The call that changes our life forever

The day started as all the others. We had been licensed foster parents for 3 weeks at this point, and was getting restless to hear from the stork. (this is what the foster parents at our agency refer to as the person who makes the call). All I knew at the time was we were getting an 11 month old Caucasian male.

It felt as if time stood still. I called Ryan immediately to tell him the news. He was in as much shock, and awe as I was. Tears of joy were running down our face as we spoke over the phone. It was 1:45 in the afternoon, and we had three and half hours to prepare. It is no longer the two of us there is now three.

Those hours flew by quicker than I thought possible, while at the same time dragged on. We got to safe place. ( this is a part of DCF where foster children get picked up and have visits with their biological families). We walked in eager to start our new lives, wanting our new foster child. What seemed like hours was really only minutes. Then they brought out the most perfect little boy in the world. His name was Ian. Blond hair, blue eyes and now our responsibility. I understood in that moment what parents mean by love at first sight with their children. We were in love with him from the second we saw him. The workers at safe place knew nothing about why he was removed, if he had family, or anything. All they knew is he needed love. Which we were ready to give him.

The world had a sense of perfection for a few moments that day. We were dads. There is no going back at this point. Time to move past go, and collect our perverbial 200 dollars. That moment was priceless.

Then we realized we had no diapers, wipes formula anything!!! Great way to start but it’s early. Off to Costco we go. For those who know me, they are not suprised. Sometimes I feel like I live there. But we had no idea how many anything we needed so might as well stock up. This trip had to be a comedy of errors, from sitting in the parking lot trying to figure out how to open the stroller, to wondering how to get Ian out of the car with out waking him up. We managed somehow. Now there is one important thing we overlooked. While shopping we were so used to running in with out a cart to minimize how much we can spend.  This was a big mistake. The comedy of errors that this caused could not be funnier if it was on I love Lucy.

The workers at our local store were falling all over him, he was so handsome. We could not believe it, but reality hadn’t set in yet. It will when it was time for Ian to go to sleep. That’s when we knew it was real.

The night went well up till then. We had never been parents, let alone foster parents. So we called friends who knew. Our neighbor who is a mother of two and grandmother of two Diane came over, as well as our friend Laurie-Ann. Poor Ian was screaming so loud we had no clue what to do. He was quiet for hours. But I guess reality set in. He was with strangers and scared. No matter what any of us did he would not calm down. At this point I was wondering did we make a mistake ? Can we do this? Then I remembered the most important thing.

As Laurie-Anne and I walked out the house to get the little man some clothes, toys, and food for the morning we can hear the screams of fear through the parking lot. I turned around to look at Laurie-Anne, all she said was ” Its going to be a long night. Welcome to  parenthood.”

© 2012 David Z. Pfeffer

* the names of our foster children have been changed to help protect their confidentiality.

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