Abbie's Story

• Fostering Stories

When Abbie turned 29 and her daughter was 16 months old, she decided to leave her job in accounts to become a foster carer for babies alongside her husband.  She shared her story at one of our recent information events.

How has fostering babies changed your life?

Fostering babies has given me more freedom than I had in my old job. I’ve been able to take my daughter to school and pick her up every day, and more importantly it’s allowed me to be at home and spend time with her.

It’s given me more time to be with my own family, as everyone is getting older, we’ve been able to enjoy quality time that we haven’t had before.

"It is the most challenging and rewarding thing I will ever do."

You can't help fall in love with them.  Understandably everyone wants to foster babies, but it's important to know they could be withdrawing from drugs and alcohol and it's the unknown a lot of the time.  Fostering is not just about looking after a child, there are a lot of other tasks like record keeping, training and contact time with family.  Being a baby carer is a 24/7 role!

The most rewarding thing is to see them come on and become healthy and thrive, which sometimes takes a lot longer than it would with your own.  It’s given me a lot of confidence that I do know what I’m doing, and I can pick things up.  Three years ago, if you told me I was going to have babies with breathing difficulties and health issues that needed specialist care, I would never in a million years have thought that would be me, and now I know I can do it! 

What does your daughter think of fostering?

She's so good with babies.  Seeing her with them is amazing.  The empathy she has for the children who come to us, when she is only four years old is amazing to see.

When they are newborn my daughter is like a little mother hen and as they get bigger, she can interact and help more.

We asked Abbie’s Daughter about fostering babies and she told us:

"When a new baby comes, I play with them. I like taking care of them and feeding them bottles. We keep them safe. When they leave, we say goodbye in our hearts."

Moving babies on

You can’t help but fall in love but watching them get their happily ever after is so rewarding. Even if it does break your heart, it proves how much of a good job we have done and it means we can go on to help another baby on their journey.

Many of our babies have been adopted and we still keep in touch with some families.

A lot of foster carers who have been fostering for longer than us have said it's like their family gets bigger and bigger with the connections they make and keep.