Fostering a 2-month-old baby, with half a heart: My experience

There was a 2-month-old baby girl at our local children’s hospital born with only half of a heart. She had already undergone surgery at three days old to keep her alive. But this was not the only hurdle she’d have to overcome. The 2022 AFCARS report showed that 7% of children in foster care were under one year old.

She needed a foster family. “There will be a lot of training involved,” we were told. “And the hope is that her biological family will be able to care for her down the road.”

“Will you be her foster family?”

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It was going to be hard and heartbreaking. It was going to force us to live a different kind of life with less control. It was going to impact our current children in ways we could not know.

With the little information we knew, we said yes that day. We drove to the children’s hospital and spent the next several days learning how to give medicines, monitor oxygen levels, and feed through an NG tube. We brought her home, unsure of what the future would hold but knowing that in this moment, our lives were intertwined with hers. We had no idea what we had said yes to, but God did.

We read in the Bible about the miracle after miracle performed by an all-powerful God, who could have accomplished it all on His own, but who chose to partner with His beloved creation so that His power might be seen even more. 2 Corinthians 12:9 reads, “Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”

And that same God is partnering with us today — you and me. He has called us all to something bigger than we can imagine, and for my family, that something was foster care.

When our family first acknowledged the call, we had plenty of reasons to say no. But trusting God means living beyond our fears.

Over the next few weeks, we poured all we had into this baby girl.

Then came the bad night. I made a panicked drive to the ER, and just in time, because our girl was crashing. I begged God to save her as her heart stopped beating, and the doctors shocked her back to life.

A few days later, in an ICU room with our foster daughter on breathing machines, the doctor shared an update. She would need a heart transplant.

We were asked to adopt her. We knew in that moment we would be more than a foster family for a season. I could not imagine a bigger question. But I also could not imagine saying anything other than yes.

God knew the power of that yes. He knew what He was doing. He was preparing my family for a miracle. He was strengthening our resolve, refining our hope and growing our faith beyond what I could ever imagine.

I remember the day our daughter received her brand-new heart and the joy of the days that followed, watching a miraculous recovery. The hardest things yield the best harvest.

We returned home after almost 200 days in the hospital, and my family has never felt as strong as it is now.

Her adoption was just another celebration of the new heart we all receive through the work of our God. A living, breathing testimony to the new life He gives each of us through salvation when He adopts us into His family as His own. 

Those days and nights in the hospital taught me a simple truth: God was with me. He wants us to not only accept but also embrace the surprises he has in store. He was there with our daughter and our family, carrying us and holding us. What was broken, He took and made it more beautiful than it was before.

This May, as I reflect on National Foster Care Month, I know God made me a mom to these children, whether for a season or forever, and while I expect more to come — more wins and more losses — I also know there will never be a greater purpose than the one He has placed before me.