This weekend a year ago we decided to call up the fostering team in our local authority. A lot has happened in the last year; we bought and (partially) renovated a house and we went through the assessment process to be foster carers for infants. We've been on the vacancy list for four weeks now. Four weeks of accumulating all kinds of baby stuff and swimming around in a sea of unknowns. We don't know when it will happen; how old they will be; a boy or a girl; what their story will be. Two minutes or two months away or anything in between.
Yesterday we got a call. A potential placement she said, a baby boy. If it happened it would be tomorrow. Tomorrow suddenly seemed very soon. A mixture of excitement and sadness - the potential to do what we've spent months talking about and preparing to do, crossed with the deep sadness of hearing the story of a real baby who needs to be in foster care. Even though we've spent months speculating about what it will be like to be new parents to a foster baby, it turns out I hadn't thought about a lot of things that much. I suddenly started to think about this little boy - I didn't know his name and what he would be like. What does he look like? What is his temperament? What will he make of meeting us and living in our house?
Having this new piece of information didn't really make the unknowns any better. It could be tomorrow, or it could be months. It could be a boy, three months or it could be no baby at all. Should I be excited? Could I be excited? Should I hope that this baby would come our way? I prayed that the right decision would be made for him - that he would go where he was meant to be.
It was a warm night and I didn't really sleep. 6am and I'm wide awake. Looking at the crib next to our bed and wondering if there'll be a little person in it today. I think about the irony of being awake at 6am on potentially the last day I could have a lie-in for a long time. We'll find out today if there's a baby coming, today.
Whenever I've been waiting for news, the time frame of 'sometime today' is excessively long. With one hour delivery windows now the norm a whole day is hard to wrap my head around. 9am comes and goes (I'm ready - house tidy and bottles in boiling water before potential first use). I fidget. There's some washing to do and a floor to mop. I think about the last minute jobs I'd need to do if there was a baby at our door within the hour.
Somehow I spend the time - a cup of tea and some green and blacks at 12pm and I feel calm not knowing. 13:40 and it's unbearable. I have the same feeling in my stomach as waiting for exam results or a job interview I really wanted. Thinking about it, I know it's not my suitability as a foster carer that's in question. But I'm nervous waiting for this news because it involves a person, a little one and I feel invested in his life already.
14:25 and the phone rings. It's her and it's a yes. The placement will go ahead and he's coming today. We'll get another call with more information and a time he'll arrive. I can think about him now - a real baby coming to live with us! It's exciting and suddenly I think about the three of us and our strange situation. We'll have to get to know each other. He's been in the world three months and he hasn't met the people who will be his primary care givers at least for a while. I move the tiny baby stuff out of the nursery along with the cot mattress and some other bits and pieces. Everything else is ready to go. I text a few people - it's actually happening! It's beginning to sink in.
We get another call - our social worker can't get in touch with his social worker so we don't have any more information. I don't mind. When you know something's happening it doesn't matter if you have to wait another hour. It's happening today.
A final phone call at 15:25. The case went back to court and the baby isn't coming to us after all. Oh.
That's ok. I haven't met him - I don't even know his name! Hopefully the right thing has been decided for him. At least we can go to the festival this weekend as planned. Nice to have something fun planned, I'm not that disappointed. Win, win.
But that knot in my stomach hasn't disappeared. It hurts, I hurt. I'm confused because I don't know this kid yet I really wanted to meet him. I crawl into bed and stay there until Steve comes home.
This evening and it's back to normal. We're eating dinner and watching a film, just the two of us and nothing feels amiss. I'm ready to go again, to wait again.
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