One thing I’ve learned, is that change isn’t always easy. It isn’t always good, and it isn’t always bad. Sometimes it just is.

Foster care ended for us almost two months ago, and I’m still having a hard time putting a word on the feeling it left. I don’t want to call it empty, because my life is still so full. I don’t know what to call it, but it left a space where a child used to be.

He was never my baby, but while he was here, he was my son. He added so much complexity to my life that I wasn’t prepared for, and then the sudden absence of the chaos was almost too much to bear. Our life was madness for ten months, and then suddenly, it was over.

I still catch myself saying “my kids” or when someone asks how many children I have, I remind myself that the answer is “one.” I’m actually writing this in bed, in the dark, because I was trying to sleep and thought of a clip of a movie that reminded me of my two boys. It has been almost two months, and life still feels off. It doesn’t feel bad, and sometimes it doesn’t feel good.

I feel like I’ll always be different now. Not outwardly, but in the same way that infertility makes me different. No one can see it, but I can feel it. And some days it’s a lot heavier than others. Some days, it is just so heavy.

I don’t think I’ll ever shake off the mark that foster care left on me. I’ll never get used to the fact that we had to give him back. He’s safe, and he’s loved, but I feel like I have a child out there that I can no longer protect.

I know that the typical “happy ending” for foster care is to be adopted into a loving home. Our foster child is in a loving home, just not ours. But, I thought he would be. I thought we would have two boys, two months apart. I thought I’d stay home with them forever. I thought I’d wear the wheels off of the double stroller, and now I have no use for it at all.

I had to take apart his crib. I had to pack his toys and clothes into boxes to go with him. I had to cry. A lot.

And on nights like tonight, where all seems calm, I find that I still cry. For him. For us. For all foster children.