My wife and I have 2 kids and when this all happened, wife was 3 months pregnant with our 3rd baby. She felt bad and ended up in an emergency room. Turned out, the fetus was not viable and my wife was miscarrying. Later that day, to our immense shock, the doctors dropped a bombshell that her miscarriage had triggered some internal complications. They had to perform an emergency procedure to stop internal bleeding—and in the process, they had to remove her uterus.
I sat there with a clipboard in my hand, trying to read the words through watery eyes. “Consent for hysterectomy.” It didn’t even feel real. One moment we were planning names and measuring the tiny bump. The next, we were grieving a child that would never come and a future we hadn’t realized meant so much to us.
She tried to stay strong, but I could see her break a little every time she looked at our youngest, Isla, asleep in her car seat. Our daughter was just two years old, but somehow she’d picked up on the tension in the air and clung to her mother’s neck like a koala for days.
We went home hollow. The kind of hollow that echoes.
Friends brought casseroles and fuzzy blankets. My sister sent flowers. People meant well, but they didn’t know what to say, so they said things like “at least you already have two beautiful kids.” I wanted to scream every time someone said that. It’s not the same. We lost someone. We lost a dream.
A week after the surgery, my wife, Mireya, barely spoke. She would nod, smile faintly for the kids, and then disappear to lie down. I kept thinking maybe she just needed time. But one night, I found her in the bathroom, sitting on the cold tiles, whispering something over and over.
“I didn’t even say goodbye.”
That’s when I realized grief had parked itself in our home and it wasn’t going to leave on its own.
So I started looking for help.
Support groups. Counselors. Any kind of outlet. I ended up calling a local women’s center and they pointed me toward a group that met every Tuesday in the basement of a community church. They allowed spouses to attend, so I convinced Mireya to go with me one night. She didn’t speak. But she listened.
That meeting turned out to be more than just therapy—it was the beginning of something unexpected.
One of the women there, a former NICU nurse named Bernice, had started a small nonprofit that helped families going through reproductive loss. She was older, kind of blunt in a sweet way, and the kind of person who gave you a hug before asking your name. Mireya liked her immediately.
A few weeks later, Bernice reached out privately. She asked if we’d ever considered fostering.
At first, I thought she was out of her mind. We were still grieving. Mireya was barely holding it together. But she said something that stuck with me:
“Sometimes, healing isn’t just about what you’ve lost. It’s about what you still have to give.”
I didn’t bring it up right away. We were still adjusting. But a month later, Mireya was the one who brought it up.
“What if we did foster care? Just… maybe later?”
The idea planted itself and wouldn’t go away. So we started the classes. We filled out the paperwork. It was slow, detailed, and honestly exhausting. But it gave us a focus. Something forward-facing.
The home study was intimidating. A social worker named Tamryn came to inspect our lives down to the toothpaste in our bathroom. But she was warm and real. When she saw the photos of our kids and the scribbles taped to the fridge, she smiled and said, “You’ve got love here. That’s what matters.”
Three months later, we were approved.
At first, we just did respite care—short stays when full-time foster families needed a break. It helped us get our feet wet. One weekend, we hosted two brothers, ages six and eight, who ate like they’d never seen waffles before. Another time, we had a teenage girl who barely spoke and spent the entire two days curled up with our cat.
Every goodbye was hard. But it felt like we were doing something that mattered.
Then came Elijah.
We got the call late on a Friday. A three-day-old baby boy had been surrendered at a hospital. No family willing to take him. Would we be willing to keep him until a long-term solution could be found?
We didn’t even hesitate.
I remember driving to the hospital with Mireya in the passenger seat, both of us nervous and weirdly excited. When the nurse placed Elijah in her arms, I saw something flicker back into my wife’s eyes. A softness I hadn’t seen in months.
“He smells like milk and heaven,” she whispered.
We brought him home with exactly one onesie, a borrowed car seat, and a pack of diapers Tamryn dropped off on our porch. Our kids were smitten. Mateo, our oldest, appointed himself “diaper boss.” Isla called him “Baby Jijah” and insisted he sleep next to her stuffed bunny.
We told ourselves we wouldn’t get too attached.
But of course we did.
Weeks turned into months. We were told his case was “complicated.” No one came forward. His birth mom had left a fake name. They were trying to track down any known relatives, but there were no leads.
Six months in, we were in deep. Mireya had started referring to him as “our baby.” I didn’t correct her. Tamryn sat us down and told us there was a chance he could become eligible for adoption.
It didn’t seem real.
Then one afternoon, Tamryn showed up unexpectedly.
She had a file in her hand and a tense look on her face. “Elijah’s birth grandmother came forward,” she said. “She just found out about him. She wants to meet.”
My heart dropped.
Apparently, the birth mother had used a fake name to hide the pregnancy from her family. But someone in the hospital remembered her from a prior visit, which led to a social worker digging deeper. Eventually, they tracked down her mother—Elijah’s grandmother, Ms. Reenie.
We agreed to meet her.
She was in her early sixties, wearing a pale yellow blouse and denim skirt, clutching a photo album like armor. When she saw Elijah, she cried silently. Not loud sobs—just tears sliding down like they didn’t need permission.
“I didn’t know he existed,” she said softly. “Please believe me. If I had, I would’ve come sooner.”
The next few weeks were agonizing. She came by a few times. Held him, fed him. She was gentle, respectful, never overstepping. But it was clear she wanted to raise him.
I tried not to be bitter. I reminded myself it wasn’t a custody battle—it was about what was best for Elijah.
Then came the curveball. Tamryn called us for a private conversation. Apparently, during the background checks, they’d uncovered something concerning about Ms. Reenie’s adult son—Elijah’s uncle. A record of domestic abuse. Protective orders. One of them had involved a child.
Ms. Reenie didn’t live with him, but he stayed over often. She had helped him financially. That complicated things.
In the end, child welfare deemed her home “not safe enough” without major changes.
She was devastated. Offered to move, to cut ties. But policies are policies.
I expected to feel relief.
Instead, I felt grief for her. For what she was losing.
When the adoption was finalized a year later, she showed up in a pale yellow blouse again. Same photo album. She handed it to us.
“This is Elijah’s story too,” she said. “I want him to know where he came from.”
There were pictures of his mother as a child. Drawings she’d made. School awards. A note she wrote in high school: “One day I want to live somewhere peaceful.”
She never got there.
But maybe Elijah would.
We kept in touch with Ms. Reenie. Sent her photos. Invited her to birthday parties. She became “Grandma Reenie,” and the kids didn’t question it. Love was love.
Now, two years later, Elijah is a toddler who tries to ride the vacuum cleaner like it’s a pony and eats bananas like a monkey. Mireya laughs again. Our home is loud and chaotic and alive.
Sometimes, healing doesn’t come the way you expect.
Sometimes it shows up wearing a hospital bracelet and needing 2 a.m. feedings.
We didn’t get the third baby we planned for. But we got a different kind of miracle. One we never saw coming.
If you’ve ever faced a detour in life that broke you before it built you—share this. You never know who needs hope right now.