by Carla Raley

Created on: August 20, 2009   Last Updated: August 24, 2009

Children are a gift from God, they are his reward. (Psalms 127:3 Living Bible translation)

I grew up in a totally feminine world. I was the oldest of four sisters. My poor father didn't have a chance, even our dogs were girls! Although my father always longed for a son, he never made us, his daughters, feel like he would have traded us in for one.

So life went on, and at 18 I got married and soon my husband and I were ready to start our own family. We had grown up during the 'zero population growth' era. It was preached to us at school having more than the two children it would take to replace yourselves was irresponsible, because you were taking up someone else's spot on the earth. My husband Bill and I believed it, and so we planned to have two children. We soon had our first daughter, Rachael, followed less than three years later by a second daughter, Celeste. We thought our family was complete, and I continued to live in a feminine world, something I was comfortable with.

A few years later, we moved from Texas to Oklahoma. I was very sad to move away from my family, and I was very, very lonely there. One day, I read in the newspaper about the great need for foster parents. This seemed like both the answer to my loneliness, and also a way to fill my house with many children. In those days, more than 20 years ago, though, foster families could not adopt, and families wanting to adopt could not foster. It never occurred to me that could be a problem, however, and we completed our training and got our license. Soon the children began to arrive at our house.

All went well for us, it was an interesting work, and the children I kept all ended up going back home to their parents within six or seven months until I got Brian. Brian came to me straight from the hospital. He had been born to a little teenage mom who relinquished right after the birth. The father's family, however, pressured the father not to give his son up so easily, so even though the father and the rest of the family never asked for any kind of visits with Brian, his being place with an adoptive family was delayed several months. He also seemed to have a host of health problems. He screamed ALL the time, would hardly eat, and seemed to be blind. We spent lots of time at doctor's offices, where they could find nothing wrong, and I worked over the baby continually.

At three months, he suddenly seemed to be 'born.' He began to look around, his screaming lessened, and he ate better. As he responded

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>