I never knew I’d love being a mom. I wish someone would have told me how great it was. You’d think somehow in my forty-four years I’d have gotten a clue that motherhood would be fun, but it took being a foster parent, and new mom at forty-four to discover the joy for myself.

We had nine legal-risk foster-adopt children who all went home to birth family. Some stayed as little as three days, some as long as seven months. We loved them all, but didn’t have an opportunity to adopt any of them.

And then out of the blue, we got our little girl. Only thirty days old, born to a mentally ill, drug addicted mom. She came to us as a respite child – with no possible opportunity to adopt, but instantly we knew she was meant to be ours. It’s funny how things work out. Circumstances change, and it took over a year, but finally, with the blessing of birth mom, we adopted our daughter.

We have an open adoption and see birth mom a couple of times per month. I notice that I’m secretly jealous of birth mom, - my daughter looks like her. They laugh the same and have the same eyes; but mostly I try to be grateful and compassionate. Now, only two years later, birth mom now has a second child – and this one she will try to keep.

I got to hold my daughter’s newborn sister, immediately after birth. It was one of those weird twists of fate. Social services gave her firstborn child to me, and now I’m supporting the birth of her second child, present in the delivery room.

My daughter is now two and a half (as she proudly states). Her sister, living with birth mom, is six months old. Open adoption makes for complicated family relationships, but we’ll work it out. I hope to act as an aunt figure to the sister.

As they grow up they’ll play together sometimes. They have very different lives, my daughter and her sister, different schools, different homes and experiences, but they are still sisters. I’m not sure how it will work out in the end, but I want them to know each other a bit as they grow up.

All I can do is stay open to the possibilities.