Special mum shares the love

As far as hearts go, Gaye Brooker's couldn't get much bigger. This exceptional Tauranga grandmother has cared for 130 babies in 30 years.

Gaye Brooker's baby is sleeping.
The little boy she brought home from the maternity annex is now 8 weeks old. But he won't be here for much longer. When the blue-frilled bassinet in the lounge becomes empty, another baby will take his place.
I want to know about this little boy whose head rests on a white sheet next to a Mickey Mouse motif. His lips are pursed and moving, as though he's sucking on a imaginary dummy.
Cocooned in a white wrap, his bare feet poke out the bottom.
Brooker covers the bassinet with a mosquito net. It would be inappropriate for her to tell me too much about him.
"He just comes from a home that cannot keep him," she says with a slight, sing-song voice.
I'm guessing she says it this way because she's said it many times before.
"Everything is very confidential, which you can understand," she says. "His parents love him but they can't have him. I think they would both love to have him but the circumstances are he cannot be there."
So this little boy, with his flushed cheeks and flaky, dark eyebrows, is living temporarily with Brooker, her husband Kevin, 61, their adopted daughter Lavinia "Libby", 14, and their niece Emma, 18.
The Brookers also have four biological adult children. The eldest Adam, is 37.
Over the past four decades, Brooker has cared for about 130 babies through Child, Youth and Family, Barnardos and Plunket.
She's a selfless woman caring for children at their most vulnerable. When they enter the world alone, Brooker steps in alongside them.
Some of the foster babies she cares for on behalf of Child, Youth and Family come to her on the day of their birth.
"Which is very traumatic. My heart breaks for the parents," she says.
Brooker has a big heart. "I've always loved babies for as long as I can remember. I think because they need you, you know? They don't expect anything from you but love."
As we talk, Brooker has another baby in her arms - 8-month-old Maisie.
Maisie and her twin brother, Logan, are Brooker's grandchildren and she cares for them during the day, alongside any foster children she might have.
"The joy is these two don't go away," she says, kissing Maisie on the head. "We're actually going to see these two grow up."
Maisie is wearing a blue-and-white dress that fans out around her and almost touches her feet. Her head is tucked under Brooker's chin.
Brooker is 58 but she doesn't mind getting up three times a night to a crying infant.
Having had two knee replacements and one knee reconstruction, she finds it easier fostering children under the age of 2.
She was 20 and her husband, 23, when they decided to become foster parents. They were told they were too young and during the 1980s were only able to care for Child, Youth and Family children during the school holidays.
It wasn't until age 27 and 30 that the couple got their first long-term foster baby, Aroha. Aroha was born with fetal alcohol syndrome.
Aroha lived with the Brooker family for 11 years before going to live with her birth father. At 16 she fell pregnant and chose to return to the Brookers.
Brooker was 43 when Aroha's daughter Libby was born. When Libby was 9, Brooker and her husband adopted her.
"Aroha asked us to take guardianship and custody of Libby and I was there for her birth. There was a bond between her and I before we even started. There was no way Libby could have gone anywhere else."
Over the years, Brooker has had breaks from fostering children. She worked as a karitane nurse for Plunket in the mid-1990s and cared for Barnardos children up until she returned to fostering in 2005.
"I have withdrawals after a while," she says, smiling. "After my knee operation [last year] there was a point where I was like 'okay, I can move now. Why haven't I got a baby?'
"When I had my knee done I didn't like using the crutches and well, a pushchair works really well."
Brooker once fostered a baby for just two hours but more often than not, it's for a weekend, weeks, or in one case, 15 months.
How does she let the little cherubs go?
"The ones you have for three months, five months, they're the ones harder to lose. When they've gone, it's this real empty feeling of something missing.
"You're sitting down after tea and you're thinking 'oh, I don't have to get this baby a bottle'. There's just an emptiness but it hasn't got time to stay there because there's another baby that needs me. They're yours to love and then they go on to be loved by someone else. If they weren't, I couldn't deal with it but I have that hope and trust."
Some she sees again.
"One little boy we had, he comes to me and I know he loves me. He's the little one we had for 15 months and he's now 4. He's gorgeous and he knows who we are. The ones that you have for a long time, it's really neat if you can see them again because then it doesn't break your heart so much when they go."
