Welcome!

We are so thrilled to be building our family through adoption and encourage you to click around our blog and get to know us better. 

This journey with adoption has not been without tears but mostly joy!!  We are excited to finally have our paperwork, education classes and home study complete and to begin the search to find our child and/or children.  We continue to attend Families Supporting Adoption chat nights each month and reading to educate ourselves about the journey ahead.

Our dream is to have an open adoption with our child's birth parents and their birth families.  We believe a child with more people to love them and cheer them on in life can only be a good thing.  However, the level of openness that we will have with our birth families will be dependent on their level of comfort.  We only hope that we can have an open dialogue to find the happy and comfortable place for everyone.

We have heard more times that can be counted that families built through adoption are built through word of mouth.  If you have found our blog and you know of someone that is considering adoption or if you are considering adoption we are WAITING FOR YOU to contact us or pass along our information.

Adoption Phase 3 Complete

This is my favorite picture. I can't wait to have a little to pull in a wagon!
These are a few of our pictures that we had taken for our adoption profile. We love how they turned out! Thanks to Kristen at Shadtree Photography for capturing exactly what we were looking for.

Just this morning I finished and submitted our letter to expectant parents for our adoption paperwork. We just have our home study left to do and we will be approved and expectant parents can look at our profile and hopefully want to know more about us...and place their baby in our home.
I never anticipated writing a letter would take so much time but it is hard to express everything you want to and tell someone you have never met....ever how great you and your spouse are.
I had to keep reminding myself that this really is in the Lord's hands and He has a plan for us and our baby and our birth parents and only He can make it all come together like it is supposed to and no matter what we say in our letter He is the one in charge.
So grateful to be done with that part and ready for the home study to be done so we can be approved. I am waiting to order pass along cards with our information on them until we get approved and need to get our adoption blog started and finished. Still plenty to do. We are enjoying going to the LDSFS chat nights and learning more about adoption and others adoption stories.

Until next time...

Christmas and End of Year Wrap up

2011 has been quite a year at the Nielson home. We started the year with high hopes that our fertility treatments would make us parents by year end. We ended the year nearly done with adoption paperwork- yes, we will be parents but not the way that we ever anticipated. We are so grateful for the lessons this year has taught us. We have learned to lean on our Savior and learned much about ourselves and our marriage. We are definitely better together.

JD is still hard at work at DHI Computing in Provo. He is such a good provider for our family and puts every energy into everything he does. He is still the financial clerk in our ward and enjoys his calling. I was so touched when we went to tithing settlement and Bishop Lawyer just raved about him and how much his dedication to his calling helps him in his calling as bishop. He said it takes a lot of pressure off him because he knows he can count on J.D. I about burst with pride because I know that he wants to do everything he can to fulfill his calling and serve our Heavenly Father.

I am still working at American Fork Hospital in the Maternity unit. I LOVE my job! I get to be with new moms and their babies during those first precious days of life...amazing! I have learned so much about caring for a new infant which will come in handy...someday. I have also made some wonderful friends since I started working there. I am so grateful for these awesome women. I love working at night but it sure has sent my sleep patterns into a tailspin. I'm starting to get a better handle on switching from nights to days when I have days off. I also got a calling as a family history worker in our ward. I am thrilled to have this calling and look forward to doing more of our family history and doing temple work for my family members.

We are in phase 3 of our adoption paperwork. This phase is when we make selections about a baby regarding health conditions and such and more information to introduce us to birth parents. We are wrestling now with the letter that we need to write for our profile to tell more about us. It is only difficult because it is the first look into our family that anyone sees and we want it to be the right feeling and words. We will be attending adoption training classes that LDSFS hosts the first weekend in February and once we are done with that and have our home study done we will be official and our profile should go live on itsaboutlove.org. Hopefully by Christmas next year we will have a new little bundle in our home.

