“To a temporary foster home,” she said. “We’ll try to find family. I promise they’ll be safe tonight.”
The car drove away, leaving the stroller empty. Something inside me cracked open.
That night, I couldn’t stop seeing their faces. At dinner, I pushed food around my plate until Steven set his fork down.
“Okay,” he said. “What happened? You’ve been somewhere else all night.”
I told him everything—the stroller, the cold, the babies, watching them leave with CPS. “I can’t stop thinking about them,” I admitted. “What if no one takes them? What if they get split up?”
He went quiet, then said, “What if we tried to foster them?”
I laughed nervously. “Steven, they’re twins. Babies. We’re barely keeping up now.”
“You already love them,” he said, reaching for my hand. “I can see it. Let’s at least try.”
That night, we cried, talked, planned, and panicked. The next day, I called CPS.
We began the process—home visits, questions about our marriage, income, childhoods, trauma, even our fridge. A week later, the same social worker sat on our couch.
“There’s something you need to know about the twins,” she said gently. “They’re profoundly deaf. They’ll need early intervention, sign language, specialized support. A lot of families decline when they hear that.”
I looked at Steven. He didn’t even blink.
“I don’t care if they’re deaf,” I said firmly. “I care that someone left them on a sidewalk. We’ll learn whatever we need.”
Steven nodded. “We still want them.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Okay. Then let’s move forward.”
For illustrative purposes only
A week later, they arrived—two car seats, two diaper bags, two sets of wide, curious eyes. “We’re calling them Hannah and Diana,” I told the worker, signing their names clumsily.
Those first months were chaos. They didn’t respond to loud noises, but they reacted to lights, movement, touch, and facial expressions. Steven and I took ASL classes at the community center, practiced in the bathroom mirror, watched videos at 1 a.m.
“Milk. More. Sleep. Mom. Dad.”
