04/21/2026
🎙Just Hold Her 🎙
This episode contains discussion of medical complexity, end-of-life care, and child loss. Listener discretion is advised.
When Judy Wright received the call, the request was not to save a life, but to care for one.
In this episode, Wright discusses her memoir Just Hold Her, which documents her experience fostering a medically fragile infant with complex and life-limiting conditions. The child, Jayden, was two months old and weighed four pounds at placement, with 27 medical diagnoses and no clear treatment path.
Drawing from detailed notes kept during a two-year period of care, Wright outlines the day-to-day realities of managing intensive medical needs inside a home setting. The conversation examines the intersection of foster care, healthcare systems, and the emotional demands placed on caregivers working without certainty of outcome.
Wright, along with her late husband, fostered 55 children over 12 years, many with significant medical challenges. She reflects on the structure and gaps within the foster system, the role of faith in long-term caregiving, and what it means to provide stability in cases where recovery is unlikely.
This episode contains discussion of medical complexity, end-of-life care, and child loss. Listener discretion is advised.
For more on Judy and her book go to: https://justholdher.com/
