In July 2016, my husband and I, newly married and just buying our first house, decided to go on a crazy adventure…foster care! We had one son that was 4 at the time. We had tried to get pregnant and just weren’t successful. Fostering kept coming up and really pulling at me, so my husband, being the great man he is, agreed to my somewhat crazy idea. At the time we were only 24 and 22. We had a young child and were just starting our career and lives. By no means were we the “typical foster parents” or did we have the perfect lives or perfect home.
In February 2017, we got our second placement, a little red head tiny, medically fragile baby. We knew nothing about medically fragile kids or children with special needs, but we knew that God would send us whoever he wanted with us.
We started fostering a little naive. We just wanted to foster, not to adopt. We wanted to just provide a safe loving home while the parents got help. With our second placement, we quickly learned that was not always the case. Sometimes the parents just were not in the place to raise a child.
Our son came to us in the middle of the night on February 6, 2017. He was born at 25 weeks, drug exposed and very tiny with a lot of health issues. He had a twin sister, but she did not make it. When he came to us he was almost 6 months old, only about 10 pounds and couldn’t sit up or roll over. He couldn’t even hold his head up.
We immediately began Birth to Three, and with lots of love and cuddles we watched this little helpless baby turn into a feisty little boy. He started reaching milestones and growing non stop! Watching him FINALLY thrive was worth EVERY struggle….and we had A LOT of struggles.
Fostering is HARD, you will worry, you will have sleepless nights, but even in the days that I thought our son may go back to his biological parents, I kept one thing in mind: focus on what I can control. I had this precious child of God in my home for THAT day and for THAT day I was going to show him love, show him he could trust, and teach him all I could.
We never know what tomorrow will bring, but these children don’t ask to be exposed to drugs, they don’t ask to be abused, they don’t ask for this life. We as a community must step up and meet these kids where they are and help them thrive. Whether it is for a month or for a lifetime, every child deserves someone that loves them unconditionally and know that they have someone in their corner that will never give up on them.
If my husband and I, in our young twenties, could foster, then anyone can. These kids do not need a perfect family, they just need LOVE. It is not always easy, and your heart will break in a million pieces, but it will ALWAYS be worth it!
Kacy and Levi,
Pressley Ridge Foster Parents
Each year, Pressley Ridge helps thousands of children learn, grow and thrive through the support of a safe and nurturing foster home. And it all starts with one person deciding to be the difference for a child in need. If you’d like more information on becoming a foster parent, click the button below.