Families Supporting Adoption Utah Regional Conference 2012

JD and I attended the FSA Utah Regional Conference this past weekend at the LDS Institute at the University of Utah.  The timing was impeccable for us, answered questions we had and didn't know we had and put our minds at ease (or at least mine) about concerns I had.  This is such an amazing group to be a part of and JD and I decided at the end of the conference that we would be willing to volunteer to help however we could to help with the conference next year.

The conference took place all day Friday and Saturday and while we were able to attend many great sessions and learn from some amazing people that have much more experience in the adoption world than we do.   While I loved everything we learned I  think I loved most just being able to spend a couple of days together just the two of us focusing on something that is really important to us.
There were so many great workshop sessions that sometimes we had to divide and conquer so we could get the most out of our time.  The first day was mostly spent that way.  I attended the following sessions " Making Open Adoptions Work", Managing Stress,  and Foster Care information session.  JD attended "Open vs. Closed Adoption", "Answering Children's Questions about Adoption" and "Foster Care information.

The last workshop of the day on Friday we went to together called "The Dance of Adoption"  It was by far our favorite of the day. It was taught by Kevin Theriot who has worked for LDS Family Services since 1979.  He was hilarious but also VERY informative.  He used the analogy of a car accident to explain what a single pregnant woman is doing when making a decision what to do with her pregnancy.
Essentially she is watching a child, her child, walk out into a street and she sees a car racing towards the child.  She has 4 choices at that point- 1) let the child get hit by the car (abortion), 2) if the child's father is involved they jump in front of the car and try to hold together and protect the child (marriage).  Although he mentioned that the stress of an unplanned pregnancy can typically cause the relationship to fail. 3) The single pregnant woman jumps in front of the car to protect the child (single parenting) and 4) The single pregnant woman jumps in front of the car and pushes the child to safety out of the street and she gets hit by the car. (adoption).  He said in the last example that this young woman is waiting for a couple to be standing on the sidewalk ready to "catch" the baby and protect it.
She wants to make sure we will "catch" the baby.
It was like a light bulb went off in my head when I heard that.  As excited as we want an expectant parent to be about us, picking us, "catching" her child she needs to know we feel the same way about her.

Friday night we enjoyed a yummy dutch oven dinner by The Dutch Oven Shoppe.  Seriously I need to learn how to cook in a dutch oven because it is always so good.  Baked chicken, BBQ pork, dutch oven potatoes with some carrots mixed in, baked beans and of course a delish peach cobbler.  YUM!!

Saturday we spent most of the day together during the workshop sessions.  The day started with a birthmother panel.  Such sweet girls and I'm so glad we got to hear from them.  They just confirmed again what we learned at the last session on Friday- they were as anxious to have their adoptive couples like them as we are to have an expectant parent love us.  We always love birth parent panels and appreciate those that are willing to share their stories with us.  They had a raffle just before the birth mother panel and JD won an adoption t-shirt from The "R" House Couture.  I have been drooling over these t-shirts for awhile and was so excited his number was drawn. :)

We were so disappointed in the first workshop session.  It was called "Educating Family and Friends on Adoption".  We were hoping for pointers on how to best help our family and friends understand the process and how we came to the decision to adopt...big FAIL.  While the presenters had experience as a birth mother and adoptive mother what they "taught" I could have done.  The information they shared was exactly one of the sheets we received at our first meeting at LDS Family Services.  As we looked through the classes offered later we were even more disappointed to realize that we missed out on a birth father panel.  We will make sure to pick better next year.

The second session we decided to divide and conquer which was really hard for me because I was really looking forward to hearing from Lindsey Redfern from the R House but JD went to her session called "Advocating Adoption" and I went to a workshop titled "Nurturing Relationships".  We were both really happy with what we learned during this session.  JD and I actually met one of the presenters of my workshop, Shari Guess.  She presented with her son's birth mom, Susan Fenton.  They did a great job telling us about how they have build their relationship over nearly 10 years and taught about respecting each other boundries and realizing that our level of openness may not always be the same.  They also talked about placement gifts that both Shari and her husband gave Susan and also gifts that Susan gave to their son.    They also  had a woman from Blessings in a Basket talk about her business. She is a birth mom that started her business after placing her own baby years ago.  Awesome idea and she does a retreat for a group called Big Tough Girls...LOVE IT!  Lots of good ideas!
The final session of the day we went to a workshop where they had a lawyer come in and talk about Utah adoption laws.  It was was interesting and again we had questions answered we never knew we had but we are glad they are now answered.  Thank you David Hardy for your insight and knowledge!

