6 episodes

Reporter Yvonne Wenger’s series, “The Wait,” began with 73 pages of journal entries that documented her days as a new foster mother - and her attempts to make sense of the moral dilemmas she navigated over two years of learning to love, and to let go. By digging into her own medical history and struggle to have a child, Wenger opens up the complicated world of foster care and takes listeners on the journey of how she became a mother.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Wait The Baltimore Sun

    • Kids & Family
    • 5.0 • 48 Ratings

Reporter Yvonne Wenger’s series, “The Wait,” began with 73 pages of journal entries that documented her days as a new foster mother - and her attempts to make sense of the moral dilemmas she navigated over two years of learning to love, and to let go. By digging into her own medical history and struggle to have a child, Wenger opens up the complicated world of foster care and takes listeners on the journey of how she became a mother.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Episode 1: A diagnosis, and a decision

    Episode 1: A diagnosis, and a decision

    Yvonne realizes she should have sought answers sooner about why she wasn't getting pregnant. In the beginning, though, she was prioritizing her career, and research she read online said it could take time. When she finally saw a specialist, her diagnosis was scary. Months of tests and procedures still couldn't guarantee a safe pregnancy and healthy child. Yvonne and her husband considered adoption. But their conscience kept pulling them toward foster parenting. They had an empty room, and there were plenty of children in their own city who needed one.
    Yvonne's story is also being told in words, pictures and video.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 28 min
    Episode 2: Foster care: The bigger picture

    Episode 2: Foster care: The bigger picture

    Foster care is intended to keep children safe until their parents are ready to care for them again. However, in thousands of cases a year, it's concluded adoption is what's best for the child. Most of the children adopted in the United States, in fact, are adopted through foster care. We step away from Yvonne’s story to look at this bigger picture. How are children placed in foster care? How do they leave it? How could the system work better? We brought these and other questions to Richard Barth, dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland.
    Yvonne's story is also being told in words, pictures and video. The presentation includes an animated graphic showing how and how many children move through foster care in Yvonne’s home state of Maryland and a chance to ask questions about the system.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 34 min
    Episode 3: Borrowed children

    Episode 3: Borrowed children

    Yvonne and her husband Artie take in a 15-month-old foster son who social workers say was abandoned by his mother. They take this as a cue that they might be able to adopt him. His hair — red, just like Yvonne’s — also seems like a sign. The first of many moral dilemmas comes the very next day: Would they also care for his 9-year-old brother? They didn't feel prepared for another child, especially an older one, but who were they to keep siblings apart? Their hopes. The system’s goals. What was best for the boys. What was best for their parents. Could it all line up?
    Yvonne's story is also being told in words, pictures and video.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 50 min
    Episode 4: Waiting for Adeline

    Episode 4: Waiting for Adeline

    After saying goodbye to one foster son, and preparing for his brother to follow him home, Yvonne and Artie welcome a newborn girl whose mother wants to put her up for adoption. After a decade of dreaming, they're closer than ever to becoming parents. There has to be a paternity test, though. And the mother could still change her mind. Was this girl their forever daughter?
    Yvonne's story is also being told in words, pictures and video.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 50 min
    Epilogue

    Epilogue

    We visit with Yvonne and her husband Artie in their Baltimore row home right before Christmas, the first they're officially parents. Walking and on the cusp of talking, Adeline, the foster baby they adopted in the spring, is now over a year old. Godparents, too, to their former foster sons, who remain in their lives, Yvonne and Artie reflect on the unexpected way they realized their dream, a decade in the making.
    Yvonne's story is also told in words, pictures and video.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 32 min
    Teaser

    Teaser

    For Baltimore Sun reporter Yvonne Wenger, years of unsuccessful pregnancy attempts turn what should be cheerful moments — greeting neighbors and their children, celebrating friends' baby showers — into torment. The struggle brought thousands of dollars in medical bills and nearly tore her marriage apart, but never shattered her hope of becoming a parent. What might have been an ending for some families was only a beginning for hers. She and her husband Artie could have never predicted where they would end up.
    Yvonne's story is also being told in words, pictures and video at baltimoresun.com/thewait.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 4 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
48 Ratings

48 Ratings

Anissa T ,

Thank you for doing this right!

Thank you so much to this amazing family for sharing their story. I have worked in adoption and foster care in the Virginia Beach area for over 13 years and I love when the media gets things right!! This is an honest, raw, and enlightened narrative that helps those outside of the world of child welfare understand a small sliver of life as a foster and adoptive parent. Thank you for doing your due diligence in research and representing all sides of this complex issue! I’ve heard the sentiments of episode 1 echoed time after time in my work with families. Thank you for going there!!

Shyla10312018 ,

Love, love, love

I quickly binged this podcast in an afternoon. I cried, laughed, and finished feeling so inspired. Thank you.

Jessica087 ,

So worth listening!

A must-listen!

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