Katie Page, from Colorado, was looking to change gears after her marriage ended in her early 30s.
She bought a new home and changed jobs but felt that something was still missing in her life.
However, an email from her local pastor dramatically changed her life after he asked if she wanted to become a foster parent. Katie was curious but first attended meetings to learn more about the responsibility before taking it on.
Writing in a post on Love What Matters, Katie revealed, “ What I heard that evening about foster care gave me chills and scared me, but it also pulled at my heart in a way I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
She ended up fostering four children but eventually decided that she wanted to adopt a child so that she could give them a permanent home.
Her chance came in 2016 when a caseworker called Katie about a four-day-old baby boy who was left in a hospital in a likely foster-to-adopt case.
“I immediately called her back and said ‘I want him! Give me five minutes and please don’t call anyone else,’” Katie recalled.
The boy, who she named Grayson, joined her household soon after. While Katie was happy to finally have a child to care for, the next few months were nerve-wracking as she waited for the boy’s biological parents to claim him. But no one responded to the newspaper ads or went to the hospital to look for him.
“Part of me was relieved that no one came forward so that he would be mine forever with no opposition,” Katie wrote. “But there was always a pit in my stomach about one day having to tell my son no one showed up at his termination hearing.”
Just two weeks after legally adopting Grayson, the new mother received another call about a baby girl who was dropped off in the same hospital where Grayson was found.
“I could feel the fear inside me and the chills in my body. I was overwhelmed at the thought. Yet the feeling also told me to keep listening and to consider this placement.”
Less than four hours later, Katie was now taking care of two children. However, she noticed one thing.
“As I reviewed the bracelets on the baby girl, I saw the first name of her mother matched the name Grayson’s mother had given to the hospital,” Katie wrote.
Curiosity piqued, Katie took a closer look at the hospital discharge papers and noted that the birth mother had the same birth date as Grayson’s birth mother. She got the nagging feeling that the two children were related.
“To give some context, Grayson is half African American with beautiful darker skin and dark curly hair,” Katie wrote. “Baby Girl has a pale white skin tone with straight red-blonde hair. From first glance, the children looked nothing alike.”
Katie decided to follow up on her hunch and contact the birth mother and meet her. Upon meeting, the birth mother admitted that she had a baby boy before delivering the baby girl.
A later meeting with the caseworker confirmed that Grayson and Baby Girl were half-siblings.
“What if Baby Girl had gone to another family?” Katie wondered. “We would have never found her or Grayson’s mother. The connection would have never been made! I could not believe the miracle that had just happened.”
Katie eventually named the girl Hannah and once she officially joined the family in December 2018, Katie had a family picture taken to celebrate the moment.
But it doesn’t end there because, in the coming months, Katie is set to adopt another boy the birth mother had recently given birth to.
“We are fostering [the young boy] with great hopes to adopt in 2019,” Katie wrote.