Welcome to our corner of the web! Here you will learn about our family and our journey of a family member adoption. In July of 2010, after 9 years of trying to add to our family and 5 years after we started our adoption journey, we welcomed baby Emily Rose. Emily's birth mom is Sharon's adopted sister. We look forward to someday adopting more children but for now, we are enjoying our time together as a family of 4!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Questions Answered


A lot of people have been asking me questions about who K is and how she found us. I haven’t said much up till now. Only that we have known her for a very long time (which in my case is an understatement) and that a family member called us and asked us if we were still looking to adopt. I will still not be showing pictures of her, or using her name. We will continue to refer to her as K. You see, although our family now knows, there are others who don't. So like I said, we will continue to refer to her as K, and ask that if you know her name, that you do the same. And we will not be showing her picture. So why am I discussing this now. Well, like I said, people have been asking us questions, and our story is a really unexpected and special one. Here is our story:



You may have caught that I said OUR family now knows. You may have thought I was talking about Jacob’s family and my family. While they all know, that isn’t the family I was talking about. Well, at least not Jacob’s family. You see, I was talking about my family; my family and K’s family. Because my family and K’s family are one in the same. To tell the whole story I need to back up 16 years.



16 years ago my dad found out his baby brother and his wife were expecting a baby. They would be unable to take care of their little one. So my dad and my stepmom decided to adopt this baby girl. That baby girl, who was born their niece, became their daughter, and my sister. That little girl, is K. Now, almost 16 years later, K has found herself with an unexpected pregnancy. The family member who called us to see if we were still looking to adopt is our dad, mine and K’s. Placing the baby with us was K’s idea. As soon as she started considering adoption, she knew we were the parents for her little one. When I say we will have an open adoption, that obviously, is a big understatement as well. We will see K often. She lives two hours north of us, so not as often as we would like, but as often as we can. K has asked that Emily call her Aunt K. Emily will know that K is her birthmom. We will be open and honest with her. And she will above all, know how special her K is, and how special she herself is to come from K.



Trust me, this was unexpected for us. We thought that our baby’s birthmom would be someone we didn’t know, or maybe someone who was a friend of a friend. Never did we fathom that it would be someone we both know and love, let alone someone we are related to. What’s funny is over the last couple of years, the thought has floated in and out of our minds, what if our baby’s birthmom was K. We always dismissed that thought as quickly as it came. In Jan. of 2009, when we were sitting in church and got the overwhelming feeling that we needed to start the adoption process again, we thought maybe our little one would be coming soon. We were going to wait till we moved to Utah, but like I said, the feeling was overwhelming that we needed to start right then. Had we waited until we moved to Utah, we would have waited several months to even start the process after we arrived, taking the time to settle in, get the house in order, enjoy the holiday’s and then start the process. But because we started the process in New Mexico, we were already approved to adopt when we moved here. All we needed to do was update our file with Utah state background checks & a new home study. We were approved within a couple of months of our move. So why is that important to our story. Well, if we had waited until we moved here to start, we wouldn’t have started the process until Jan. if that. But because we were already approved when we got here, we were eager to get the updates done. Because we were, our file was updated by Thanksgiving and we were good to go again. Because of this, we told all our family at Thanksgiving that we were approved and hoping to adopt. K overheard us talking about that. She thought at that point she might be pregnant but hadn’t confirmed it yet.



When she went to see her dr. they discussed her options. When she decided to consider adoption, we were in the back of her mind. K took sometime to consider whether we were indeed the right family for Emily. When my dad called to see if we were still looking to adopt, we had a feeling the expectant mom was K. In fact months before, right around thanksgiving in fact, we had a feeling our baby was coming soon, and again, the thought came to us, not knowing that K was actually pregnant, “what would we do if K came to us and asked us to be her baby’s parents.” 5 and a half weeks after dads call, our suspicions were confirmed. Because we already suspected, we were able to take the time to pray about whether we could adopt K’s baby. When K called and asked us how we felt about being the baby’s parents, I can’t explain how honored we were. And to this day still are.



If you have any more questions, feel free to ask and I will answer them if I can.

4 comments:

Jill Elizabeth said...

Well, now I'm crying and I haven't even had lunch yet. This is such an amazing, beautiful story! I LOVE how many little miracles there are in adoption.

Darcy said...

I'm sad that you felt pressured into revealing the identity of your baby's birth mom. However, what a beautiful story.

LeMira said...

The Lord sure blesses our lives in ways we wouldn't expect.

Oh, and I read your previous post, and my little boy is set on our future baby being named Emily as well. He prays specifically for her.

JennT said...

Beautiful story!!! When things are meant to be, they just are. :) :)