing we've learned is that a lot of people have a lot of misconceptions about foster care. About how it works and what it's for and what it looks like day to day.

I could write pages and pages about this, but since we primarily foster children aged two and under, I'm going to narrow it down to the top three misconceptions about fostering babies.

1) The baby has been abandoned.

I've heard it over and over. "How could anyone abandon this sweet, innocent baby?" "How could his parents give him up?" Well, they didn't. It is extremely rare for a child in foster care to be there due to abandonment. It does happen, but the vast majority of the time, the child is removed from parents who love him and want him back as soon as possible. The vast majority of the time, they are devastated to be separated from their baby and are taking steps toward reunification.

These parents did not just decide one day to leave their child on the steps of the CPS office or drop them off at daycare and never come back. Again, that does happen, but it's very, very rare. These are broken people, not monsters. Usually. The one dad who used his son's arms and legs to put out his cigarettes, however...

2) The baby is too young to remember.

I wish this was true. I really do. But anyone who's had any training in how trauma affects development knows that even if a baby has no concrete memory of being taken from their parent, their body remembers. I think what people really mean when they say, "At least he's too young to remember," is that they think he won't have any lingering effects. Won't struggle with behavioral or developmental issues. Won't be scarred for life.

Again, I wish that was true.

Kids and babies are resilient, sometimes almost miraculously so, but they never escape foster care unscathed. Even a baby who comes to me as a newborn, straight from the hospital, carries loss and grief with him. He also carries the effects of however his mother's life affected him in the womb, which--spoiler alert--we can assume was probably in a negative way if he had to be removed at birth. Whatever drugs, violence, neglect, or trauma occurred in the mother's life during pregnancy...guess what? He carries that with him to my house. The 8-month-old whose grandmother hit his head against the hardwood floor whenever he cried...guess what? He freaked out whenever I tried to put him down on the floor.

He may not "remember" everything that happened to him. But he does.

3) A baby is easier to foster than an older child.

Different? Yes. Easier? No. All kids who have the misfortune of ending up in foster care have challenges to overcome, regardless of their age, and caring for them is always going to be challenging. But the challenges tend to be different depending on the age.

For example, one of the hardest parts for all ages is parent visits. Let's say the child visits their parents for two hours twice a week (Or whatever schedule the state decides. The foster parent has no say in it.). If it's an older child, he has to deal with sorting through his feelings, wondering why the parents haven't gotten him back yet. Disappointment or anger if the parent doesn't show up. Confusion if a parent says something that is different than what other people are telling him. The child has to sort through all that.

A baby, on the other hand, will never know if a visit is cancelled last minute. But they also are not able to understand why they keep going back and forth. You can't explain it to them. And if he's a 13-month-old who doesn't want to go to the visit, and he clings to you when you try to drop him off and he screams "No! No!" but you leave him there anyway...you can't explain to him that the visits are required by law and that you're sorry. So very sorry.

In fact, you can't explain anything to a baby, and they can't explain to you why they wake up three times a night but won't take a bottle or what their nightmares are about when they scream in panic. Sometimes, I wonder if fostering babies is actually harder than older children because when an older child leaves to return to their parent or another family member, you can say, "I'll miss you, I'll never forget you, here's a photo book I made for you, here's my phone number if you ever need anything, I will always be here for you." But when a baby leaves, you can only hope and pray he won't feel betrayed and that his family won't throw the photo book in the trash.

So no, a baby isn't easier to foster than an older child. There is no easy in foster care, no winners, and perhaps that is the biggest misconception of all.

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