Foster Care Awareness Month

It was brought to my attention that it is Foster Care Awareness Month. I don't personally have much experience in that area, however my brother does so he agreed to share his story today so the following story is written in my brother's point of view. Enjoy! When my now husband and I got engaged we talked about a bunch of different things including if we wanted children being two men our ways of having said children were limited. We decided on adopting and started looking at all the different ways to adopt, after talking to several different families all of which had different kinds of adoption we chose to foster to adopt. When we chose this we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, we went to classes and got our home ready for our child or children. It varies state to state,  but they suggested saying we were open to a sibling group to get a faster placement and to open up the age we were willing to get a little bit more, most people just want babies and that's hard to get. We decided on birth- six and planned accordingly. This was one of the hardest parts for us, we didn't know the gender or size of the kid(s) we may end up with, they could be a newborn or a six year old boy/girl we had NO clue what God had in store. We hit up every thrift store in our area, searched yard sale sites, asked friends and family for hand me downs, and got family themed games and movies-who doesn't love Frozen? We had enough rooms to make one a "boy" room, a "girl" room, and a nursery that was gender neutral. Once we had our home study and we got the seal of approval we waited for our call. I travel for business which often leaves my husband to fend for himself which he is beyond good at, but this trip was a little different. Literally the moment I boarded my plane he got a phone call asking if we were willing to foster a sibling group of four. He said yes and the social worker said "Okay, we'll be there in 15 minutes." Yea, it was that fast. He called me right away and asked if I could come home, I had a meeting with my boss to get to so I said I'd come home after that. He then called my sister, my dad, and his grandma-they were our go to people to make any runs to the store for any emergency supplies. About 15 minutes later a sibling group of four was at our door, there were three girls and a little boy ranging in age from 11 months to five years old. These kids came into our house with just the clothes on their back which barely fit and were rather dirty. Despite the fact my husband is a neat freak he didn't make them bathe or clean up before telling them to come in and see their new home. He gave them a quick tour and gave them a snack, one of them vocalized being hungry on the way there and the social worker made sure he knew that before leaving. While they got their snacks he got them pajamas and underwear in the appropriate sizes and gave them the option to take a bath now or when they woke up, it was rather late at night. Once everyone was tucked in he texted my sister and dad asking to get a few things when they got the chance. The first morning was hard for him, he woke up and made breakfast-bless his heart breakfast isn't his strong suit and typically he makes cereal and toast, but today he made pancakes and bacon. He got them all bathed and dressed and showed them the basement, it doubles as a playroom in our house. While they were being mesmerized by the toys and everything else down there he checked his email for the email from our social worker explaining their story, because it's not my story I won't go into details except for the fact we knew these kids weren't going back to their biological family. He called me after reading this and told me what it had said, he then told me he was going to call the social worker and tell him we would adopt these kids. I hadn't even met them yet, but after hearing their story I was in full agreement. This started almost a year ago, we got the ball rolling and waited. We bonded more and more with our kids and got them to feel safe in our house. We were finally called about a week ago to be told our adoption date in June 6th of this year. I couldn't be happier to be welcoming these kids into our family officially. When I first met them, about two days after they were placed in our home, they were scared of being near us and didn't pay much attention to us. Now they want to be with us all the time and will come to us for help. They have clothes that fit now and each have a special "lovey" of their own, something we made sure to buy them right away just incase they got placed with someone else. I can't wait till our adoption day so I can officially say I have kids. I highly suggest fostering to adopt or even just being a foster parent, it would make a huge difference trust me.