Mom For Now: What It Means to Be an 'Interim Boarding Care Provider'

Baby J was hospitalized and the buck stopped with me...except it didn't. 

"Jedidiah" was my 20th baby. Well, not really. He was only my 17th. Still not better? Here's the truth: I'm an interim boarding care provider with a local adoption agency--kind of like a foster mom. With the help of my family, I feed, burp, swaddle, and change the baby placed in my care until her forever family is ready for her. I wear her everywhere and awaken with her at night. When talking to the babies, my children refer to me as "Eema," the Hebrew word for "Mommy," as in, "Eema's going to change you now...hang on baby, Eema's just making a bottle."

I've had babies in my care for as short as five days and as long as nine and a half weeks. Some of my babies return to their biological families; most are adopted. None of my babies were taken from their birth moms--mom just didn't know if she was able to parent.

On a warm Monday afternoon, Jedidiah woke from his nap, and I picked him up to give him a bath. He felt unusually hot. In my 11-and-a-half years of parenting newborns, I have felt feverish babies--but never one three weeks old. I ran a temporal scanner across his forehead, wondering if it was just the ambient heat. The reading came back: "101.3." After confirming the high temperature, I called my case worker to let her know I was alerting Jed's pediatrician. 

RELATED: Becoming a Foster Parent

At first, the doctor asked me if it would be inconvenient to drive to her Upper East Side office. Of course it would. If she could wait until tomorrow to see Jed, it would work better for my schedule. She quickly countered that she'd like to see Jed before the end of the day. As I started to make arrangements to get my kids' carpool responsibilities covered, my case worker called back: the doctor had changed her mind, and I should bring Jed to an emergency room.  

"Mom?" they asked me in the ER. Shorthand, I knew, for, "Is this your baby? He's a lot darker than you."

"Why do you need to know?" I replied. I wasn't being combative. I just needed to know why they were asking. If they needed insurance information, they'd have to check with the adoption agency. If they needed to instruct someone regarding his follow-up care, they'd talk to me.

But I wasn't the mom.

It became clear that Jed was going to need to be in the hospital for at least the rest of the day. I texted my husband, "I'm sorry this is so inconvenient. I'm pretty sure I'm making the right choice by staying here with him." I felt guilty taking so much time away from my own children and saddling my husband with all the nighttime parenting responsibilities.

His response came back immediately. "What other choice do you have? Do NOT leave him."