The answering machine said “4.” Four messages. Nobody ever calls, how did that happen? Must have been a wrong number. Fearing a family member was sick, or worse, I was about to press ‘play’ when the phone rang.
“Hi, this is Dee. We have a placement and wanted to talk with you about it. It’s a little boy, three months old, and he needs somewhere to go tonite.”
I suppose I’d better back up a little. The year before, my wife and I went through the certification process to become foster parents. We went to class, we were interviewed, fingerprinted, inspected, detected. All was in order, but up to now we had never been called on. Up to now.
“I tried to call you at work, but you had already left, and I left some messages on your machine at home.”
As part of our preparation, in our many interviews, we had to specify what kind of children we thought we could care for best. Since we both work, we thought school age children would do best in our home. We had no kids of our own, but felt we made damn fine babysitters. We had set up a room for them already, two twin beds (my wife sewed matching quilts along with a friend). We had a few kid toys - legos, lincoln logs.
“How old did you say he was?”
“He’s three months. He was removed from his home, and he needs a place tonite. It’s getting late. He seems to be happy and healthy.”
I looked at my watch, it was almost 6:30. My wife would be home from work soon. What would she think?
“Umm…,” I tried to think on my feet. “Do you know anything about the case?”
“Well, they have a family member, the fathers sister, I think, and they want to take him but we have to do a background check first. He’d probably be with you for a week.”
Well, that changed everything. It was almost Spring Break, my wife was a graduate student and would have the week off. We could do this. And just as I was thinking that, my wife walked in the front door.
“Can I call you right back? We need to talk for a minute.”
Dee said fine and gave me a number to reach her. It only took a moment for us to agree - sure! It’d be fun. We could get our first taste of fostering and it would be conveniently at a time where she didn’t have to work.
We called, said we’d be happy to do it. “Okay, we’ll be there in a couple of hours.”
I hung up the phone. Shit! What had I just said? We had to think fast.
My wife called some friends. They were expecting, but not for about four months. They cheerfully offered their crib for the week and said they could bring it over right away. Turns out they also brought some baby clothes and toys, too.
By 9:00 the doorbell rang, and moments later I was holding a tiny baby in my arms. He looked me in the eye, drew a breath, and screamed.
“Look, he likes you! Sign here…” said the worker. They had stopped at Wal-Mart on their way to the house, so the little guy had a change of clothes, some diapers, a pacifier, and some formula. They loaned us a car seat (”we’ll need this back, but you can keep it for now.”) We had just finished building the crib, after moving our computer desk and some boxes (still packed from our move two years before) around in our office.
A few minutes later, we were alone with the baby. He calmed down as soon as my wife held him, and after all the adventures he had during the day, was soon asleep. We laid him in the crib. (”Is it ‘back to sleep’?”) and started planning our next few days. At that moment, we had no idea how flexible we had to be.
The next day, my bride brought him to my work. As soon as he spotted me he laughed and smiled - which was, of course, much better than the night before. Perhaps it’s because I was up three times overnight feeding or changing him. I’ll never know. That weekend we drove to my parents house, and to see friends. Showing him off, like a new car or an engagement ring.
By the middle of the following week it was clear he was not going to live with his aunt. “Well, that didn’t work out, but there are other relatives that might be interested. But it looks like he’ll be with you for a while, maybe another couple weeks.”
Panic, again. E had to be back at school the following Monday, so we needed to find a sitter. The very first person she interviewed was perfect for the job. “We don’t know how long he’ll be with us” “That’s okay, he’s welcome here. You don’t need a long term contract or anything.” A relative mailed us a care package, boys clothes their son had outgrown. We found another car seat, so we’d have one in each car.
Over the coming weeks, and months, relative after relative didn’t work out. His mom left town - left the state. His dad had remarried and his new wife didn’t want anything to do with the baby.
Two months before his second birthday, we adopted him. And two weeks ago he began 1st Grade. We finally had our “school age” child.
