"Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so."

I've waited all my life to be a real mom. I've wanted to be the comfortable safe person I remember my Poppa being... once-upon a time.

• I've got some questions for God: 
• Is it okay for babies to be born exposed to harmful drugs? 
• To people who never wanted or cared for them, even in the womb? 
• Did god say it was okay to molest children? 
• To beat them? 
• To deprive them of love and affection?
• To neglect them? 

When I walk through a store with my foster daughter and foster baby boy, everyone stops and assumes these are my kids. They even look a bit like me, as all of us have dark hair. Some people start asking questions about my pregnancy, when the baby was born and so on. When it gets to this point, I can't lie and pretend, because these children aren't mine. I mention I'm a foster mother as I'm cornered with the baby birth questions. Say I can't take credit for my babies great hair - and joke what an easy pregnancy I had. 

Then come the baby questions:

"Where is his mother?"

"Why is he in foster care?"

"What happened?"

I can't answer that, life happens, things happen.

"But… how did you get him? Will you keep him? Do you want to keep him?"

Yes, I'd love to keep him, but the situation is complicated. 

"That's not fair - You've had him for so long."

Yep... not fair. But, I'm a foster parent, this is my job.

"Why is he in foster care, what happened to his mother and father?"

Again, not a question I can answer.

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I'm getting ready to loose it. Hormonal I guess or verging on an emotional breakdown. I keep shouting to myself in my head - Get over it…. this is something you wanted to do. You knew what foster care was. You knew what you were getting yourself into. 

In the last few weeks baby peanut has learned to crawl all over the house. Each day he learns some new skill. He seeks me out whatever room I'm in, finding me without difficulty. When he does find me, he tugs at my dress/skirt/pants, whatever he can reach. He will pull off my sandals when I'm sitting down at a chair or at the sofa. He has started to babble a word that 99% resembles the word "mommy" or "mom". He even now responds to his name. 

But here we are tonight - I was laying on the floor with baby peanut who is now just over six months old. We were playing with his toys, changing his focus, trying to wear him out. He was tired but just wanted to keep going, playing, climbing on me like I was a jungle gym. I picked him up and danced with him around the room to some classical music. He puts his head on my shoulder while I take the lead, twirling him around the room, dipping him and spinning him. He laughs at me and grabs on harder, taking it all in. We do the two step, then we lead into a waltz. Later after playing, we lay on the sofa together. I was talking to him about what parts of his body were most ticklish. I poked him gently in different spots, trying to pin down magic locations, each time he lets out tremendous belly laughs that make me laugh too, which makes him laugh even harder.

All of a sudden an image pops into my mind - What life would be like without THIS baby as our son. 

Tears started streaming down my face. I had a flashback to me as a little girl, in my pajamas, climbing onto my Poppa's lap so he could read me a story.

I heard his voice in my mind. 

I could remember the smell of the air in my grandparents house. 

I remembered the texture of his chair and stroking the fabric. 

Where my Poppa picked up the book he was preparing to read to me. 

How he used the remote to turn off the T.V.

The precision of how he took off his glasses.

I remembered my grandmother across the room in her rocking chair, knitting.

I could hear the sound of their dishwasher in the kitchen working. 

I saw in my mind the painting of trilliums on the wall next to Poppa's chair and the framed poppy needlepoint next to the painting.

My heart jumped then ached. I suddenly was thinking with my grandfather gone, I may never get the chance to have a memory like that with baby peanut. A beautiful, pure memory of him talking, walking, bringing me a book to read him... Some unfulfilled future memory of knowing I was his mommy.

It's painful to think that the dancing will stop - the laughter will stop. He will no longer know who I am.

To be honest, it is really very easy after all to love someone else's children like they were your own. The hard part is, letting them go. Tonight most of all, I miss being a little girl and the feeling of being loved and safe in the arms of my Poppa. I know baby peanut feels my love for him and it breaks my heart that it's not permanent.

I used to hope it would be that way for us. But it is not going to be that easy.

"I'm glad mom can't have a baby"

Tonight, that comment left me with a bit of whiplash. Made me very angry despondent to here our long time foster daughter utter such an insensitive remark.


I had some responses to see if she understood what a comment like that, how a comment like that, could deeply hurt someone inside. Words stick I told her, and once they are said, it is hard to take them back. All week I've been saying treat others as you would want to be treated. This was not one of these moments. I'm very sensitive about the subject of my infertility, and when someone this naive about the subject says something rather cruel in passing, it really makes my blood boil.


1) How would you feel inside, if I told you, I wished you were never born? Would that be a hurtful thing to say to you?


2) When your foster father comes home, tell him that you are happy that his wife is defective and cannot have babies - see what he says. If you think it is okay to tell me that, then it should be okay to tell him.


3) Do you really think, with my background, with my family struggles, that even if I could have my own children, I wouldn't do foster care and take other young people into our lives? Clearly I'm not in this for the loving words and gestures shown to my family. I'm more in it for the rehabilitation of broken little souls. Remarks like this are hurtful ➜ upsetting ➜ extremely ➜ unpleasant. Learn some manners and put a filter on your mouth!!

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I'm reminded of a time when I said to my mother, about a guy she had been dating for many years whom I liked, that I thought she only wanted to marry him for his money. She left the room and didn't speak to me for an entire weekend. I was forbidden to go to the homecoming fair with my friends. I was left to cry in my room for the next 50 hours, with nobody to talk to. My mother went to bed and didn't get up for several days after my remark. What I said hurt, but she had no fight in her to defend my comment. Clearly I struck a nerve with her also. 

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If I'm wrong to bombard my foster child with questions directed towards empathy and compassion for others, how will she ever learn the concept? If I can turn an off putting remark into something that will enlighten her feelings, maybe she might open her eyes on occasion and think about how she makes others feel with her words. I never want to end up in a situation they way my mother treated me - she couldn't even tell me what I said was wrong, or why it upset her.


Putting someone's needs or feelings before your own seems hard to grasp in this house with the older children who stay with us. The 3 year old twins I babysit, thoughtfully do it each day for one another though. I'm hopeful that the young ones can inspire the older children to be better people.  Each day is a challenge and I thought it might be easier, but it is not going to be that easy.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” C. S. Lewis