A Foster Mother of 11 Finds Own Reward--Great Love

Here I am, at age 44, a new mother again--for the 11th time.

As I look down into the face of my precious baby, I marvel at the opportunity that is mine. For a few months or maybe even a year or two, I will be privileged to love and nurture this little person. Each day I will be the one to watch him grow and blossom into health and happiness.

This special little boy is just on loan to me, for he is one of Orange County’s 1,500 foster children who the courts have said can no longer live safely in their own homes.

My heart and home always seem to have an empty spot that my own grown-up teen-agers cannot completely fill. I guess I am one of those mothers who always has room for a baby in her arms. So here I am, involved with diapers, formulas, bottles, burps, baby smiles, gurgles, wiggles and 20 pounds of 8-month-old pure, unadulterated love.

People often ask me how I can possibly want to be a foster parent, especially in view of the facts that I am a widow and that I eventually give up all of my babies. My motivation, I believe, comes from many moments of deep satisfaction.

Many of these scenes are indelibly imprinted upon my memory: My tiny Shari taking her first steps with a look of wonder on her exquisite face. Juanito on his third birthday with chocolate cake all over his big smile. My scared-to-death nervous wreck Pammy saying for the first time ever in her baby voice: “I love you” to my son Mike.

It is also quite an adventure to be a foster parent, for my babies come in all sizes, shapes, colors and personalities. Each new delivery by the social worker finds me waiting in excited anticipation for that ring of the doorbell.

Timmy arrived brand new, straight from the hospital, just 2 days old--so tiny and red with a little peach-fuzzed head and big blue eyes.

Jimmy bounced in the door, a big, overwhelmingly exuberant 2-year-old with black mischievous eyes and beautiful brown skin.

Dear Juanito, who lived with us for 2 1/2 years, arrived so tiny and pale, a little malnourished toddler with a huge, distended belly, long ringlets all over his head and the most gorgeous almond-shaped eyes.

Then there is my Beni--every morning his little black face breaks into the most endearing smile when he sees me hold out my arms to him.

Being a foster parent has had its funny moments too. Vivid in my mind is the time 18-month-old Pedro got tired of waiting while I was cooking dinner and decided to try to take a bite out of the back of my leg.

And 3-year-old Jimmy firmly decided he was going to nickname baby Pammy “Nietzsche,” a name he had never heard in our household.

Or the time Pammy unrolled the toilet paper all the way from the bathroom, through the master bedroom, down our long hall, through the living room, out the front door, and over to the driveway--all without breaking--early one morning as we were packing the car for our yearly trip to Maine.

Six-and-a-half wonderfully happy and busy years have gone by since I had my first foster baby delivered to our front door. I still feel the same excitement and challenge about being a foster parent. Every baby is a new and fascinating person to learn to know intimately; each baby is a new challenge to my ability as a mother.

At the time of this writing, I am grateful that each of my babies has left my house, whether to return home or to be adopted, healthy and full of love and the joy of life. It has not always been easy to bring a child to that point.

We have occasionally gritted our teeth through hours of inconsolable screaming, been scared by self-destructive head-banging and other acting-out of past hurts and upsets. I must admit that all three of us, my two teen-age children and I, have become very angry at some of our children when they have behaved in mean or destructive ways. But we have learned to cope with their behavior and our feelings.

Perhaps someday I will not succeed in bringing a child to health and happiness. That is a possibility I have tried to face. Deep in my heart, however, I know that loving someone always has risks and that God will help me face that hurt if it ever comes.

For information about foster care in any Southern California county, call SAFE (the Southern Area Fostercare Effort): 1-800-426-2233.

The names of all foster children have been changed for reasons of confidentiality.