You don’t need to have given birth to someone to take on a mothering role, as these two women prove
WORDS: ASHLEIGH PAGE. MAIN PHOTO (POSED BY MODELS): GETTY
‘We could provide a safe home’
Emma Lloyd, 52, lives in Somerset with her husband Geoff, 63, their two children and their foster child, and is author of The Little Red Dragon (£8.99, tracebridgepublishing.com).
When I was in my 20s, I never gave much thought to having children. I had a fulfilling career in the Royal Air Force, and loved being able to spend my free time travelling and riding my motorbike.
But when I was 34, I realised that I actually did want to be a mother and before long I welcomed my son. Holding him in my arms for the first time, I was completely smitten. He was perfect.
I loved running around after him, all the giggles and games, even the sleepless nights with cuddles in bed. By the time he was seven, I knew I wanted to give him a little brother or sister.
Only, after months of trying, we were getting nowhere. It was frustrating and upsetting but I was determined to expand our family. So Geoff and I started looking into fostering and adoption. We had a beautiful home with a lovely big garden in the countryside – perfect for children who needed a place to stay.
After a long, arduous application process, we finally fostered a baby girl in 2014, and when our son was nine, we adopted her legally. But I still wanted to help other families. I knew some children had such a tough start in life and with two more spare rooms standing empty, we had the resources to provide a safe home.
Only, instead of fostering just children, for three years I opened my home to women and their babies to help them become the best mums they could.
HELPING OTHER MUMS
I’m a firm believer that mothering isn’t instinctual, there’s no rule book and no two kids are the same. Often the mums I welcomed had experienced difficult childhoods themselves or had escaped domestic violence in their relationships. So we gave them a safe environment to learn how to care for their babies.
I loved witnessing some of them blossom into brilliant mothers and for those who struggled, we looked after their babies until they were adopted. After those three years, we began fostering sibling groups. Often foster homes just don’t have the space for more than one child but I couldn’t bear the thought of siblings being separated from each other.
Over the years I’ve fostered children from all kinds of backgrounds, including an asylum seeker who showed up on my doorstep with just the clothes he was wearing
