Our Newest Charge

We've been the foster parents of this baby girl for two weeks now. Well, we're technically her foster parents, but we haven't actually brought her home yet because she's been in the NICU. I can't say very much about her here, but I can say that she's really cute. And she's very awake and aware of her surroundings, alarmingly so for a such a young baby.


We've gotten a lot more experience navigating the world of foster care. We have learned to be very loose and laid back about our plans. We are normally such planners that we like to prepare as much as we can when we know something is going to happen. Well, when you do that with foster care, it often backfires because things can change so quickly. With this little one, we thought she was going to come home the next day after getting the call for her. So we made plans and preparations for a newborn to come home within 24 hours. We cancelled some things and shifted other things. I cleaned a lot of things (what is it about babies that makes women want to clean things?). Then plans changed and then we thought she'd come home the next day. Then plans changed yet again, and we found out we weren't going to get her for at least another two weeks. Lesson learned: Don't make plans, because they'll most likely change anyway.


We've been doing our best to visit this little one while she's in the NICU. She's in a hospital forty minutes away, which makes visiting difficult, especially with kids and a working husband. But we're doing the best we can, thanks to generous family and friends who have offered to watch our boys while we (and sometimes just I) make the trek up to the hospital. We're all looking forward to her coming to live with us soon.