Happy 2nd Birthday, Sweet Lucie!

It's been two years. Two years ago, the birthmother we had been matched with called us to let us know that she was going to the hospital.  John and I drove as fast as we could, hoping we would make it in time for the arrival of the baby we hoped to adopt. The hospital was seven hours away, and the birthmother was dilating fast! An hour before we arrived, she texted that she had begun to push. But when we finally arrived that morning, she was about to be wheeled in for a C-section, because the baby was stuck. We like to think that Lucie waited for us!  Minus a few bumps during the week, it all worked out through much prayer and even more miracles along the way. We are so humbled and grateful to be the parents of Lucie. We are so blessed to be on this adoption journey and to forever be connected to some very special people. Tomorrow, we celebrate Lucie's 2nd year of life, and we will always, always remember two teenagers who made the most courageous and selfless decision of their lives.

A New Year. A New Big Girl Bed. Time Flies...

Merry Christmas!

We don't post much on this blog anymore. But we love sharing about adoption and would love to talk to anyone who is interested in finding out more about adoption and our adoption experience. If you would like to follow us more regularly, please visit our blog: www.babymgm.blogspot.com  We post there more regularly.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy 2013!

At 7 months, Lucie began to crawl. Two weeks later, she began to pull up to a standing position. Now, she scoots along furniture, squats, and at times lets go to see if she can stand by herself. We think she will be walking very soon. And I'm definitely not ready to have such an early walker! She is determined to keep up with her big sister!

6 Months In

I've neglected this blog, because life has been so busy. Last month, our family was made official when Lucie's adoption was finalized! It is hard to believe that 6 months ago, we welcomed baby Lucie into the world and into our family. We cannot imagine life without her. She continues to be a sweet natured, easy going baby. She is so close to crawling, although she has discovered other ways to be mobile through scooting on her back or on her bottom.
She is close to laughing out loud. Right now she laughs with an inward breathy noise as her eyes dance and she bounces up and down. She is growing like crazy. At her 6 month old check-up her height was off the charts (thanks to her tall birthfather.) Maggie continues to delight in her role as big sister. Her prayers at meal time often say, "Thank you God for sending us Lucie." And that about sums it up. We are so grateful for Lucie.

The Fresh Air Fund--Hosting Children who need Fresh Air

I received this e-mail regarding an opportunity for those interested to serve as host families. Please see below for details and direct any questions to Sara. Her contact information is below. Please also pass along to others that you may know who might be interested. Thanks!

Hi

I know that this isn't something that you typically post about, but I thought that you and the readers of Our Adoption Journey would care about this issue. Even though the Summer is in full swing, The Fresh Air Fund is still in need of 850 host families. Host families are volunteers who open their hearts and homes to children from the city to give them a Fresh Air experience that can change lives. If you could help to get the word out it would really help us place these wonderful children into a loving host family. It's only for up to two weeks, but it's an experience that can change their lives forever.

http://freshairfundhost.org

I was hoping you could help by posting a mention, tweet, or by putting up one of our banners on your site. Please let me know if you are able to help or if you have any questions.

Thank you so much,

Sara
--
Sara Wilson,
www.freshair.org
facebook.com/freshairfund
Twitter @freshairfund

Happy Memorial Day!

Going Mobile

Lucie loves to slide over her boppy. And she is really fast! She's discovered that her strong legs can get her places. And she is only 11 weeks old. I do believe she is going to crawl and walk early. I'm so not ready.

Sisters.

Lucie is our adoptive daughter. Maggie is our biological daughter. And ever since we brought Lucie home, the same comment keeps coming back to us, "They look like they belong together!" I agree with that. They look like sisters to me. Maggie loves her baby sister. She is so protective of her already, and she already is giving her advice. Just the other day, she whispered to Lucie, "You can be anything you want when you get older....a princess, a queen, but not an alligator." Okay, she is almost five years old, and that advice made sense to her!!! Lucie's eyes light up as soon as she sees Maggie. She smiles the most and starts cooing the loudest when Maggie is around.

I know that many people struggle with whether to adopt or not. One of the greatest issues when it comes to deciding to adopt is wanting the child that comes into your life to look like you. And I confess, as we decided to go the adoption route, I had to allow myself to grieve that our next child would not look like us, because he/she would not be our biological child. When I allowed myself to grieve that AND let it go, I knew that I was ready to adopt. And when I could let that go, it also opened up some new possibilities that we had not opened ourselves up to before---adopting a biracial baby. And when we opened ourselves to the possibility of adopting biracially, within just a few short months, we welcomed Lucie into our family.

Lucie is biracial, and she is beautiful. She has been embraced by her family, her church family, and all of our friends. And you know what, she fits perfectly into our family. I cannot imagine our lives without her.

Some Kind of Ride

A few years ago, John gave me a "Story People" print with the caption: "feels like some kind of ride but it's turning out just to be Life going absolutely perfectly." This picture is going to be hung in Lucie's nursery, because it definitely captures what the adoption ride has been like so far.

