The Lord's Reward

Children are a gift from God, they are his reward. (Psalms 127:3 Living Bible translation)

I grew up in a totally feminine world. I was the oldest of four sisters. My poor father didn't have a chance, even our dogs were girls! Although my father always longed for a son, he never made us, his daughters, feel like he would have traded us in for one.

So life went on, and at 18 I got married and soon my husband and I were ready to start our own family. We had grown up during the 'zero population growth' era. It was preached to us at school - having more than the two children it would take to replace yourselves was irresponsible, because you were taking up someone else's spot on the earth. My husband Bill and I believed it, and so we planned to have two children. We soon had our first daughter, Rachael, followed less than three years later by a second daughter, Celeste. We thought our family was complete, and I continued to live in a feminine world, something I was comfortable with. But I always longed for a large family. Once, I read a story in the Parade magazine that came with the local newspaper about a family with biological and adopted children that finally numbered 12! It occurred to me, I could do that! Then I could have the large family I always wanted.

A few years later, we moved from Texas to Oklahoma. I was very sad to move away from my family, and I was very, very lonely there. One day, I read in the newspaper about the great need for foster parents. This seemed like both the answer to my loneliness, and also a way to fill my house with many children. In those days, more than 20 years ago, though, foster families could not adopt, and families wanting to adopt could not foster. It never occurred to me that could be a problem, however, and we completed our training and got our license. Soon the children began to arrive at our house.

All went well for us, it was an interesting work, and the children I kept all ended up going back home to their parents within six or seven months - until I got Brian. Brian came to me straight from the hospital. He had been born to a little teenage mom who relinquished right after the birth. The father's family, however, pressured the father not to give his son up so easily, so even though the father and the rest of the family never asked for any kind of visits with Brian, his being place with an adoptive family was delayed several months. He also seemed to have a host of health problems. He screamed ALL the time, would hardly eat, and seemed to be blind. We spent lots of time at doctor's offices, where they could find nothing wrong, and I worked over the baby continually. At three months, he suddenly seemed to be 'born.' He began to look around, his screaming lessened, and he ate better. As he responded so well to my care, I grew extremely attached to him. His birth father finally relinquished him, and I began to dream of adopting him myself. I imagined new names and adoption parties, and having the son that had always eluded both my childhood family and my married family. Finally, as the time came to find Brian a forever family, I approached the social worker with my idea that they just leave Brian where he was, and let us raise him. She sat me straight right away! That was NOT an option. I could have more children, where thousands of families couldn't. Even if they would consider me, which they would not, they would place me on the very tail end of a list that was years long, and there was no way I would get this child. If I gave them any trouble, they would take Brian out of my home immediately and place him somewhere else.

Well, I sure didn't want THAT to happen, so I gave up. They quickly found Brian an adoptive home, and he left. I was utterly heartbroken. I begged my husband to let us have one more baby. Just one. My arms felt so empty. He finally agreed, and I went off birth control. Two months went by, and my husband came to me and said he really just didn't want another baby. We were having money trouble, our two girls were older and in school, and life seemed very easy right then. He was content like it was. His arguments made sense, my heartbreak over Brian was lessening and I had begun to accept it, new foster children had arrived, and I said I would go back on the pill at my next cycle.

But it was too late. I was already pregnant. And to my very great delight, a sonogram at five months showed a baby boy. Soon our son was born, we named him Gage, and life didn't seem like it could get any better.

Then we had a 'whoops' and I was pregnant again. ANOTHER beautiful baby boy, Max, was born. I could not believe I had two sons to go along with my two daughters. How more perfect could our family be?

But that was not all that was in store for us. Just before Max's birth, we moved back to Texas, letting our foster care license lapse. I went back to my old church, and met a new lady named Debbie. Debbie was different than anyone I had ever met. She was a homeschooling mother who believed in letting God plan your family. She even gave me a book to read: "The Way Home" by Mary Pride. This book said everything I had always felt, that children were something to be desired, that the Lord actually blessed people by giving them children, not money!! The more I read the book, the more excited I became. I felt like a great truth had been revealed to me.

