Maybe Baby - Trust Your Gut

Here’s what happened next.

After a sleepless night—one of those where you rattle each other awake every 45 minutes with another “But what if…”—morning came. The girls were back to chatting about recess and what they'd wear to school, as if the strange Subway conversation had never happened. And we? We were holding full conversations with our eyes. Since foster care started in our home, we had mastered this silent language.

"I still have no idea what to do about this."

"We’re crazy, right? It can’t be what we think it is."

"We have to call someone."

"Agreed."

I made the call...

So, on my way to work, I called Fun Kristin. She was always our sanity in a storm. The kind of person you can say literally anything to and never feel judged. But also, the kind of person who would definitely tell us if we were out of our minds.

I jumped in the car, hit the road, and made the call. Luckily, she answered—early morning chaos and all. She immediately asked how the weekend visit had gone, which gave me the in.

“It sounds like it went fine… but the girls said one thing that seemed a little odd.”

I then told her the story —the giggles, the mention of crying, the maybe baby—and

followed it with every reason we thought we had officially lost our minds. I was spiraling so hard at that point, I expected her to say it was a stretch, or to just "wait it out."

There was a long pause.

Too long.

I almost started nervously rambling just to fill the silence.

Then, finally, she replied:

“So you think what? There’s another baby there? That’s insane!”

Cue the trauma response.

I immediately recoiled and backpedaled.

“I know! I’m sure it’s nothing. The girls didn’t see a baby. CYS Kristen was just there 12 days before the hearing. Visits were happening for months and no one said a thing. I’m just being crazy. Forget I said anything.”

But Kristin didn’t forget it.

Instead, she asked if she could set up a Zoom meeting with the girls that evening. She said she wanted to check in on the visit anyway.

I spent my lunch break that day sleuthing through online birth announcements and hospital records like a woman possessed. Nothing came up—another sign, I told myself, that we were just paranoid.

But that night’s Zoom? It was different.

Usually, Zoom calls with the girls were chaotic. Short attention spans, random tangents, mid-sentence distractions. But this time, Kristin just gently guided the conversation.

“How was the visit this weekend, girls?”

“Good.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Yes.”

“Were there any surprises?”

“Like gifts? No.”

“Anything you didn’t expect?”

And then—they looked at each other.

They had a secret language too.

"You tell her.”

“No… YOU.”

Daisy rolled her eyes and said in her adorable little voice, “We heard a baby.”

Alexa jumped in, “OH yeah! We heard a baby. But there wasn’t a baby!”

They told FUN Kristin everything they'd told us, unprompted. No leading questions. Just space to share. Kristin texted me right after:

“OMG. I think there’s another baby. You’re not crazy—at least not about this.”

The next evening, they met with their Guardian ad Litem and CYS Kristin. Same story. Word for word. Still, I doubted myself. How could a baby have been hidden all this time?

But what now?

That week felt like an eternity. So many theories, so many what ifs, circling endlessly.

But then… confirmation.

CYS from the county where the visits were happening went out to the home.

And there he was.

A little bitty baby.

I got a text that read: “You were right. There’s a baby.”

I assumed everything would change after that. That visits would end, there’d be immediate legal ramifications, maybe even charges. But instead? Radio silence. No one told us we were off the hook.

In fact, it got stranger.

We realized we hadn’t heard from Mom all week—no updates, no plans, nothing. We had been told to coordinate visits, but there was never a set schedule or any real guidelines. And now Easter weekend was approaching.

Thursday evening, I texted her.

“Hi! Just checking in—should we plan to bring the girls this weekend?”

No response.

Friday morning:

“Hey, just following up—do you want a visit this weekend?”

Still nothing.

We decided to make the most of the day. I took the girls into the city to go to the market and grab lunch. It was a beautiful day, and we were all off for the holiday. I kept checking my phone, just in case. Nothing.

The girls had recently said they missed Papi’s ribs, so I figured I’d make them that night. Some comfort food to take the edge off the uncertainty.

They were excited. I told them gently, “We haven’t heard from Mom, so we’re going to assume no visit.”

I seasoned the ribs, added the sauce, and popped them in the oven.

Then I went to the bedroom to change—and my phone dinged.

I wasn't expecting a text this late into the evening.

“WHERE ARE MY KIDS?”

Another ding.

“WHEN ARE YOU BRINGING MY KIDS TO ME?”

I froze. My gut knotted up. This was not how she had communicated in the past. Her tone was sharp. Accusatory.

I walked out and showed Holly.

We both stared at the screen.

I tried to stay calm. I responded:

“We didn’t hear from you, so we assumed you weren’t expecting them. I just put dinner in the oven and they’re really looking forward to it. Can we bring them after dinner?”

The little gray bubble popped up. Then disappeared. Then popped up again.

“It’s FRIDAY. They’re MY kids. You’re KEEPING them from me.”

No matter what we said, she kept hammering:

“Why didn’t you bring them?” “Who told you you could decide that?” “You don’t get to make the rules.”

We tried to reason with her:

“We’ve reached out multiple times without response. We never meant to keep them. We just needed to know what your plan was.”

Nothing worked.

So we did what we always do—we put on our brave faces and walked into the living room.

The girls were playing quietly.

I plastered a smile on my face, conjured up a tone of excitement, and knelt down.

“We are going to take you to Mom’s for a visit. Pack your things, okay?”

Their little shoulders slumped. The energy drained out of the room.

I turned off the oven—or maybe I didn’t. Honestly, I don’t even remember what happened to those ribs.

The car ride was silent.

An hour later, we arrived at Mom's.

We pulled up to the trailer. No one came outside.

The girls got out. No excited waves, no hugs, no “Hello, baby girls!”

They trudged up to the door.

Knock.

Wait.

Knock again.

Finally, the door opened. They stepped inside.

And it shut behind them.

The familiar sting of tears hit me again.

But before I could fall too far into it, a thought popped into my head:

“At least we’ll find out something about the baby.”

We’ve learned a lot of hard lessons in foster care, but this one stuck.

Your gut is not lying to you.

It’s not drama. It’s not paranoia. It’s intuition. And sometimes, in a system where no one communicates and everyone’s afraid to be wrong, that gut feeling is the only thing that leads to truth.

We also learned that:

• Trust is earned, not implied. You can’t assume everyone’s working with the same intentions—even if they should be.

• No one is coming. You are the communicator. The transporter. The buffer. The emotional compass.

• When the system fails, the kids pay the price. All we could do was try to soften the edges of a very hard reality.

And lastly?

We are not crazy.

At least… not about this.