After our emergency placement on the eve of my son’s high school graduation in May 2022, we jumped onto something akin to an intense amusement park ride, where someone had forgotten to post the age and height restrictions. We literally took each day hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute. Our 15-month-old foster son had been drug-exposed, and also suffered a lot of trauma for his little age. He was also full boy, with big curiosity, acting-before-thinking behavior, and was physically and mentally super busy! I felt so grateful that I had raised two boys, or I would have thought I was in some third dimension of reality.
We quickly fell in love with this tiny bundle of energy and chaos. He made us belly laugh, and I chased him more than I did my own two when they were little. When he slowed down, it was to read books. He really loved books. To have him cuddle up in my lap and listen to a book over and over was sheer joy and complete warmth.
It was the 4th of July weekend, and I was home from work on a Friday afternoon when our agency caseworker called me. She said, “Debbie, we have a little newborn baby who is looking like he may need a permanent home. I know you said you only want one foster, but this little guy could be a possible adoption in the future. He is in a foster home right now, but they aren’t open for adoption.”
My breath sucked into my chest, and I felt almost dizzy. My immediate reaction was “No! We can’t handle a tiny baby with our foster son!” Yet I also felt like that was an answer without God. I knew I needed to talk to my husband, and we needed to pray about this.
Later that evening, we sat down and talked. We both were scared, but we also both felt drawn to meet this little one. Over the weekend, our prayer was for openness to God’s plan for this baby. The following Monday, I called our caseworker and told her that we were interested in meeting the baby. She promptly said she would contact the foster family who had him and let us know. The following weekend, we visited the foster family’s home where he was staying, and she immediately asked me if I would like to hold him. Though he was 6 weeks old, he was very tiny. He was much smaller than my biological boys were at birth! When I held him, I felt my heart tug deeply, and I knew we needed to say “Yes” to being his family.
Baby Mylo joined our family the morning after we returned from a mini vacation with my husband’s family, just a week later. He had trouble swallowing and drinking from a bottle, and it took nearly an hour to feed him. While our little toddler foster son ran all over the house in loud little boy decibels, Mylo was unfazed and often slept right through the noise.
As Mylo grew bigger and stronger, he watched everything his foster brother was doing. Though Mylo was developmentally delayed and needed ECI (early childhood intervention), he started to tick off milestones faster than I could have imagined. When he was on the floor, he desperately wanted to move and rock and eventually crawl, because he wanted to keep up with his foster brother.
We came to realize that Mylo needed our other foster son to move past his delays and grow into his full potential. Of course, they always say God’s timing is perfect. And it is. But it requires much trust and leaning in. Just three weeks before our foster son was reunified with his biological Dad, we adopted Mylo. They got to spend a full year together as brothers, and they were essential in one another’s lives.
In fact, we later realized that Mylo was born 2 days after we received the emergency placement of our foster son. Had our caseworker called us back then, we would surely have said a big NO to taking him. We were so overwhelmed with our toddler, and so sleep-deprived, that we couldn’t say yes to much of anything in those first few weeks. The family who initially took Mylo was one who frequently took in babies, particularly those who had been in NICU and needed someone to room-in the hospital a night or two with the baby before they could be released. None of that was something I would have been able to do. However, our amazing, wise, loving God knew that 6 weeks later, if we received the call about Mylo, our hearts would be ready to consider it, and 8 weeks after our emergency placement, we would be ready to open our home to him.
Mylo still loves his former foster brother. They still see one another and have playdates on occasion. Mylo thinks he is about the coolest little boy in the world. And we couldn’t be more thrilled to have a relationship with both him and his Dad. We share life updates with him, and we pray for each other. God is so so good. Trust His timing. He sees what we cannot, and His plan is often that which we cannot even begin to imagine.
Debbie and her husband Justin have been married for 5 years. Debbie has two adult sons, and together she and Justin have fostered three children and adopted one. Both Debbie and her husband work for the Church. Debbie has worked in Campus Ministry for 24 years, and loves every minute of it! She thinks college students are some of the coolest people in the world! And they make great babysitters!
