Ok, so I said this baby would be our last child. I was ready to give up our foster care license and move on to another phase in our lives. But how was I supposed to know that protective service was going to call tonight with one of those calls that you just can’t say “No” to. Had it been a stranger, just entering foster care for the first time, with unknown length of placement, I could have said, “No.” Really, I had my mind made up about it, ten children are definitely enough. But that isn’t what the call was about.

The call went something like this, “Hi Julia, remember the little toddler you had in your home for almost a year, that went back home eighteen months ago? Do you have any openings in your home for another child? The police have your former foster child in their custody right now, and we’re looking for a placement. As if they don’t know how many children I have at home. The only reason we still have a foster care license is because of the seventeen year old foster child that has been in our home a total of sixteen months so far that we are helping transition to independent living. Or, did God put her here to keep our license open for another reason?

It all started about 14 years ago when we had three birth sons and I really wanted a little girl. For some reason we decided we would try to get our little girl through foster care. I don’t know why we didn’t look at private adoption then. I guess maybe we thought it was too expensive. Well one of the first placements child protective service offered me was a newborn baby boy. So, of course, I said, “Yes!” My husband couldn’t believe I had said yes, frankly, neither could I. He reminded me that we got into this to get a little girl. Five years later his birth mom had another baby boy and of course I said, “Yes!” After all, they were siblings and the first one was such a great kid.

In between adopting the two brothers we fostered many children, including quite a few little girls. We ended up adopting three girls at the ages of six, nine and fifteen. For one reason or another we never got to keep any of the baby or toddler girls so we just kept on fostering and trying for fourteen years. That’s when we finally decided to try a private, domestic, interracial adoption which we just finalized last week by the way. For the first time in fourteen years I was actually telling people that we were done. My husband has been saying it for a few years. Grin.

Well, what was I suppose to say to such a call? Could I really consider turning my back on a child that I’ve loved and considered part of my family for over two years? It would almost be like saying no to taking in your own grandchild or niece. You’ve probably already guessed that I said, “Yes!” Then I had to make the call. “Honey, I’ve got something to tell you.”