When the case isn't high-risk, Brooker occasionally gets to meet the parents and she does get thanked.
She recalls bumping into a mother and her 21-year-old daughter in Farmers not so long ago. Brooker fostered the daughter as a baby. The mother had had a breakdown and told Brooker: "You saved my bacon giving my baby a home for a little while."
Kind words make it rewarding but she does have to be careful.
"Some of the parents are very volatile," she says. "Some of the children we've had we've been told to be aware of their parents because if they saw us in the street with them, anything could happen. I've never let it worry me. I've come across some of their parents but they've genuinely been really good."
Brooker is one of 150 approved caregivers in the Tauranga area, which includes Mount Maunganui, Te Puke, Papamoa and Katikati.
Child, Youth and Family caregiver and social worker Ian Donaldson says it's a challenging role and more foster parents are currently needed to spread the load.
"They are people the staff here hold in very high esteem. They are a small group of the community doing an amazing job with very short notice. They might get a call at 3pm and get a child half an hour later."
Donaldson says Brooker's specialty is babies and, in particular, those that come straight from hospital and are waiting to be adopted.
It's a particularly hard role because often the babies are grieving from being detached from their birth parents, Donaldson says.
"For nine months they've been familiar with the noises and sounds from their birth mother and their experiences [after birth] are completely different from their pre-birth experiences. It's a different set of circumstances that he or she goes into.
"Some of these children are also withdrawing from various drugs and that impacts on their ability to settle."
Fellow Child, Youth and Family caregiver and social worker Poihaere Walker says Brooker is special in that she is someone who is able to regenerate that attachment and then detach from the child herself when they leave her care.
"She accepts and offers the child attachment and nurture without going through any trauma of her own. She gives them a good start in life. If a child can bond to their foster parents, they can bond to their adopted parents."
Brooker has seen things that might break the heart of those reading this, but she reserves judgment.
"We get the little ones that arrive in the middle of the night with nothing but what they're wearing. And we've had them anytime from 12.30am to 3.30am."
She's also cares for "drug babies".
"We have had a few that have had to be on methadone after their mothers have been on P. They turn out little fatties because their only comfort is food. And if a baby wants to be fed every couple of hours, you do it."
In the middle of the night while feeding a baby, Brooker admits she's been known to silently will: "You're going to grow up to be a big strong policeman aren't you? You're to right the world, not wrong it."
"You just think 'what is in their blood? What's in their makeup? Can we psych this into you?' Half these babies would never even know we had them for the first weeks or months of their life."
But Brooker knows.
She has a blue-striped photo album with a blue ribbon pinned to the front. The album is full.
In the past four years, the longest Brooker has been without a foster child is two months. Out of 36 children in those four years, only six went back to their parents - and even then, it didn't always work out.
Some of the children she cared for went up for adoption. Others went to extended family, or were put into long-term placement or permanency.
"Permanency is a great thing," Brooker says. "That's a new thing for people who are trying to adopt, get a child or baby through permanency, and give it a home because there's a lot of kids in care that need to be loved forever."
Of the adoption babies, Brooker says: "We just have them for the 12-day stand down period and that's the biggest joy of all. You meet the new parents and introduce the babies to them and that is exciting. When you actually get to say to parents 'this is your new baby' and see the joy on their faces and the tears in their eyes because there are so few babies out there that are up for adoption."
As she flicks through the album, she comments on each child.
"The little one here, every time you put him in a carseat he screamed. She was cute. This little fella, he was tiny.
"This little one, she was adopted out and she was beautiful. I'd have kept her as a grandkid. I'm sure one of my kids would have taken her."
She points to another photo and says: "That's the brother and sister we had ..."
Brooker has a story for each baby. She just loves them.
In a cabinet in her dining room there are up to 20 porcelain baby dolls - some she made, some she bought - and in the rooms of her Tauranga home are two cots, four bassinets, four high-chairs and five pushchairs. The dining room is filled with baby walkers and toys. An Elmo toy rests on the couch.
In her wardrobe are plastic containers filled with baby clothes for the premature to the bonny.
