The Road to Motherhood for Women with Disabilities:
When you open your heart, giving your love freely to another that is in need…
When you step forward and open your home to a child in need of love, warmth, comfort, and protection….
When you do so without knowing if that love will be returned or you will be rewarded in any way other than the pure joy of seeing another thrive under your care…
When you do so knowing your heart’s openness, and vulnerability will likely experience the pain of loss, of unknowing, of letting go….
…and being left only with the memories, the moments and the realization that you did all that you could…
That is pure, unselfish Love…and that is what foster care embodies.
Katie, who we met while exploring her options for motherhood via surrogacy or adoption in her story on The Road to Motherhood Part I has now found herself on this journey.
It has been a journey wrought with the all too common, possibly to be expected disappointment and frustration that any woman, much less a woman with a disability, experiences when she is unable or undesirous of carrying a child.
It started out with the foster system not being the preferred option due to the likelihood of heartbreak and having to return a child that she loved to potentially grim circumstances.
After making sure the nursery and they were fully ready for such a big change in lifestyle before accepting a child, they finally went on the list at the beginning of June.
“Despite telling our agency we only wanted a baby between 0 to 6 months old, we received several calls for toddlers. We became a little worried, hearing that babies have become very difficult to get.”
The Arizona foster system still has some children that don’t have a foster home, but the problem is much better than it was a year prior when 100’s of children were sleeping in DCS offices. They had finally accepted that they were going to have to foster but going above the six-month mark was something they didn’t want to do. They wanted to experience what it was like to have a baby.
On June 18th Katie got a call directly from DCS asking if they were interested in a 2-week-old baby boy! “From that moment on we have fallen in love with him. He is a really snuggly, happy baby. So far, there are no obvious signs of the drugs his mother took while he was in the womb. It has been difficult dealing with the parents, but each situation is different.”
This fear and anxiety are shown in this emotional update from Katie:
“I love this little man so much! However, I’ve had my days of emotional turbulence. The parents have to do so little and even if they don’t improve their situation, kin can show up at any point. Cousins, great-aunts, etc. And they are likely to win. Sometimes despite lifestyles that aren’t the best environments for the kids. But overall, just enjoying having him here. ❤️ “
So each day she must remember to live mindfully of what is and not of what could or could not be in the future.
How is she adapting to motherhood? Is it what she expected and what tips does she have to others who choose this journey?
“It is, for the most part, what I expected. It can be an emotional rollercoaster knowing the child they love may go back to a less-than-ideal or even dangerous situation. Also, the system is overwhelmed and inefficient, making it difficult to get needs answered at times.
I am just so grateful we received this little boy who is full of giggles and smiles and has captured our hearts. It will be excruciating if he goes back, but at least I will have gotten the chance to help him at a critical developmental stage, and there is no doubt that he has changed our lives for the better forever.”