The final keynote address was nothing short of spectacular!  Susan Fenton was excellent as the musical guest.  I am going to try and get in contact with her to find out the names of the songs she sang because they were all very appropriate for adoption (of course).    Meg Johnson was nothing short of AMAZING!!  Meg fell off a cliff and broke her neck 8 years ago.  She has such a bright spirit, voice and message.  She was truly inspired to share the stories she did while addressing our conference and I'm so glad she was there.  I wish I would have had the courage to ask for a picture with her after the conference but I did have the courage to go up and talk to her and I'm so glad I did.  Just being next to her made me feel like I could overcome anything.  I hope I have the privilege of hearing her speak again sometime.  If you need a little inspiration visit her website at www.megjohnsonspeaks.com

We LOVED our weekend and everything we learned. We have some big news to share so stay tuned for our next blog post...you won't be sorry!

With love,
JD and Melissa

We did it...WELCOME TO OUR HOME!!

We did it!  We found a house and not just any house but the perfect house for us.  We signed the papers to make it ours on May 29th and started moving in things that day.  We were so blessed to have so family and so many friends from our ward help us move everything in.  Our first house guests were our two youngest nephews while their parents were out of town for a few days.  We have the greatest neighborhood and already love our new ward.

We have started projects to make it ours including paining the master bedroom, starting to strip wallpaper off the walls of what will be the nursery and of course, Melissa's favorite "dirt therapy" also known as gardening.  JD has his office set up and the family room is all set for movie night downstairs.  There is still painting to do and pictures to hang on the wall but those are projects that we will be working on for awhile.  The shop has quite a few pieces of furniture for Melissa to refinish and JD has become king of the yard learning to adjust the sprinklers and taking care of the yard.  We even got a BBQ grill and can't wait to break it in at a backyard party soon.

Here are a few pictures so you can see what our home looks like...we sure do love it!

We look pretty serious in this picture but we were so excited to finally be at the title company signing papers.

Our Front Porch and HUGE trees along the street and in the yard...beautiful!!

It is said the kitchen is the heart of the the home...well this is the heart of our home.

The dining room...I love the fireplace (and there is another one downstairs)

One of the views from the back door and yes that is a slide and swing already in the backyard.

The other view from the back door and where the "dirt therapy" happens.  We have already planted the garden with tomatoes, corn, beans, peas, beets, cucumbers and peppers- and there is a peach tree too!!

Being Selected...it's Real

Let me just start by saying we have not been contacted by expectant parents...well not really.

Yesterday I was running errands and while standing in line at Walmart got a call from our caseworker, Hayley.  I knew something was up when her name popped up on my phone because our paperwork is final and has been for 3 weeks.  We did find out last week that our profile has been viewed four times already by registered expectant parents (YIPPEE).  She told us that is rare and usually couple goes for months without anyone clicking on their profile.  Anyway, back to yesterday... she asked me if it was a good time to talk and I told her sure I was just in line at Walmart but I could chat. (Note to self- don't do that again- ever!!) She told me about an adoption situation with twin girls that were born premature, the adoption that had been set up had fallen through for some reason and they were looking quickly for another couple that would accept twins and children with disabilities.  WHAT??!!  We needed to discuss it and let her know in the next 30 minutes.. DOUBLE what??!! All of the adoptive couples would then be sent to the birth parents and they would decide who they wanted to meet  and wanted to meet that night (it was 2:26pm when I got the call) and it was at least a 2 hour drive to get to them.  Needless to say that is A LOT to take in a few minutes.

I really needed to sit down somewhere but the checkout line at Walmart isn't exactly a good place for that.
I REALLY needed J.D. with me right then so I could talk to him about it and see his eyes and feel his arms around me to tell me any decision we made would be the right one.

