One year ago, this week, I got THE phone call. I had no idea this was the phone call that would change my life forever!

My husband and I had started our foster care training and paperwork in June. We had the whole “hurry up and wait” thing going on! We rushed through to get all of our ducks in a row, only to have to wait an additional three or four weeks on fingerprint approval.

Now, it was mid-September. I knew my fingerprints had finally been approved the week before, so every day I just waited with phone-in-hand for my call! My social worker called on a Tuesday morning. I still remember exactly where I was. I was a preschool teacher, but had to stay home that day and recoup from being sick a few days earlier. So, I remember lying on the couch in my PJs when that life-changing call came in.

My social worker said that there were two babies immediately available for us to foster. She described both of the little baby girls and they both sounded just perfect, although I knew nothing other than names, races, birth dates and a little of their family backgrounds. She asked me to choose the one I wanted, but how can you possibly choose one baby over another…seriously!! I easily could have said, just let me come pick up both of them! But, that wasn’t going to work. So, I told her about how over the past few months deep down I kept feeling that for some reason we were going to have a black baby girl. I had told my mom and husband about it several times. I didn’t at all know where that came from. It wasn’t anything I had thought about at all, until last summer. It was so odd that I had specifically thought that. After I told my worker that, I let her choose our baby for us. The other foster mom in our same program was open to either baby too. So, the social worker chose for us our little M.

We were told that we would be meeting our foster daughter later that afternoon, as soon as everything got arranged. I had butterflies in my stomach, called and emailed close friends and family, started going around the house like crazy, wrote my future foster daughter a letter for her Life Book, rearranged my life, making sure everything was good to go. We were going to have a little 3 1/2 week old baby girl in just a matter of hours! We ended up getting a call that we would have to get her on the following day, instead, at 1:30 in the afternoon. So, instead of picking up our little baby, we had to occupy our busy and excited minds with preparing for our new little one by buying her a few clothes, putting away the boy clothes and making the girl clothes front and center! I also had to make sure I had bows, just in case M had hair! I remember getting very little sleep, but not caring a bit. I just couldn’t wait to meet the little baby girl that we would be caring for, “for a few months.”

At 1:30 that Wednesday afternoon, we arrived at our agency’s office, anticipating the arrival of our little one. The state social worker (who we adore) pulled up in front of the office and took our little baby out of the car. I remember putting my arms around my husband, getting teary, yet squealing with absolute joy inside, while saying, “Look at all of that hair…she is so beautiful!” That was one of my happiest moments ever! While I didn’t know this would be our forever daughter, I did know that we would finally have a baby in our home to love on, and I was absolutely ecstatic! Our M was so tiny and had a head full of beautiful dark, straight hair. Her little face was just perfect. I instantly fell in love and started dreading the day we would have to give her back. From that day forward, I started praying for God to prepare my heart for whatever was going to happen in the coming months.

No matter how much you physically and emotionally prepare yourself and your home for foster care, many surprises will be thrown at you when you choose to say yes to loving another child and invite them into your home. So many people, like us, go into foster care as a way to fulfill their needs for a baby in the home, as well as the child’s need for a loving and secure family life. Oddly enough, like us, a lot of these families fall in love with these precious little ones and adopt them! A year ago, I was clueless that my foster care experience with M would be the biggest blessing of my life. I look forward to sharing much of our foster adoption experience. This past year has been quite the roller-coaster ride! But, I am so thankful for our foster adoption journey and I am proud to just one year later, be able to call M my daughter.

Aubrey also writes at her personal blog, Kingcade Kitchen, between changing diapers and playing baby dolls with her little one.