Baby Fix

I’m sure I’m not the only woman nearly past her child-bearing years who will admit to needing a baby fix now and then.

My kids are all getting so grown up, that sometimes I just miss that little, tiny, cuddly baby on my shoulder. Does anyone else out there miss that at all? When Daniel was old enough to go to school, I told Nathan he’d have to get me a baby or a puppy. He didn’t want a puppy, so we started to do foster care.

At first I went into foster care a little bit wanting to help and a lot wanting my baby fix. Those priorities soon changed. Foster care is hard, and that is a major understatement. It wrings you out emotionally and makes you want to quit. Yet once you’ve seen the hurt and pain and the sheer number of children in need, you simply can’t walk away.

I couldn’t anyway.

For instance, right now I have baby N. He’s 2 months old. I’d pay the county to take care of him! I’m definitely getting my baby fix. As I fed him in the middle of the night last night, I was so grieved over the fact that situations like this even exist. Baby N’s biological mother has NEVER fed her baby in the middle of the night. As much as we mothers become exhausted from those feedings, can you imagine never feeding your infant?

Other names and situations roll through my mind, that have left me forever changed.

Issa. N’soah. Jazzie. Ayden. Caleb. Rachael. Destiny.

A 5-week premature infant, deaf from fetal alcohol syndrome and coming down off meth who we had to rush to the hospital because she stopped breathing.

Another meth baby who died of SIDS 5 days after he left our home.

The little girl who became our daughter, only to be returned to her birth mom at the last minute.

Sometimes I think I may be crazy to keep doing this. It’s impossible not to fall in love a little bit with every single child you have. And it’s impossible not to have your heart broken every time they leave.

Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision once famously said,

“Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart.”

We talk in our house about doing hard things. Just because something is hard to do, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. In fact, it’s probably the right thing to do. I have to trust that every time I have a little one here, whether it’s 3 days or 9 months, I am sharing a little bit of Jesus’ love with them and hoping to change their life in some small way.

I guess it’s less a baby fix for me and more of a baby fix for them. I can’t fix them permanently, only Jesus can. But, I can be a link in the chain that leads them to Him. Oh, how I pray for that.