Birdie vs Baby

The thoughts that I can't keep out of my head as of late are all about how a pregnancy would affect our fostering journey. When finally deciding to look to another plan in order to become a parent, I never thought I'd be back on this one. Over the last 3 months I've become quite attached to the thought of "Birdie". Birdie is the nickname I've given to our future foster child. We have no idea what it's going to be or how old (we're accepting male and female 0-4), but we've been planning, preparing a room, purchasing different things to get ready for the day we get that call. They call it "Paper pregnancy". I'm not ready to give up on foster care just because there is a sliver of hope we may have a biological child, but having another child in our home does complicate things. For one, we live in a 3 bedroom house. We have converted my office into Birdie's foster room and put my things into Ran's office that we now share. Unfortunately at this point in time, I don't have 2 rooms I can give up. We have to have a place to work, else we'd go crazy and there isn't anywhere else in the house that an office would work in.

My current plan is to continue with the licencing process. It will be fall before we are complete and by that time I'll have quite a few months in of being TTC again. If we get pregnant in that time, we will maintain our training hours and be foster parents on paper without accepting placements until we feel like we're ready and that we've gotten to a point the new parent learning curve that a foster child wouldn't have a disservice done to them in being with us.

Then again, we may not get pregnant. That is still a very real possibility. Just because there is a new diagnosis doesn't mean the prognosis will be different. At least this time there is another path forged. I am at peace with fostering to adopt. I think it's a wonderful way to expand on our family. A way I'd be honored to be a part of. Giving birth to a child that is biologically mine would be beautiful as well and of course I would be in absolute adoration of this happening. Either way, I'll be fine. I'm not aiming for a pregnancy, I'm aiming to become a mother.