Mother of Many

  There was a time when I thought I would never have children.  Last March, we had just gone through a futile year of trying to become pregnant. Every month waiting…. The few days of hope, and then the crushing disappointment. 

I had given up. Mother’s Day was a few weeks away, and there was no hope I would ever celebrate that holiday. Then, one morning, the following words popped into my head: “A Mother of Many.”

Wonderful words.

 Now for some reason this thought, wish, premonition, word from the Holy Spirit (whatever you want to call it) was completely comforting to me. It has been something that I have held on to even when I was sure that foster care wasn't for me. 

 I am only 28, have been a foster mom for 8 months and have been a mom to two children.

 Now I am not very good at math, but if this average keeps up over the next 20 years or so I will have had more children than I could ever ask for.  

Mother of many, indeed.  

Last month, I got to sit behind a fellow “mother of many” at an event for Foster Families.  She was a talkative woman, and shared her life story, including her struggles getting pregnant with her first son, and almost losing her second. She told me of her heartache over the fact that she would never have a big family, and her worry that her two boys would never get to experience having sisters.

 However, life is good, and she proceeded to tell me the names of all of her children… I don’t remember them all, but I remember that there were 16 names. She is a mom in a group home, and from what I could tell they viewed her as their mother.

One of the reason I love these events is I get the opportunity to get to meet other parents who go through what we do. More than our shared experience of being foster mothers, I felt that this woman and I  shared a deeper understanding. The understanding that while we sacrificed biological children, we gained more than we could have imagined.

I have no idea if I will ever give birth to child, but now just one year after deciding to become a foster mom…. It doesn't matter. I have had... and will have… children aplenty.

I can’t wait to meet our next one!