Lucie is two weeks old today. And as I look at her, I cannot help but think about her birthparents--how they made the most courageous, selfless, life-changing decision. They are so young--17 and 18 years old, yet they were able to make such an adult decision for their baby daughter. We will forever be grateful, and Lucie will always know just how courageous they were to allow her to be adopted and that they chose us to be her forever family.

I'm also so thankful that we got to meet both birthparents and spend time with them at the hospital. When I look at Lucie, I see her birthfather in her eyes, nose, and feet. The birthfather has size 14 feet, and when he saw little Lucie's long skinny feet, he went, "YES!, she's got my feet." I see Lucie's birthmother in her chin, and when she gives a gassy smile, there is the hint of that dimple that her birthmother wears on one side when she smiles. Lucie also has a sweet, quiet, calm nature, just like her birthmother.

All this is a great gift that we would not have had if we had wanted a closed adoption. So, I'm thankful as I reflect on these past two weeks with Lucie and for her history that we are now a part of.

Our Adoption Journey

I've often heard the cliche "adoption is not for the faint of heart." And as I look back at our own journey thus far, I have to agree with this statement. Adoption is not an easy journey, but it is worth the hard work and difficult experiences that accompany it.

We chose to go the adoption attorney route after trying to go through a local adoption agency for over a year. Our experience with the agency we worked with was frustrating. We were told at the front end that "most families" were placed with a baby in a year or less. We entered excited and hopeful that an adoption would occur quickly, because of our openness. When I did not hear back for over 6 months, I called the agency to inquire. "Well, we've had a really slow year, but we've showed your book to a couple of mothers." This response led us to move in a different direction. If they were moving that slow, it would be years before we adopted a baby.

I contacted a cousin who had successfully adopted two precious babies through her own independent efforts. She encouraged us to set up a blog. And so we set up this blog in July of 2010. She advised us to get the word out to as many people as possible. And we did! We printed up postcards (Vista print has some good deals) announcing that we wanted to adopt, included a picture of us and our contact information and passed them to as many people as possible. We left these postcards in community college bulletin boards, laundry mats, hair and nail salons, hospital waiting rooms, really anywhere we could think of we left the postcards. We networked with a couple of local adoption attorneys. We posted on Craigslist our desire to adopt and included our blog address. Yes, I said Craigslist. Before you laugh this off, my same cousin who has two beautiful boys had connected with a birthmother who was in crisis and looking for baby furniture on Craiglist when she saw my cousin's post. As a result, she now has adopted a beautiful baby because of her Craigslist posting.

And it was through these efforts that we connected with some amazing people. Folks that simply wrote to encourage us. Others who shared their own adoption journeys and even passed some helpful advice to us. Some who sent us adoption possibilities or agencies to look into. And quite a few who asked if we would consider surrogacy. And we did connect to some amazing birthmothers along this journey. In the end, those we connected with decided to keep their babies. But it was a great gift to get to know them and be a part of their pregnancy journey. And I do have to admit, we were contacted by a few shady folks too.

As we spent countless hours on e-mails, phone calls, networking, we soon found ourselves emotionally fatigued. It was exhausting, and we began to think that perhaps a baby was not out there for us to adopt. We decided to give ourselves six more months before closing the door on adopting a baby. We decided that we needed to give our efforts a rest and find someone else to do it for us. That is what led us to Shorstein and Kelly in Jacksonville, Florida. And I have to say, as soon as we made that decision, we were able to let our worries go. We truly felt like we had done everything we could to expand our family through adoption, and if it was going to happen, then it would happen.

And I'm so overjoyed to find that it finally did. Was it easy? No, but I find that not much in life is easy. Was it worth it? Yes, every bit of this journey has been worth the struggles, the challenges, the questions, the doubts, the frustrations. And really, this is just the beginning of our adoption journey. I look forward to seeing what comes next.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, want advice, or just need a boost of encouragement. We will pass on what we know and have learned thus far.

Blessings on your Journey.

Denise

Welcome Lucie Ann!

We have some catching up to do! In November, we connected with a Florida adoption law firm (Shorstein & Kelly) that had been recommended to us by a couple of families who had success with adoptions through this firm. In mid-December, Shorstein & Kelly contacted us to see if we would be interested in letting a birthmother see our profile. We said, yes, but still were unsure if this was really going to work out.

To make a long story short, on Monday night, January 17, we got a phone call from the birthmother letting us know she was on the way to the hospital. We threw our bags together, jumped in the car and drove all night to the hospital where she was to deliver. We arrived just in time to be there for the birth of our daughter. After a roller coaster ride this week, we left the hospital today with our new daughter. We feel so extremely blessed, over joyed, overwhelmed at what has happened. This has been a long journey filled with disappointments, heartbreak, and dead ends. But in the end, it was worth it. It brought us to baby Lucie.

As we look at our new baby girl with hearts filled with gratitude, I am mindful of those who long to be parents and are not, especially those who are waiting right now to adopt and are wondering if it will ever happen. Please hang in there. It will happen.

