Background - Part 1

I grew up in a small town, one of 5 children, father teacher / pastor and mother stay at home / artist
I was the middle child.
I remember at about aged 9 I carried a family friends baby around for 2 days while they visited and was told I'd be a great mum.

I loved helping at kids holiday camps as a teenager and came in contact with lots of foster kids while I was there - their stories broke my heart and I found myself thinking I'd not have my own children, but instead love foster kids....

When my husband and I decided to marry (me 19 & him 21) we agreed that we would not have children.


Fast forward to my late 20's and the "have a baby" hormones were raging...
And my husband, bless him, after prayerful consideration agreed that we would start a family

Wow! what a turn around, for the man I loved to change his mind, it was huge! 
I'd spent 10 years telling people we wouldn't have children and wouldn't change our minds, only to be told "You'll change..." and we did...


So July 2007 we started trying to have a baby... excited and scared!

The years rolled on and in January 2009 I stopped work, burnt out from a work, church commitments, family drama's and trying to get pregnant.
We were both tested - unexplained infertility was the diagnoses - nothing to fix - "try IVF" we were advised, but in my fragile state of mental health we felt the hormone treatments would just unbalance me more and what if it didn't work?  I'm not sure I could have dealt with that...

So we waited... not patiently, I questioned God. "Why have we not been blessed with a child? Have I been so bad? What's going on?!?!"



In Jan 2010 we made a trip to Cambodia with our church, walked the slums, played with children, gave what help we could, though in all honesty I gained more from them than I could ever have given.

Perspective!

I left home thinking "Our front door is filthy and needs a paint" and as I walked in our front door coming home my thought was "wow, our front door is clean"
Nothing had changed except my perspective!

We had also come in contact with many orphaned children - there are so many children in this world that need someone to love them!

This started and investigation into adoption -  a 3-5 year wait after submitting all the paperwork and before paperwork could be submitted we had to attend and information night; the next one was scheduled for 10 months away!! 
I was so depressed - being a doer "I can fix it" kind of person, the 10 months seemed like a huge waste of time!  What was I supposed to do between now and then?  There was nothing I could do, but wait...


It was then (Jan 2010) that my thinking changed from "What's going on?" and "I need to fix it" to statements of faith!
"God is going to build my family, I don't know how He's going to do it, or what it will look like, but He is going to do it"

Surrender!

The first time I said this out loud at my kitchen sink it felt like a lie - though I knew it to be truth - I said it again, out loud, calling my feelings to come in line with what I knew/ know to be truth.
Doubt came "really?" it said
"Yes, He will! God is good, He is trustworthy, He is faithful, He has a good plan for my life!"
(Jer 29:11)
Over the next 2 months this statement of faith became my greatest strength, as friends and family announced pregnancies and my closest sister gave birth to her first daughter, and I was able to rejoice with them, instead of giving in to grief of not having my own.

Each time a thought of "why God?" or "what's going on?" came into my head, and I responded with my statement of faith, the why's became lesser, my feelings caught up and yes, I believed my faith statement, I had hope again!  What a beautiful God?!  As I declared who He is over my situation I was becoming whole again.  He led me into the peaceful place of surrendering to His plans, better than I could hope for or imagine.
(Eph 3:20)


I had a realisation, or was it a word from God?  Yes, I'm sure He stirred my heart in this direction. 
There are just has many children in Australia that needed to be loved as in Cambodia, but in Australia those kids are in the foster care system.

I'd previously mentioned foster care to my husband but he was not at all keen... "I don't think I could give them back" he said to me.

But when I approached him with my realisation and asked that we at least go to an information night about fostering he said yes.
Within a week or two we were at an information night (late March 2010)

A step of faith!

While we were listening to the information about becoming foster parents I received a SMS from my sister-in-law (my husbands sister) "Are you serious about adoption?"
I replied "Yes"

We finished the meeting and got into our car... "so what do you think?" I asked.
"I think we should do it" my husband responded
There in the car park I cried and we prayed asking God to help us and to shut the door if this was not the path for us.
I then checked my mobile phone and there was another message from my sister-in-law "OK, I need to come and see you then"


I was pretty curious as my sister-in-law arrived at our house the next morning.
What did she need to see us about?  Was she pregnant?  She was single and working in the sex industry...
She sat down and said "Firstly, I'm not pregnant!"  Ok, so that was off the table. What was going on?
"But my flatmate is, she told me yesterday that she is pregnant but is not going to keep the baby, she's going to adopt it out."
And??
"And I told her you were going to adopt and would she consider adopting her baby to you? She said yes."
What!!
"She has a son with an intellectual disability and she can't have a baby and look after her son."

It was a surreal! 
To me it seemed like God had been waiting for us to be in a position to receive the amazing gift He had for us, because 8 hours after we agreed and prayed together about loving other peoples children here was God handing us a baby!

My first response was "You know that this girl will be a part of our lives forever? At birthdays and Christmases?  She's not just going to have a baby and disappear!  She will be family!"

I was so confused and excited I rang the foster care agency and asked if I could drop in to see them later that day - they said yes.
I've no idea what they thought as I told them our story (as I have written above) but I wanted to find out if there were in anyway doing something illegal?  Or if we'd be jeopardising our chances of becoming foster parents if we pursued this opportunity to become parents and it didn't happen?!
I told them we were going to complete our foster care training regardless.
The beautiful women there were so wonderful, they are the ones who gave us the name "tummy mummy" they also explained about the term "informal kinship care" and what it means.
They gave us the assurance that we were not going to jeopardise anything but that they would available to give any advice they could. 
Peace, transparency, hope.


We completed the foster care training.  It was so valuable! 
We didn't want to put any pressure on tummy mummy (TM) to give her child away so we prepared a baby room and decided that we'd be ready to foster if TM changed her mind - all good.

We had learnt in foster care training that it's important for kids in care to know their birth families, where they come from, so when they become teenager they don't have a need to search or "go off the rails" because they feel disconnected or don't know who they are.
We started having family dinners every week or so and taking her older kids to Youth group at church.  We were getting to know the people who would become our family.

Tummy Mummy (TM) was about 4 1/2 months pregnant, we met her and her children, I invited her to the Easter service at church, and she came.  When I dropped her home I asked "So is there anything you want to know about us?" "No, not really, if I have any questions I'll ask" TM said.
We swapped mobile numbers and chatted that way for a week or two.


Girl or boy?

TM went for a scan, she said "It won't be a girl, God wouldn't give me a girl." OK, no problem.
When she arrived with my sister-in-law after her scan she excitedly told me "Well, you're having a girl!"  I replied with a smile "I thought you said, God wouldn't give you a girl?"
She smiled too "Well He's not giving me a girl, is He? He's giving you a girl!"

Wow! This was what most of our conversations were like for her whole pregnancy - me speaking as if she would be taking the baby home (and telling her she could change her mind and we'd still love her and be a part of her life) and TM talking like this baby was always destined to be ours (stating she would not change her mind).




I'm going to leave the story here for now.... there will be more...