Santa found us this year for Christmas and I think he may have emptied most of his sleigh in our living room. He dropped off several movies, books, new scriptures, a Kindle Fire, gift cards, handmade journals, candy and much more. We had a simple Christmas dinner because I had to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas this year. We made up for the low key Christmas buy celebrating in high style for New Year's Eve.

Christmas morning has never been a good look for me but I look my "best" here because I just got home from work.

We decided to go all out for our New Year's dinner and had crab legs and rib eye steak. It was so yummy! Santa gave up The Big Bang Theory on DVD for Christmas so we hung out at home and watched it most of the day and actually ended up toasting and kissing at 12:12 because we were so wrapped up in the show. Yeah we are party animals like that. We did make sure to have donuts in the house (grandma Sullivan's tradition) to bring prosperity in the new year and plenty of sparkling cider (one of JD's favorites) to toast to a new year.

We are looking forward to 2012 and everything that is ahead of us in the new year.

Lights at Temple Square and The Nutcracker

We decided this year to go see The Nutcracker at Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City. We also had a gift certificate to stay at The Anniversary Inn and we still hadn't seen the lights at Temple Square so we made a nice weekend trip out it. It was a wonderful weekend and reminded us again why we are encouraged to continue dating your spouse after you get married.

We got to Temple Square just in time to see the Nativity.

I love this Nativity scene on the reflecting pool by the temple. I only wish there would have been snow- there is just something so magical about snow and light with all of the Nativity scenes around Temple Square

These are just spectacular to look at. I love the sparkly lights and the magical feeling of Christmas. It is wonderful to see how each country depicts the same story in their nativity sculptures.

I didn't take any pictures of them this year (except for the two that are in the picture above) because our camera battery died but I love the luminaries that are around the plaza near the Church office building. I took a closer look this year and noticed that each luminary has a word associated with the holidays (Peace, Joy, Merry Christmas, etc) in a different language and at the bottom it has the language and what it means in English. I think I've missed it in the past because there has been snow and I can't wait to go back next year.

Our last stop at Temple Square was "Our Spot". We have come back to this spot every year in December. It is is the exact spot where we got engaged. We were there on the exact date this year, December 18. I can't wait to see how this picture changes over the years. This year definitely wins hands down as the coldest, so far.


After our stop at Temple Square, we drove to The Anniversary Inn and checked into the Presidential suite. We forgot to take pictures of the room but loved that it has its own deck that we could see the city lights from. It was a beautiful view. The inversion was terrible but I loved that we could still see the city lights. I think we will book that room again sometime. I loved reading through that comment book they have in the room. Everyone raves about the service, beauty of the room, etc but my favorite comment was from a couple that was there celebrating their 50th anniversary. They wrote "we loved the room but the shower was a little hard to get out of for us old folks." Hilarious!! I have to admit that I LOVE the waterfall shower- we decided we would love to have one in our home at some point.

The next day we spent the good portion of the day looking at houses in Layton and Kaysville. Yes, we are in the market for a home. We didn't find anything during our day but did have fun looking at homes and learning more of what we are looking for in a home and the things that we both like. We will mostly likely end up purchasing a home in Salt Lake county but we haven't found anything yet.


We enjoyed dinner at Biaggi's at the Gateway in Salt Lake City (our favorite) before going to The Nutcracker. Neither of us had ever seen it and we both loved it. We had fantastic seats but it was a little bit cramped for my 6' 4" husband so we scoped out where we would be more comfortable next time we go to a show there. While the show was fantastic and I loved being there with J.D. my favorite part of the night was watching all of the little girls in their beautiful dresses and seeing the smiles on their faces as they watched the magic on stage.

Witnessing an Adoption Placement

As we are nearing completion of our adoption paperwork and the reality of what is ahead starts to come more into focus I have become more emotional about the reality of adoption.  My heart is full and my mind is still trying to wrap around what I witnessed last night at work. I had the privilege of taking care of a birth mother and her baby and witness the placement of this tiny beautiful baby. Last night it became so crystal clear to me the bittersweet emotions that take place during a placement. I watched this young woman place this new baby in its parents arms and give it one last kiss before I wheeled her outside to go home. It was a tender moment and I am not ashamed to say that I shed a few tears as I watched it happen.

