Life doesn’t always go the way you plan. Tim and I already had five kids. Five! Most people said we were crazy to even think about fostering. Maybe we were. We were busy with our nurseries, busy at home, and still something inside me said, there’s room for more.
At first, the plan was simple. One child. Long-term. That was it. Then the phone rang. Emergency placement. Two brothers. If we said no, they’d split them up. I just couldn’t bear that. “Ten days,” the social worker said. Ten days turned into forever.
I can still see the day they arrived. The gate opened and in came two social workers, each carrying what looked like babies. But these weren’t babies they were nearly two and three years old. So small though, so frail. Pale skin, thin hair, bruises on their arms. I tried to hide my shock but inside my heart just sank.
They had been through police removals, hospital checks, nights of crying, almost no food. Silent. Not a word between them. I tried to sit the older one on my lap, but he pulled away. The younger one couldn’t sit still, buzzing like a wound-up toy. I brought out fruit, biscuits, crackers. They just stared at the plate. That night, they wanted to sleep with their shoes still on. Shoes meant safety. Shoes meant ready to run. That memory still breaks me.
The first weeks were hard. Really hard. No trust, no words, only fear. But slowly, cracks began to show. A smile at the train set. A laugh when Tim made a silly noise. It was tiny things, but they mattered. They had never had a real birthday. Never seen the seaside. Never unwrapped Christmas gifts. Watching them discover those things it was beautiful and painful all at once.
Then came the talk of adoption. A family had been found. We told ourselves it was right. They seemed lovely. And then months later, the call the adoption had failed. Worse, the plan now was to split the boys. My heart dropped. We fought with everything we had. We couldn’t let that happen.
When they came back, they didn’t trust it. Wouldn’t believe it was real. For years they feared we’d let them go again. We had to prove it, day after day, that we were there to stay. Somewhere in that time, without noticing, they weren’t “foster children” anymore. They were just ours.
Not everyone agreed when we said we wanted to adopt them. Some family worried. The youngest had rages, violent outbursts. The eldest was delayed, struggling with speech. It wasn’t easy still isn’t but deep down we knew. They needed us, and maybe we needed them too.
Court day November 6, 2017 is stamped in my heart. The boys sat in the judge’s chair, grinning from ear to ear. We had football shirts made with their new surname on the back. When they wore them to school, teachers cried. And that week, after six years of living with us, they finally called Tim “Dad.” That moment alone was worth every sleepless night.
Adoption doesn’t erase the past. The youngest still fights anger. The eldest still battles to be understood. But there is joy too. Riding bikes. Running into the sea. Football with friends. Walking the dog. Normal things. Happy things.
People think adoption is cuddles and thank-yous. It isn’t. It’s trauma, fear, scars that never really fade. But it’s love too. Real love the messy, hard kind that takes everything out of you but gives even more back.
Those little boys who once clung to their shoes now run free. They belong with us. And we belong with them.
