Grief As a Foster Parent

When I think about my grief, it’s hard to explain it to people outside the foster world. It’s hard even to explain it to other foster parents who don’t do emergency placements. Often, it seems impossible to explain to the point that I gloss over my grief and just talk about how much I enjoy getting to love on these babies.

I am asked often, “Aren’t you sad when they leave? How do you not get attached?” The answer to me seems obvious – of course I am sad when they leave, and I absolutely do get attached to my babies. How could I not when I love them and care for them 24/7? How could I not come to love these tiny little humans who depend on me for love, safety, and security for they time they are with me?

So then why do I do it? Why put myself through the grief of losing these children when they leave again and again? The answer has less to do with me and more to do with them. Yes, my heart breaks when a baby leaves, but I have a community of people who love me and healthy coping mechanisms to help me heal my wounds. These babies have lost everything when they come to me, their entire world left behind. Isn’t that pain so much greater than the pain I go through?

Yes, I grieve when my babies leave. But if I have to feel that loss so that a child does not have to go through the loss of their entire world alone, then that is so much more than worth it in my eyes.

The odd thing about grief as a foster parent, especially as an ESH parent, is that I don’t think there are words to accurately describe the pain. I say that I have lost my children, but they haven’t died. My babies are still living in this world with a family – it is just that it is not my family and I often have no contact with them after they leave my home. To me, the word “lost” makes sense, but people rarely react well when I use that term in casual conversation.

How should I describe the pain I feel in my heart when something reminds me of a baby I use to hold in my arms? When I see someone with poofy hair like one of my babies or someone who sneezes five times in a row like one of my babies or even someone in the children’s ward of a hospital like one of my babies, how do I describe the longing I feel to hold that baby in my arms again? That yearning that will go unfulfilled to cuddle them close, kiss their cheeks, and assure myself that they are okay?

I don’t think the English language has a word to accurately portray that loss, or at least I have not yet learned it. The best I can do is to use the words I do have and offer a deeper explanation if someone takes offense.

So if I share my grief with you, I ask for patience and understanding from you. I ask that you would not assume I am comparing the new placement of my children to the death of another child, but if you do, that you would ask deeper questions of me rather than judge. I ask that your response would not be to encourage me to stop fostering or just adopt so I could “finally keep a child,” because I don’t think I would ever be okay with guarding my heart at the expense of a child’s need for love.

In this world, there will be things that bring us all grief. In my life, the joy of being a mom of newborn baby will probably always be accompanied by the hurt of that baby leaving. But I will continue to choose love over hopelessness, praying for each baby that comes into my arms, knowing that even when I am not with them, I have done all I can to give them a loving home while I could. And hopefully, that will be enough.