Remember your first placement??

We received our first placement three weeks after we were licensed. We foster through a private agency which does permanency planning which basically means that the kids are high risk for TPR and if that happens, we agree to adopt...the goal is to prevent numerous placements or foster care drift. We had requested a placement of a little girl under 3. (We have two bio boys and one girl--so we thought we might even things out.) We got the call that there was a three week old little girl who had been exposed to drugs prenatally. She had been born with a heart defect and with webbed fingers and toes. We paused for just a minute because with three bio kids we wondered if we could handle a medically fragile infant, and then we said yes, of course we would take her. We went to the hospital and had to show our driver's licenses and then they just gave her to us. It seemed so strange after all the paperework and background checks and all the red tape. We got her home and immediately she had a follow up appointment with a pediatrician and then a cardiologist. She was fine! Her heart had healed itself and her toes and fingers weren't webbed. We were told by the social worker that there was no way she would be reunited and that there were no relatives. But within a week, her paternal grandfather had come forward. We had three wonderful and exhausting months with this little sweetheart. Her mother followed her plan and since the baby was no longer medically fragile, the judge said there was no reason she should still be in foster care. We were heartbroken, but also felt that she should be with her family. Her mother had been court ordered to attend all doctors appointments with me so we spent a lot of time together and she was very nurturing with "our" baby and we managed to build a good relationship although it was awkward at times. She was reunited with her mom, who now lives with the paternal grandfather. It was very, very, hard to say goodbye to this little one whom we all love. We have babysat her a few times and she is still doing well. We are now waiting for our next placement, nervously, but with excitement.