By Steve Brawner, © 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

I turned 50 years old last June 17, and then on Jan. 10 I became a dad again. My daughter’s name is Hope Renee – Renee being French for “reborn.”

Hope is definitely the baby of the family. In addition to her AARP-eligible dear old dad, her mom is 44 and her sisters are 18 and 15.

The answer to your obvious question is, “No way!” This baby was not planned. Instead, Hope is a gift from God.

Our family has experienced a lot of twists and turns this past year-and-a-half. With help from The CALL in Arkansas, a Christian ministry, my wife, Melissa, and I became respite foster parents in 2018, meaning we would give a break to families fostering full-time. Foster parents temporarily take care of children the state removes from their biological families because of abuse, neglect and/or drug abuse in the home.

One of our assignments was to care for three sisters under 3 years old while their foster parents went on a cruise. The girls were in our home about 10 days, and we celebrated an early Christmas with them. On Dec. 21, 2018, I found myself taking care of all three while Melissa and our two daughters were sick in the bed and needing me to care for them, too. For a morning, I was a harried dad in a TV sitcom running in every direction and failing to contain the chaos. Melissa snapped a photo of me sitting in a chair and feeding the baby in one arm, her bottle supported by my chin, while I held the 1-year-old with my other arm. Goodness knows where the 2-year-old was at that moment.

Seven days later, on Dec. 28, I was on the phone with my brother when Melissa appeared in my office doorway, eyes wide open, after taking a pregnancy test. I mouthed, “Are you pregnant?!” and then said into the phone, “I’ve gotta go, man.” We had not intended for this to happen, but we were not sad. She had wanted another baby for years.

If you’re paying close attention and are a mathematical type, you may have noticed that Jan. 10, 2020, minus Dec. 28, 2018, equals more than nine months. This baby, whom we named Haven, was a gift we did not get to keep for long.

During that pregnancy and afterwards, we continued to help with the three foster kids. With the foster parents facing their own family and health challenges, we ended up taking care of the youngest two children full-time for three months. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, and we never became their official foster parents, but it worked for everyone concerned.

They returned to their biological parents last June, with everyone involved knowing it might not last. The parents had shown limited progress but had not regressed either. We spent the next months watching the situation from afar with concern, until the state permanently removed them. They are now with other families.

You know, the toughest part about raising foster children often isn’t the 2 a.m. feedings or dealing with the bureaucracy. It’s letting them go.

In the meantime, Melissa and I realized she was a few days late again for “that time of the month.” Once again, the pregnancy test was positive. But while we had reacted to the first test with shock and awe and wonder, our response this time was mostly resignation as we awaited another miscarriage. When we went to Cornerstone Clinic in Little Rock weeks later, we expected to be told we’d lost Hope.

And that’s when the nurse placed a portable ultrasound on Melissa’s belly, showed us a flicker of light, and said, “That’s the heartbeat.”

Hope arrived at 1:10 p.m. on 1-10-20. We begin this journey at least reassured that, even at our ages, if we can take care of three under 3, we can take care of one. As I write this, Mom is joyfully feeding baby. The six-day-old doesn’t know anything about this country’s crazy politics or life’s inevitable hardships, and Mom doesn’t care right now. All that matters is this fleeting moment.

A lot can happen when Hope is born, and when hope is reborn.