Baby Girl: The First Few Weeks

On January 2nd, I got an email that our foster license had finally been approved. All of the paperwork, training, waiting, and home visits had all led up to that one glorious email.

Brian and I were so excited, and I hoped it wouldn't be too long before we received our first little one. I figured it would take at least a week for our contact information to get to the placement desk and after-hours, so we went about our merry way.

On the morning of January 3rd, I got THE call. "Want a baby girl?" asked the placement coordinator. Um. YES. 

I was so excited...I called my mom (she needed to know she was going to be a grandma, although she isn't really into being called "grandma" yet) and got out all the clothes in the dresser I thought would fit her. At 5pm that evening, our first little one showed up at our door. Social workers are kind of like storks which is fun...they just show up with kids :) 

Baby girl was nervous and unsure of what was going on. When I took her out of her carseat, she gave me the slightest smile, and I hoped it was a sign of good things to come.

Fast-forward to 3am, at which time the baby had slept for about 30 minutes total. Yawn. She was not a happy girl. She cried when I held her, when I tried to feed her, when I bounced her, or tried to play with her. I was lost and exhausted. 

Honestly, for the first few days (and nights. Oh, the long nights) I doubted my ability to be a foster mama. I thought that maybe I was not cut out for this. I figured baby girl was trying to say "YOU SUCK." and I felt like a failure. I just wanted to make her happy and know we were going to take good care of her.

Week two was even rougher. I was back in school but daycare had not started yet, so I was driving 30-45 minutes each day to take her to my mom (who deserves a medal for saving my sanity). I was still sleeping very little, getting behind on my reading, and not feeling like I was making my baby girl feel happy. I broke down more than once, but my amazing husband was always there to build me back up.

You know the saying "It's always darkest before the dawn"? It's so true. I finally heard last week from the daycare center that she could start the coming Monday, which was a huge stress reliever. My foster daughter also began a transformation. She lit up when Brian or I entered the room. She was learning to roll around and started to love playing on the floor (read: she didn't need me to hold her 24/7 haha). She was secure and felt safe, flirting with strangers but holding onto my arm for comfort. I feel like she's saying, "You're okay, but this here...this is my mom. Don't take me from her." 

She began to feel like ours because to her, Brian and I began to feel like hers.

As challenging as the first couple of weeks were, waiting for her to learn to trust us was beyond worth it. Knowing how much our relationship with baby girl has grown makes where we are now even more sweet. I'm not going to pretend it's easy as pie now to be a foster mama. There are still (many) sleepless nights and bouts of crying that seem to go on forever. There are enough moments now, though, that reaffirm our decision to care for orphans and encourage us as foster parents. We're learning to love this new crazy life :)