The First Weekend Away - I Cried, and So Did... a Baby?

That very next weekend, the girls spent their first overnight with their mom.

We were still emotionally recovering from court, still trying to heal our bruised hearts, but trying to show up as foster parents "should." Pro-reunification, even if the "re" was silent. Maybe Mom wasn’t as bad as the case file painted her to be. Maybe this was just our grief talking. Maybe we had been holding on to the worst parts of her history—like the PCP and meth in Daisy’s system at birth or the time Alexa was abandoned at daycare when she was just three months old—and we weren’t leaving space for growth.

After all, her two oldest kids had chosen to move back in with her. That had to count for something, right?

We hugged her at the courthouse. It was awkward but kind. We made a plan to drop the girls off ourselves because she didn’t drive and lived about 45 minutes away. This became a recurring theme—foster parents carrying the responsibility and accountability in ways that make you feel less like the children’s advocate and more like the biological parent’s Uber, secretary, therapist, and assistant rolled into one.

That Friday, we picked the girls up from school and drove them to the home she shared with her boyfriend—a single-wide trailer with a broken window, discolored siding, overgrown grass, and a lawn littered with sun-faded toys. We parked out front and watched our girls climb the crumbling steps and knock on the door. We smiled. We waved. We told them to have so much fun. And the moment the door shut behind them, I cried. And then I cried some more - all the way home.

Learning to Let Go (Even When It Feels Wrong)

That weekend, we tried to take care of ourselves. We hiked. We went out to dinner. We built a charcuterie board and drank wine while binge-watching a show without cartoon characters or fart jokes.

We started to imagine that maybe—just maybe—this had been a season. Maybe when they moved in with Mom full time, we’d reclaim our quiet life and even be grateful for the peace. Maybe we’d look back on the chaos of foster parenting like we do a wild college semester—grateful for the growth, but in no rush to repeat it.

By Sunday, we were rested. We missed the girls, but we felt ready to hear all about their weekend. Over lunch, they chattered on about their siblings and adventures—water balloon fights, playing dress-up, how their mom cussed up a storm when she couldn’t find her wig before heading to work. It was funny. It was strange. It was kind of sweet.

Then came the moment—the one that stopped everything in its tracks.

“We heard a baby crying.”

I blinked. “What do you mean a baby crying?”

“We thought it was coming from Mom’s room. She wouldn’t let us in there. She was in her room almost all weekend except for work.”

I asked if maybe she was babysitting. Maybe there was a TV in the room?

Both girls shook their heads. “There was no baby,” they said. “We didn’t see one. We just heard it.”

Alexa, always a bit too wise for her years, said,

“If she was babysitting, she would’ve had the baby with her. And it cried all weekend.”

I sat frozen, trying to find any logical explanation. Any.

And then my phone buzzed. Holly had texted me from under the table:

“OMG. There’s another baby in that house.”

When You Know, But You Don’t Know

We couldn’t prove anything. We weren’t even sure what we were suggesting. By this point, the foster care system had become like an abusive partner. We felt so gaslit that we couldn't figure out fact from fiction. But that text—the fact that both of us arrived at the same chilling thought at the same time—made my stomach drop.

The girls were supposed to be in a home with three girls and one boy. That’s what was said in court. That’s what CYS Kristen confirmed multiple times when questioned in court. But now they were saying there were two boys, two girls, and possibly… a baby no one mentioned?

Why wasn’t this in the file?

Why hadn’t anyone told us?

CYS Kristen had been out to the home just twelve days before court!

Why was this house deemed “safe” when there were already red flags waving in neon?

Hope, Grief & Gut Instincts

That night, we laid in bed unable to sleep. We weren’t sure if we were overreacting or not reacting enough. We wanted to give Mom the benefit of the doubt. We also wanted to scream from the rooftops that something didn’t feel right.

There’s no manual for this. There’s no neat checklist for what to do when your foster child tells you something that doesn’t quite add up but definitely rattles your soul. But we HAD been warned that if we were "anti-(re)unification, they could remove the girls immediately.

What if we were wrong? What if they thought we were just trying to stir up trouble. What if the girls were making it all up, or if there really WAS a sound machine of a baby crying? I mean, no one hides a baby in a back bedroom for an entire weekend, right? This truly felt unbelievable, and we didn't want to seem like the crazy foster moms who made a mountain out of a molehill, or fell for the silliest prank of all time. Wait. That weekend WAS April 1st, come to think of it. But... what if?

Stay Tuned

I’ll share what we did next—and what happened when we brought our concerns forward. For now, I’ll leave you with this:

Foster care requires you to believe in redemption AND protect children from harm.

It forces you to love unconditionally while remaining skeptical. To advocate while the system makes choices you wouldn’t.

And sometimes, it forces you to hear a baby crying while no one says a baby exists.

And you just have to trust your gut.

What would you do?

• Report to CPS
• Call CYS Kristen
• Call FUN Kristin
• Confront Mom

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