Brooker has to be prepared for a phone call anytime. Sometimes she has less than an hour's notice before receiving a baby.
Once she cared for a 6-month-old and 2-month-old twins at the same time.
"I just pull out what I want to use depending on the season; get the bassinet ready; sterilise the bottles and go and pick the baby up. And once again your life changes. If there's a kid out there that needs something, there's something in me where I just cannot say no. And if it's a baby, that's just it. If it was a newborn I could never say no."
She goes weak at the knees, so to speak?
"Yes," she says laughing.
"We were going on holiday when we got this little guy," she says referring to the sleeping boy in the blue bassinet. "And we went away when he was 1 week old. The only difference is you've got to take a bassinet, monitor, formula, sterilising stuff for bottles - your load doubles." Brooker says foster children generally settle in pretty quick.
"Once they realise there's heaps of toys and heaps of food. Some of these kids don't get much of that and even a routine. It's their bed while they're here. All that is a big thing for kids. Security [most] of all."
For 14-year-old Libby, Brooker's love and security saved her life.
"If I was living with my birth mum I don't know where I would be. I know my life would have been completely different if mum and dad didn't take me."
Aroha is however, still a big part of their family.
Brooker says: "Every new baby needs a mum, needs a family. God has worked it so when we lose a long-term baby something else takes over. The little one we had for 15 months, we went to the South Island afterwards, within days. One baby we [farewelled] after eight months, it was right on [daughter] Hayley's wedding."
"I keep saying I'm going to retire one day and just enjoy my grandchildren but then I think that would drive me mad. I like my own baby. The twins are mine during the day but they're their mother's."
The twins' mother and Brooker's daughter Hayley Kavanaugh, 28, says as a little girl it was "a big thing" to have real babies, as well as "dollies" to play with. "We didn't know any different. Mum has a big heart and all my friends would end up calling Mum, 'mum'. She always made us know we were special."
Foster daughter Aroha Chisnall, now 31, describes Brooker as "marvellous".
"She could write a big book on me. I put them through hell. I was ADHD and went back and forwards between [families]. I didn't know where I belonged."
Asking Brooker to take guardianship of daughter Libby had been "hard" but Chisnall says it was the right thing to do.
Brooker's husband, Kevin, is her pillar of support. She tends to the babies during the day and he cooks the evening meal after work.
"That's all we know," he says of their life. "If we went back to just our kids I don't know what it would be like."
When he met his wife she told him she wanted 12 babies - "I think she was dreaming a bit."
But in a way, Brooker got her wish and more.
Kevin admits he isn't as fond of the little tykes. Being a foster parent does have its moments at 61 years of age.
I guess he thought he'd be over carting around a nappy-bag when he went on holiday?
"Hell yeah," he chuckles.
"At least the grandkids can go home at night but I grin and bear it. It keeps my wife happy. We both feel the same in that we all have to give back to the community in some way.
"We tried joining clubs but it's just not us to go to meetings. With Gaye, this is her passion. With her, it's the kids come first - that's her whole life. If she didn't have that she'd go bananas."
Good friend Jan Harvey agrees.
"Those babies get every bit of love they could ever wish for.
"It's never like they're a foster child - ever. They're like her own," says Harvey.
"I know in my heart not everyone would be prepared for that. I think she's exceptional."
Becoming a caregiver
The application process usually takes about two or three months. You'll need to complete an application form and agree to:
- A police check
- Provide proof of identity
- A full medical report from your doctor
- Provide names and addresses of two referees
- Take part in personal interviews, one of which will be within your home.
- Any health or other problems or issues that come up during the assessment process won't necessarily mean that you won't be considered as a caregiver.
Do you get paid?
People who foster do it because they care about making a difference to the children who need it most.
Child, Youth and Family provides financial help to meet the day-to-day care of your child.
A care allowance is paid fortnightly, which covers board, personal items and pocket money for your child. This allowance varies according to the child's age.
CYF also provides a quarterly clothing allowance, and an allowance for Christmas and birthday presents. Health and education costs are met and, depending on the child's care plan, CYF may be able to provide financial assistance towards recreational items.
For further information: www.cyf.govt.nz, or phone Ian Donaldson on (07) 928 5190.