Write Your Heart Out - Guest Post: Staci's Story
April 29, 2014 is a day I will never forget. My husband and I had settled back into being just the two of us after saying goodbye to our first foster placement almost three months prior. I was at a conference for work, and a close friend who worked at a foster care agency texted me. Her message read, “You have two open beds, right?” I quickly replied and let her know that we did. Her answer was “you might be getting a call about some kids, I told DHS to call your licensing worker.”
From that point on, I was unable to focus on anything the conference speaker was saying. I waited for my phone to vibrate. I was watching it like a hawk and holding it in my hand, so I wouldn’t miss that call. Then it rang. I jumped out of my seat and quickly walked into the hallway, my hands shaking. When I answered, the voice on the phone said, “We are trying to find placement for two children. They are twin boys who are 9 weeks old. One of them has a heart condition, takes medication for it, and has in home services. We need placement today. Would you be interested?” I remember wanting to say yes right away--something in my gut said we needed to take those little guys--but I did what I knew I needed to and told her I had to discuss it with my husband before making a decision.
I called my husband. I think it took three calls before he answered. After telling him everything I knew about these little boys, his response was “Twin babies?! Twins?! Ok, let’s do it.” I remember being shocked and excited and a bit scared when I hung up the phone, called the worker, and told her that we would take these sweet boys into our home.
Then she said something that still brings tears to my eyes. She thanked us for saying yes and said that we were their last hope for keeping them together. She said if we had said no to them they would have been split up. That made me sad at that moment, but it breaks my heart even more now because I’ve seen how much they miss each other after being apart for an hour or two. I cannot imagine them being raised separately.
The rest of the day was a whirlwind. I immediately got in my car to make the hour long drive home. I made a mental list of everything we would need, prayed, thought about what they might look like, and called a few people to let them know what was happening. I was about three minutes from home when I got a call from my husband saying that the workers were at our house with the boys.
I walked into our house and these two sweet little beans were there in their car seats. They were so tiny and looked quite frail. They desperately needed their noses wiped and were in clothes that were way too big for their little bodies. As the workers were filling us in on everything, my husband and I each unbuckled one little bundle and held them close.
After the workers left, we got to work cleaning them up and up and getting them settled in. We looked at those boys, and we made them a promise. We told them we would take care of them and love them and keep them safe. We didn’t know how long we would have with them, but that was the promise we would keep for as long as they were with us.
In November of 2015, one of the most bittersweet days I’ve ever experienced arrived. It was the day that the woman who gave birth to those amazing little boys was stripped of all her rights to them. It was the day that a door was opened that gave us the opportunity to make them a permanent part of our family. I remember feeling so many emotions. Our journey up to that point was full of ups and downs, tears, unknowns, successes and failures. And that day I didn’t know how to feel or what to do. I just remember crying a lot. A mixture of sad tears for her, tears of relief for the boys, and tears of happiness for us.
September 9, 2016 is another day I will never forget. That is the day that the boys became our legal sons. In our hearts, they were our sons long before that day. But it was that beautiful day that we walked in a courtroom with two different last names and walked out all sharing the same one.
We are so thankful to be their parents. I cannot talk about our story without giving credit to the One who knit our stories together. We are so thankful to God for giving us the privilege of raising these two amazing little people. We cannot wait to see the plan for their lives unfold. We are so honored to be the ones who get to teach them how to be men of righteousness, lovers of Jesus, and people who carry His glory. Our story isn’t conventional and wasn’t at all what we had planned, but we wouldn’t change any of it because it brought us our sons and made us their forever parents.