I read many passages of this book to my husband, who had finished law school and was now an attorney. Surprisingly, he agreed to let us have more children. Soon I was pregnant again, and very happy. But that first 'quiverfull' pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. I grieved as I held an 8 week pregnancy in my hand, a small bubble with a recognizably human baby developing in it. That really put me in a tailspin spiritually. I struggled and made some bad choices, but in less than a year, I was drawn up sharply by another pregnancy. It was at that point, I felt like I was truly 'born again' and my life began to change in a great way. That pregnancy brought me yet a third son, Spencer. Imagine, three sons!! And I always thought boys were hard to get! Very shortly after that, I was pregnant again, but again, at about 8 weeks, that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Four months later, there was another pregnancy, and soon my fourth son, Beau, was born.

No longer was I living in a feminine world, now it was a testosterone zone. Totally different. Now instead of lace and bows and ribbons, there were frogs and snakes and little plastic army men littering my floor. Hilarious body functions were a favorite topic. I learned to never use the potty, especially in the middle of the night, unless I checked whether the toilet lid was up or down first.

Life was still very good

And made even better when, two years later, a beautiful baby girl was born to this 42 year old mother. Mary Susannah was my delight, my constant companion, and no mother ever enjoyed a child more!

My older girls grew up, got married, and started their own families. Theirs evened out quickly, three boys and one girl for my first daughter, and three daughters and two sons for my second daughter. I really enjoyed my grandchildren, especially since some of them were the ages of my younger children.

My oldest girl and her husband decided to become foster parents a few years into her marriage. I greatly enjoyed her foster children, and considered getting my license again, although I never did anything about it until she got a six year old girl and her three year old brother. I quickly fell in love with this little girl, who was the age of my own youngest daughter, and I was also taken with the little boy. After being in my daughters home a year, a termination of parental rights was scheduled, and my husband and I quickly began to pursue a foster/adopt license (20 years later, the states figured out letting foster parents adopt was a good idea) to try and adopt these two. Just as we began, however, it was discovered the mother was pregnant again, and three weeks after this discovery, she gave birth to a premature baby boy. The state took custody of the child and he was placed in my daughter's foster home, but the birth gave the mother a six months extension, and also made provision for her abusive boyfriend to be rehabilitated, since they claimed he was the father of the child. The boyfriend made sure the mother stayed on her medicine, and they found jobs and a place to live, and it seemed they would get the children back. However, a suspicious ad litem demanded a DNA test, and sure enough, the boyfriend wasn't the baby's daddy. The humiliated boyfriend wanted nothing more to do with the baby. Six months later, the mother relinquished the baby, and took her older two children home with her.

The baby's social worker, CASA and the ad litem all wanted our family to adopt the baby, but the social worker in the county we were in decided to give us trouble. After a scary few months, a judge ruled that our family be allowed to adopt the little boy, and six months after that, when he was 18 months old, baby Luke became our son.

The joy was unspeakable, and I am proof that although blood is thicker than water, love is thicker than blood, and baby Luke is as loved as ever a biological child could be.

One week after Luke's adoption was final, a little girl came to live with us as a foster child. She was two and a half, almost exactly one year older than Luke. We were smitten with her, she was so smart, and could talk exceptionally well for a two year old. She was able to express her grief over being separated from her family, which helped us help her. I got to know her family well during the next year, seeing them every week at visits, going to court with them ever few months, CPS meetings, and long phone calls with the grandmother. Once, we even had a birthday party at the park, and CPS allowed me to supervise, giving the family a chance to see their little girl somewhere else besides the cold CPS office.

It didn't take long, however, to see that this birth mother was not going to make it, and the rest of the family did not feel able to finish raising this little girl. As termination grew close, we let them know that we would keep and raise her, which seemed to be a great comfort to them.

Angel-Leah's adoption was finalized December 20, 2007, bringing our number of children to nine, four girls and five boys. It's fun to realize the boys outnumber the girls now. It's also an amazing thing to realize that because of foster care, and a little boy named Brian, my oldest two daughters have seven more siblings.

God is so good, and His idea of a reward - children - is so much more satisfying than any material reward could ever be!