Ah Ha Moments

Last night at work there was a baby that started showing signs of drug withdraw. This little one was not one of my patients but she was just so sweet and tiny I couldn't help but want to hold her and give her a little bit of extra love. I don't know the entire circumstance of her family but the small portion I do know was so disappointing. It is heartbreaking the suffering this little infant has had to endure already because of choices she did not make. It is repulsive the lack of care that this mother appeared to have for this child that she helped create. With these things though I had an ah-ha moment that shook me to my very core and brought me to tears...this little infant so sweet, pure and spirit fresh from heaven taught me a valuable lesson. This is not about her mother (or father) or any other person-- it is about this small little person and her enormous spirit. This is her story and only Heavenly Father knows why this spirit and the body to carry it have to endure these earthly trials.

We have been told in meetings with LDSFS that the journey with adoption isn't about the birth parents or the adoptive parents and what they want/need but about the child and what they need and/or is best for them. I heard it, I thought I understood it before but this tiny infant taught me what that really meant last night. I promised this baby as a rocked her last night that I would pray for her...and I will.

Until next time...

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Ghouls and goblins are put away for another year- thank goodness- I am not a big fan of Halloween! However, November and December are two of my favorite months. Two months in a row that give me an opportunity to really think about the blessings in my life, reflect on the year that has gone by and be grateful...I love it!
This is also the time of year when J.D. and I were dating. We have traditions that we have tried to do every year that started when we were dating. One is driving the Alpine Loop (I think it was our second or third date) to look at the leaves after they have changed. Last year it snowed before we were able to go on the drive so when J.D. noticed the leaves were changing this year we made a point to go on a Monday night for our drive. It did not disappoint- absolutely beautiful!


I love the fall colors and the crispness of the air. Hot chocolate and soup weather and best of all snuggling up with the Mister. I wish there was more time for that last one because I sure love that man! I so love making memories with him and creating traditions that we can share with our children. I can't believe it has been three years since we met and started making memories together. If I really think about it I remember life before I met J.D. but really it seems like we have always been together. As we are filling out our adoption paperwork there are quite a few questions about our relationship and it's strengths and weaknesses. I don't know if other people sit around and think about these questions but it has really given me (and I think J.D.) time to think about our relationship and marriage. I am just so grateful for the good man that asked me to marry him and I'm glad I was smart enough to say yes!

About the adoption...we keep getting questions about how it's going. Honestly it is a slower process than we expected. The average time to fill out paperwork and have a home study and get approval is 6 months. We are done filling out hard copy paperwork and now it is just questions that we have to answer- about us, our marriage, families, our thoughts on adoption, parenting philosophy- mine is perfect by the way because I don't have children yet ;) Some, well many really of the questions are things that I hadn't put words to before. I know how I feel in my heart but putting words to those feelings is more difficult that I thought it would be. We are in Phase Two of the application and once we are done with the questions we will have individual interviews with our caseworker. We set a goal to have all the questions done by the end of November so we can hopefully have our interviews done by the end of the year.
While it wasn't a smooth beginning with LDSFS because of some miscommunication to us from the office we are so glad that we are able to work with them. We just love our caseworker, Hayley. We also like the support that is offered to both birth families and adoptive couples. They have a monthly chat night with different topics each month. We were able to attend our first chat night on Thursday. The topic was open adoptions. There were a couple of birth parents and an adoptive couple that have adopted two little girls are waiting to adopt for the third time. It was really informative and we had questions answered that we didn't even necessarily know that we had. Neither of us have had a concern about an open adoption- I had other concerns but they have since been resolved and even put more to rest during the chat night on Thursday.

Until next time...