I checked out, I'm sure the checker thought I was crazy because my response was so slow as I tried to wrap my mind around the call I had just received and the email with a little bit more information I received from Hayley. As I was walking out of the store after paying for a cart full of groceries I almost left them in the store and walked out to my car.  I was a little bit worried about my ability to get myself home because my mind wasn't exactly on what was immediately around me.  Luckily talking to J.D. and my sister on the phone got me home.

J.D. and I agreed that we would both say a prayer and regroup in a few minutes after I got home and discuss how we felt we needed to proceed with this situation.  When we talked we decided that this wasn't the right situation for us and more importantly these were not our children.  We have heard many, many times that when it is your child you will know and in this situation these special little angels were not ours.

I made the call to Hayley to let her know that this wasn't the right situation for us.  I started to cry as I was talking to her.  She said many times there are feelings of guilt (yep sure did have that) and there is no reason to feel guilty.  She reminded me that our goal isn't to have just any baby but to find our baby- also true.  I told her and later as I talked to J.D. that my greater concern were the "what if's". What if these were our babies and we said no- even though we both felt that these weren't our babies.  What if this is the only time we are contacted?

After J.D. got home we were able to talk more about it and of course I cried some more.  It was a real wake up call for us that we may be selected in this way and this may have been prep for us for the future.  Adoption is a wonderful and challenging thing.  We are blessed in so many ways and although these twin girls were not our babies we may be a little bit better prepared now for the future and how we will possibly be contacted by expectant parents.

Until next time...

HaPpY bIrThDaY to Us!

J.D. and I both celebrate our birthdays in April.  J.D. on the 15th and me on the 21st.  We celebrated at home for J.D.'s birthday on April 15 with a classic strawberry cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.  Cheesecake is J.D.'s favorite! We served it at our wedding reception instead of cake because it is his favorite!  We went to a Jazz v. Mavericks game at ESA in Salt Lake on April 16.  We splurged a little bit on the tickets but it was hands down the best basketball game either one of us had ever been to- EVER!!
 

From our corner of the arena- but closer to the floor than our seats were. 

7 periods- that's 3 OT for the Jazz to beat the Mavericks- AMAZING GAME!!

We had to get a picture outside after the game- not a fantastic picture but you can tell we were happy after the WIN!

We celebrated my birthday between April 21 and April 22 because I had to work on my birthday.  J.D. went to Sweet Tooth Fairy in Draper and picked out a tasty selection of cupcakes that we have enjoyed for several days.  He even made dinner on Sunday night for us.  What a good guy!

JD and I met up with my sister and her family and our cousin and his family in Salt Lake for breakfast which just happened to be on my birthday.  This is only the second time I have seen my cousin's little boy (in green).  He was two days old the last time I saw him and he is just as cute as ever.  My sister's little guy "R"(in orange) wasn't so sure he liked his Aunt Miss holding another little person.

Even though I had to work on my birthday the girls I work with helped me celebrate too.  I work on the mom/baby unit at the local hospital so our supplies are limited but I work with incredibly creative women (as you will see below).

This is my birthday crown and sash.  The crown says "B-day girl" and the sash says "Do a jive I'm 35".  I refused to wear the hat while doing rounds but I did wear the sash for one set of rounds luckily my patients had a sense of humor.

We know how to have a good time and if I couldn't be with my family I'm sure glad I got to be with my friends. 

Things we like to do

We enjoy spending time in the mountains- camping, fishing, having picnics, hiking.  We have been fortunate to enjoy a vacation each year.  This year it looks like Southern Utah hiking and camping is going to be the winner.  We enjoy at least one Utah Jazz game each year. I’ll admit it J.D. has turned me into a Jazz fan.  When we are just hanging out at home we like watching Chopped and are huge fans of Big Bang Theory, if you haven’t seen it you need to watch it HILARIOUS, or simply just work on various projects.  Melissa enjoys crafts and is starting to re-do furniture and J.D. works on web development projects.  We are currently taking on our biggest project together as we search for our dream house and turn it into our HOME!

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...