May is National Foster Care Awareness Month. In the 23 counties of the Columbus diocese, 7,097 children are in foster care and 655 await adoption. These children desperately need loving foster families who will show them the love of God. 

Ask God if He might be calling you to foster. If you cannot foster, you can support a foster family, do a service project or choose from the “10 Ways to Support Vulnerable Children in Foster Care”  (see chart). 

Together we can build a culture of fostering and adoption in Catholic parishes.

When Laura and her husband, Kyle, speak about the way their family has grown, they echo a sentiment I hear from many foster and adoptive families: “Our hearts are always capable of expanding to love more.” 

The shape their beautiful Catholic family has taken is different from what they anticipated when they first married. It was formed through longing, loss, trust and more love than they thought possible. 

Laura and Kyle always desired a big family and explained that in the early years of their marriage, they sadly lost six children to miscarriage. Grieving those losses was an intense process, and in that process they began to realize: “We had space in our hearts and home and deeply desired to parent children who needed us. We thought that since God had been teaching us how to say goodbye, perhaps He was calling us to become foster parents.” 

Laura and Kyle took the requisite foster classes, got certified as foster parents and welcomed two children, an 8-month-old and a 2-year-old, into their home in a foster-to-adopt placement. 

There is a high likelihood in foster-to-adopt placements that the state will receive permanent custody of children who will then be eligible to be adopted. The foster care agency creates a plan for birth parents to ensure they can eventually provide a healthy and stable environment for their children. If the birth parents follow the plan, their children can return home. Part of the plan includes weekly or biweekly visits with the children. 

“Because we were hoping to adopt, I had a hard time initially with these visits,” Laura said. “It was humbling for me to drop the children off with their birth mother when I felt like I was their mother. I wanted to be their mom.” 

Laura explained how difficult and confusing it was for the children and also for her, but as time went on, she saw how hard the biological mother was working to get her children back, which made her realize how much their mother loved them. 

“I began to see the value in family preservation when reunification truly could be in the best interests of the children.”

As the visits continued, Laura met the birth mother, and they began to connect. “I could tell she was grateful for the love I was pouring into her children. I began seeing the person behind the broken situation, and it made me realize that this was not about me, but instead it was about loving these kids and praying for God’s will to come to fruition.” 

Loving and letting go

After nine months, the state deemed it was safe for the children to be returned to their birth mother. 

“It was one of the hardest days of our lives,” Laura said. “We pulled over just before meeting to return the children to their mother and cried and hugged our babies really tight. They had been with us for nine months, and we loved them with all our hearts.” 

Their birth mother was so grateful for the love Laura and Kyle had given to her children, and Laura understood how some people don’t have the support they need to raise their children. Laura gave the birth mother her phone number but didn’t expect to hear from her again. 

A couple of days later, however, she was overjoyed to receive a text with photos of the precious children they had come to love. A beautiful relationship has since developed with frequent calls, texts and photos, and Laura and Kyle continue offering support and love. 

“With foster care, a family has the opportunity to create lifelong bonds with children and their families,” Laura said. “Their family will always be part of our family. Our family has only expanded through doing foster care.”     

New beginnings

Shortly after their foster children were reunited with their birth mother, Laura and Kyle welcomed a new baby boy, Theo, into their family through adoption. Laura spoke of the immense joy of having a baby in their home again. 

Studies show that children, as well as birth mothers, fare better with an open adoption that includes various degrees of contact between birth parents and the children whom they’ve placed for adoption from occasional photos and texts to in-person visits. 

An open adoption is also a beautiful way to honor a birth mother in her heroic decision to choose life by inviting her to be a part of her child’s life. 

Laura and Kyle decided on an open adoption. “We do lots of video chats with our son’s birth mom and pray for her every night,” Laura said. “We invited her to his first birthday party, his baptism and over to our home for visits so she can snuggle and love on him. We felt it was important for our son and for her.” 

Laura has discovered that instead of feeling threatened by Theo’s birth mother, she is grateful that Theo has more people in his life who love him. Nurturing this relationship has reinforced how her son belongs first and foremost to God. 

The same month that Laura and Kyle adopted, Laura found out she was pregnant again. Her son, Levi, was born just seven months after Theo. 

“After the birth of Levi, we were able to really reflect on the gifts we had been given – how our home, hearts and family were expanded beyond our wildest hopes,” Laura said. 

“We felt so incredibly grateful to God for the wonderful blessing of our two sons and for the merciful ways He weaved not only our suffering and heartache, but also that of those who had become part of our story through fostering and adoption, into beauty and redemption. 

“Through everything, we have learned that our hearts are always capable of expanding to love more.”

To share a foster or adoption story, contact Kimberly at [email protected]. To learn more about fostering and adoption, visit springsoflove.org. 

Springs of Love was founded to encourage, educate and equip Catholics to discern and live out the call to foster and adopt. A new Springs of Love video series is available on Formed and EWTN On-Demand. Go to springsoflove.org for the Be Not Afraid Foster and Adoption Discernment Retreat and more resources.

Dr. Kimberly Henkel is founder of Springs of Love.