Maybe Baby: The Reveal

The Transition

For two and a half months straight, the girls visited their mom and siblings at the trailer. We packed their overnight bags on Fridays - favorite pajamas, toothbrushes, comfort food - and sent them off with a slight tug of the stomach.

Every Sunday night, they came home tired but chatty, telling stories about the chickens or pigs (I really can't remember at this point) that lived inside the trailer next door, the neighbor lady down the street, the water balloon fights with siblings that sometimes turned into real fights. We smiled, nodded, and tried to stay consistently calm in the chaos of transition.

There were always mishaps - missing shoes, confusing communication, refusal to return belongings - but we tried to brush them off. We tried to justify that this was part of reunification. Messy but meaningful. We wanted to believe it could work.

When summer rolled in, visits switched to Tuesday mornings through Thursday nights. Half the week here, half there. The calendar filled with color-coded blocks of divided time.

They were spending nearly 50% of their lives there.

And yet, not once, not one single time, did they mention the baby.

The Baby Who Didn’t Exist

By then, we’d stopped trying to make sense of it. The girls had mentioned strange noises at night, soft cries or cooing, but every time we gently asked, they brushed it off.

“It’s just Mom’s sound machine,” they’d say, eyes wide, tone rehearsed.

It didn’t sit right.

One afternoon, during a case check-in, the Guardian ad Litem casually asked,

“Do the girls know about the baby now?”

I almost laughed. “Honestly? I don’t even know if we know about the baby.”

Because the truth was, it felt like we were living in two realities; one where a baby existed, and one where it didn’t.

So we finally asked.

“Did you ever find out what that sound was in Mom’s room? You know, the one that sounded like a baby crying?”

The girls stared blankly. “What sound?”

“The one from before,” I said carefully. “Was there… a baby?”

They looked at each other, then back at me, They burst out laughing. “A baby? No way! It’s a sound machine!”

Wow...

Three months of visits. Three months of weekends and overnights and midweek drop-offs, and they had never met their brother. How do you hide a baby for three days at a time?

How do you hide a baby from your children for months?

The Missing Hours

Once the shock settled, the questions started. If the girls were there from Tuesday morning until Thursday night, where was he? We had obviously come to discover that her parenting style was very different from ours, but not even their biological mom would hide a baby in one dark room for days on end. Right? It started to feel like we were slowly going crazy, rechecking reality over and over again.

I replayed every drop-off and pickup in my head. How she always had the girls waiting outside, backpacks ready, hair a mess, never a baby in sight. Never a car seat. Never a diaper bag. Never a sign of a baby.

Nothing.

It was like he didn’t exist in their world.

The Calls That Never Happened

Around that same time, she started demanding FaceTime calls with the girls. We agreed. Two options: Thursday at 5:00 or 7:00.

She chose 7:00.

Every single week, the same story. Her phone was dead. She was at work. Her “battery was low.”

Once, she said the Wi-Fi was out, though she was actively texting me while saying it.

We tried to keep the boundaries firm. If she wanted to connect, it was on her to initiate. Weeks went by without a single successful call.

Then one Thursday, we decided to try anyway.

The girls were sprawled on the couch, waiting, eyes on the phone screen. I hit FaceTime. It rang. Once. Twice. Three times.

Then a text popped up on the screen:

“I’m feeding. I can’t talk right now.”

My heart stopped.

Feeding?

Before I could swipe it away, Alexa read it out loud. “Feeding? Like a baby???”

I froze. Every cell in my body screamed don’t react.

Because if I reacted, they’d know.

If I stayed silent, they’d wonder.

If I said too much, I might be the one who told them — and it wasn’t my secret to tell.

But then, before I could even form a plan, the phone started ringing again.

The Moment Everything Changed

It was her. FaceTime.

Wait! Wasn’t she feeding?

Before I could say a word, the girls grabbed the phone.

“Hi, Mom!” they yelled, faces lighting up.

The screen was dim, but the voice was unmistakable. “Hi girls.”

The picture adjusted slowly, the camera shaking. I saw shadows, the glint of a window, a flash of movement. Then a soft, unmistakable sound.

A baby’s coo.

“Wait… what is that?” Alexa leaned in. “Is that a BABY?! OMG! I KNEW IT!”

Daisy gasped, covering her mouth in shock.

The camera tilted just enough to reveal a small face nestled against her mom’s arm, tiny hands reaching for the phone light.

Their little brother.

The one they’d been told didn’t exist.

And as if on cue, she laughed it off. “Oh, you and your wild imaginations. You did say you thought you heard a baby!”

The girls flooded her with questions. “What’s his name?” “Can we hold him when we come?” “Is it a boy or a girl?”

She dodged most of them with vague answers and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. "Ya'll just won't let it go, will you?" she said coyly.

Then, right on schedule, her battery was “low.” The call ended abr

uptly.

The Silence That Followed

When the screen went black, the silence in the room was deafening.

I expected squeals. Excitement. Maybe joy.

Instead, the girls sat still.

Their faces, half lit by the fading glow of the phone, looked older somehow.

Finally, Daisy spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. “Why did Mom lie to us?”

It landed like a stone in the center of my chest.

I wanted to tell her that sometimes adults make complicated choices. That sometimes lies are born from fear, not malice. That maybe, just maybe, her mom thought she was protecting them.

Who am I kidding? I also wanted to tell her how angry I was, how I had been forced to keep this secret even though I hated it. I wanted to tell her that mom lied because that seems to be her MO, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

But none of that would make sense to an eight-year-old who just discovered her mother’s secret. And it wouldn't be productive.

So I said the only thing that was true. “I don’t know.”

And the three of us just sat there in the quiet, in the truth, in the space where innocence meets reality.

The Weight of What Happened

That night, after the girls went to bed, I replayed the moment in my mind again and again; the confusion in their eyes, the catch in Daisy’s voice, the look of betrayal that flickered and faded as they drifted off to sleep.

In foster care, we talk a lot about trauma. About the big, loud moments - removals, court hearings, case plans.

But sometimes, it’s the quiet betrayals that cut the deepest. The whispered lies. The truths withheld. The gaslighting by the adults kids are supposed to trust.

Secrets don’t just keep people out. They keep children small, stuck in a story they can’t rewrite.

And maybe that’s why this moment will always stay with me. Because for the first time, I saw the shift happen - the exact second when childhood collided with reality.

And I realized something painful and profound: Even when kids are too young to understand the why, they always feel the truth.