Foster Care Journey: 10 Years of Fostering

This month, I’ve been reflecting on the past ten years of our foster care journey. It’s hard to believe a decade has passed since we first said yes. What started as a quiet calling became one of the most meaningful, heart-expanding, and faith-shaping experiences of our lives.

If you’d like to jump ahead, you can use the Table of Contents below to explore different parts of our foster care journey.

Table of Contents

• What Our Foster Care Journey Taught Us
• The Ripple Effect
• Following the Call
• When Love Becomes Forever
• The Reality of a Foster Care Journey: Turning the Page
• Looking Ahead

When we started foster parent training in the summer of 2015, I had no idea how profoundly this decision would change every part of our story. By October, our license arrived in the mail. Just a few months later, on January 7, 2016, two little girls came through our front door, and we officially became foster parents.

Now, ten years, seven foster children, and two adoptions later, I find myself typing words that still catch in my throat: We’ve closed our foster care license. It feels surreal to even write that.

What Our Foster Care Journey Taught Us

Those of you who have fostered know the swirl of emotion behind that sentence. Our foster care journey has been beautiful and brutal, holy and hard, all at once. It stretched me in ways I never imagined and grew me in ways I didn’t know I needed. My heart has been broken open by love for the children who’ve spent time under our roof.

Before I became a foster mom, I couldn’t have imagined feeling this level of bond with a child who wasn’t biologically mine. But when those first two little girls, Mari and Laya, were placed with us, everything changed.

They brought energy, laughter, and chaos in equal measure. They made us a foster family.

You can read their story here: Our First Foster Placement: A Tale of Two Sisters.

The Ripple Effect

This foster care journey didn’t just change me, it changed all of us. It challenged my birth children, my stepchildren, and even our marriage. The emotions of being foster siblings are complicated, and our kids still carry some of that complexity today. Yet Garon and I both knew God was calling our whole family into this work.

We started our life together with a blended family of five, after four years of dating and our marriage in 2012. Both of us had walked through divorce and parenting solo, so when we married, we already had a house full of stories and personalities. Still, we couldn’t shake the tug to open our home wider.

After the difficult, premature birth of my first son and a C-section with my second, I knew I wouldn’t carry more children biologically. But I also knew that if God wanted me to mother again, He’d show me another way. Foster care became that way.

Following the Call

Back then, I didn’t know any foster parents personally. Then, I met Kate. A single woman who stepped into fostering with courage and eventually adopted the little girl in her care. Her story was a spark. Through prayer and reflection, Garon and I became convinced that our next child might not come to us through birth, but through fostering.

We briefly paused our plans to welcome my stepdaughter home full-time during her senior year. However, once she moved out, we completed our classes and obtained our licenses. Then Mari and Laya arrived, turning our quiet house into a swirl of bedtime routines, giggles, and little voices calling “Mom.”

Eight months later, we said goodbye when they transitioned to another home, and though that part still aches sometimes, it also reminded me that fostering is always about loving a child wholeheartedly, no matter how long they stay. The next year brought a sibling set of three who reminded us again why we said yes.

You can read their story here: Our Second Foster Placement: Three’s Company.

When Love Becomes Forever

Two weeks after those three children moved on, the phone rang again. A tiny 6-day-old baby girl needed placement. She was so small, fragile, perfect, and had our heart from the moment we held her.

At first, as with almost all foster care journeys, the plan was reunification, something foster parents learn to hold both hope and heartbreak for. But as her case unfolded, her path led instead to adoption.

On September 3, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chloe officially became our daughter. We threw a party to celebrate, our hearts overflowing with gratitude.

For a time, I thought that moment marked the end of our fostering story. But as I’ve learned, God often leaves room for a plot twist.

In June 2022, Kate reached out again. She knew of a baby girl that needed a weekend home. “Just a few days,” she said. And so little Hailie came to us, a sweet, fair-haired seven-month-old with a smile that melted everyone’s heart, and piercing blue eyes.

That “few days” stay turned into years, and on July 1, 2025, on a zoom call, before a judge and Hailie’s team and family, we officially adopted sweet baby girl. Continuing our foster-to-adopt journey in a way we never expected.

The Reality of a Foster Care Journey: Turning the Page

Shortly after, we relocated from Illinois to South Carolina. And here, with our daughters now ages three and seven, it finally feels right to rest.

We haven’t heard God say “you’re done,” but we also haven’t felt Him calling us to continue, at least not right now. For this season, our hearts are focused on nurturing these two girls, giving them the stability, presence, and love they deserve. That’s our ministry for now.

Looking Ahead

As we close this chapter of our foster care journey, I can tell you this much: stepping out of the system as licensed foster parents opens a different kind of freedom, a freedom to speak truthfully, to shed light on the realities of foster care, and to offer encouragement without fear.

We have had the threat of our last foster daughter being removed from our care over a conflict of moral opinions between our licensing worker at our agency. Something I would like to share, but couldn’t when we were in the midst of adoption.

My hope is that our story, with all its winding paths and God-led surprises, reminds you that you are not alone. I by no means want to scare you, but I want potential and new foster parents to know what may come their way and to be prepared.

What’s Next

Whether you’re discerning if fostering is right for you, actively caring for children right now, or healing from goodbyes of your own… take heart. Every “yes” matters. Every child changes something in us.

And even as we close this chapter of our foster care journey, I know the story God is writing isn’t finished. It’s just beginning in a new way.

If you’ve been touched by our foster care journey or want to keep following along as Hope to Home continues to grow, I’d love for you to join our community. Our newsletter, From Hope to Home, is where I share honest reflections, updates, and encouragement for anyone walking through foster care, adoption, or simply trying to live with open hands and an open heart.

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