EP9 Kira Cook: The process of fostering to adopt

Not A Mama Yet

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, so I thought today would be a perfect day to share Episode 9 of the podcast featuring Kira Cook. My cousin is a close friend of Kira’s so when she let me know that Kira and her husband were fostering to adopt, I was interested to speak with her and learn more about that process. Adopting has always been something I have thought about doing one day. Our global population is growing at such a rate that we aren’t totally sure how we are going to feed the number of people projected to live on this planet in the coming decades. So I always think about the children who are already alive whose parents are unable to raise them and are in need of finding a loving home they can grow up in and have a brighter future as a result. Adoption is a very expensive process though, so a lot of people are unable to even explore that as an option for their family unless they can afford to. Fostering to adopt might not come with a financial cost, but the emotional toll it can take on someone can be huge and Kira explains how it does become a full time job to manage the appointments, home visits, and more.

In our conversation, Kira shares her experience from when she started exploring this option of fostering to adopt, how a close friend had been through the process before and his advice, and why this is an important cause more people should be aware of.

I hope you enjoy this episode of the Not A Mama Yet Podcast!

Main takeaways:

-Her fear of childbirth based on stories she had heard first led her to consider adoption. Fear of childbirth is something I am very interested in because I know it is society, movies, and TV that perpetuates this fear. I have another podcast coming up with an amazing midwife who talks about how she helps her clients combat this fear from the very beginning of pregnancy.

-Talking about kids by months might seem silly to people without kids, but within the first three years of life, a child’s development from one month to the next is drastic enough where specifying their age with months actually makes a lot of sense.

-The Foster Care system needs more people like Kira and her husband! Each case worker can have about 25 open cases per day they are responsible for monitoring. While the system is not perfect, it is set up to help children find better homes than the ones they were born into.

Where you can find Kira:

-tinyletter.com/flamelikeme

-Instagram: @flamelikeme

I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as I did recording it with Kira. It was so informative on a subject I’m even more curious about now. Becoming a foster parent takes so much strength, hope, and patience, especially if you are hoping to adopt, because you know that at any moment you can lose that child. While Kira says she knows that biological reunification is always the goal with fostering, she falls in love with those babies and wants to give them a beautiful life so it’s hard to imagine going through that process more than a few times. I’m grateful for people like Kira and her husband who are willing to take those risks for the sake of these children they have never even met because they know they are still helping.

Thank you for listening! Only 3 more episodes of the first season of the podcast. Stay tuned!

Natalie

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