When Sara met Stuart at nineteen, she didn’t imagine that one day she’d be the mother of teenagers and toddlers who hadn’t started life in her arms but would grow up calling her Mom. On their first date, he asked her big questions about dreams, family, and life. She didn’t have a perfect answer back then, but she knew one thing for sure: if children were going to be part of her story, they would come through foster care.
They married a few years later, still young and a little reckless in love, and two weeks after their honeymoon, they signed up for foster parent training. They thought they would start small, maybe care for babies and toddlers, just short-term placements. Sara was only twenty-three, and the idea of fostering older kids felt too heavy, like something meant for wiser, more experienced parents. Their first placement was a baby who stayed for a week. It went smoothly, and they felt confident, ready for more. The next call came quickly, asking if they could take in a three-year-old boy for a weekend. They said yes without thinking much about it. That weekend turned into a week, then a month, then years. That little boy, Michael, became their son, the first piece of their forever family.
They supervised a sibling visit a few months later and met Dayshawn, Michael’s older brother. The second Michael spotted him across the playground, he ran full speed, leaping into his brother’s arms. Watching that moment broke something open inside Sara. She knew they couldn’t let these brothers live apart. The only hesitation she had left was the age gap; she was barely thirteen years older than Dayshawn. But from the moment they talked, the worry melted away.
Dayshawn shattered every stereotype people carry about teens in foster care. He was kind, thoughtful, funny, and protective of his little brother. He filled the house with energy and warmth, and soon, he felt as natural to Sara as breathing. She was his mom, and that was that. Adoption day was emotional. Dayshawn was so excited that he couldn’t stop talking. He even interrupted the judge to explain, in his own words, exactly why he wanted to be adopted and one of those moments reminded everyone in the room why love stories like this matter so much.
When Sara and Stuart first started fostering, adoption wasn’t the goal. They wanted to help families heal and come back together. Reunification was always the hope. Over the years, they fostered fourteen children, some for a night, others for months or years, and every goodbye was hard. People often told Sara they couldn’t do it because they’d get too attached, and she would smile softly because she knew they were right. You do get attached. You do cry when they leave. But the heartbreak is worth it. Seeing a parent work hard to bring their child home is one of the most powerful things she’s ever witnessed.
The hardest part of adopting her boys was the constant uncertainty. One month, the goal was reunification; the next, adoption. The case flipped back and forth so often that Sara learned to stop trying to control it. Instead, she decided to live in the moment, to cherish each day with her boys, knowing nothing was guaranteed. Fostering was teaching her patience, and maybe that was the real gift.
After the adoption, people asked if they’d keep fostering. The answer was yes, but with a shift. They decided to open their home to the kids who often get overlooked, teen moms, or teens who had been trafficked, the ones who wait weeks or even months in shelters because no one else will take them. Recently, they welcomed a fourteen-year-old, and their home feels full again, in the best way possible.
Foster care isn’t easy; it pulls at the heart in ways most people can’t imagine. But Sara knows it’s worth every tear, every late-night worry, every bittersweet goodbye. She often or thinks about that old saying that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. She’s lived it fourteen times and counting. The highs are breathtaking, the lows cut deep, but there’s never a dull moment. Sara loves this life. She loves being a foster mom or an adoptive mom, a safe place for children who need one. She loves the laughter, the chaos, and even the heartbreak because it all means she’s living a life filled with love. For her, there’s no other way she’d want it.