We are so grateful to all of you for your love, support, encouragement, and well wishes. We will continue to post about this journey in hopes that it helps other families who long to adopt.

Blessings,
Denise, John, Maggie & Lucie

Welcome!

Hello! Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. Our hope for you as you read about our journey is that you will gain a deeper sense of who we are as a family, and that it will help you know whether or not we are the right family for you. Our prayer for you is that you will find a deep peace about your adoption plan.

Why We Want to Adopt

Why Adopt?

Even before our daughter was a year old, we began trying to have a second child because we knew we wanted to have another baby, and we wanted our daughter, Maggie, to have the gift of a sibling to grow up with like we both did. Since the beginning of 2007 we have experienced heartbreak after heartbreak as we experienced several miscarriages and two ectopic pregnancies. After pursuing several unsuccessful infertility treatments, we let go of trying to have another child biologically, and without hesitation, we moved forward with a plan for adoption so that we can bring another child into our family.

We believe welcoming a child into our family through adoption is truly a gift beyond anything we could ever imagine. We know that without a doubt we will love the baby that comes into our lives through adoption as deeply as we love our daughter. Our family has so much love for each other and we so look forward to sharing our love with another child and welcoming him/her to our family. Our child will always know the story of his/her birth and how their birthmother made the most courageous, selfless, loving decision to allow adoption to occur.



How We Met



We met in 2003 while we were both pursuing our Master’s degree in preparation for going into ordained ministry. Before going to graduate school, Denise had told herself that she would never marry a minister….but then she met John! It started as a casual friendship that eventually led to a life changing conversation at a party. Denise was graduating, (John still had one year more to go), and we found ourselves attending the same graduation party. Denise had originally planned to stay at the party for only one hour, but we soon found ourselves standing in a corner losing track of time, and talking for several hours! Quickly after, we went on our first date together, and we found ourselves spending all of our free time together. It did not take us long to fall in love with each other and seven months later, we became engaged! We married nine months later, and we've been happily married ever since. In September, we will celebrate our 6th year of marriage by going fly-fishing!



Our Faith

Our Faith is integral to who we are as individuals and as a couple. We are deeply committed to serving God and sharing God’s love with others. Our hope is that we instill a deep faith in God in our family as we raise our children in a Christian household. Because our faith is at the heart of all that we do, our lives are connected deeply to serving this world by sharing the love of Christ with all people.

Our Life Together

In our family, we enjoy spending lots of time together. We love quiet nights at home just watching a movie or one of our favorite television shows, but we also like getting outside to play, walk, fish, hike, and work in the garden. We also enjoy cooking meals together and eating as a family. We value our family and are lucky to have extended family--grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and good friends nearby to share meals with and special events like holidays and birthdays.

We enjoy music, theater, and art and love to go to concerts, musicals, plays, and art festivals. We want our children to grow up appreciating the arts as well, so our daughter Maggie often accompanies us.

We live in Alabama and enjoy traveling and taking family trips away to the beach or the mountains nearby to enjoy nature and just be together as a family.







We know that time to ourselves is also important in our marriage and we both like to spend time on our individual hobbies. We really seek to support one another in doing activities that make us feel fulfilled and happy.

About John
(by Denise)

John is an incredible husband, father, and my best friend, and he has so many gifts to share. My life is truly blessed because of the person that he is. John is an artist, and he loves to create by woodworking, drawing, painting, and even creating amazing meals in the kitchen. In addition to being an incredible artist, he is a joy to be around because he is so naturally positive. He loves to laugh and he loves to find humor in daily life, and he is not afraid to act goofy, so you cannot help but smile when you are around him.
John is also very caring and loving. He is deeply committed to our marriage, and he not only tells me he loves me every day, he often surprises me with thoughtful ways to show me how much he loves me. Whether it is surprising me with beautiful flowers, making a delicious meal, giving me a funny or sweet card, or just embracing me in a long hug, John continues to remind me of his love for me in so many ways.
He is also extremely patient and kind. He is not just patient and kind with his family, but he has a natural ability to put people at ease with his kindness and patience. He is incredibly generous in the time he devotes to others and to his family. His compassion and respect for others show through as he takes time for others by the ways that he listens patiently, and how he warmly interacts with other people. His playful and creative personality and warmness also draw kids of all ages to him. Children love John, and wherever we go, he is a total kid magnet!
Maggie, our daughter, takes great delight in spending time with her Daddy, who loves to be as silly as she is and share affection with her on a daily basis. John is a deeply devoted father and husband. He is committed to our family, and all of his qualities make him an amazing husband, father, and minister. He is a true gift in my life and to all who know him.

About Denise
(by John)

Denise is the most loving, patient and kind woman I have ever known. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would marry a woman like her, but sometimes it seems that God blesses us with someone better than even our wildest dreams. She cares for me deeply, and shows me and tells me daily that she loves me. She challenges me to be a better man, because I want to be the person that she deserves. She encourages me in my work, as a dad and as a husband. I’m very blessed to love her and be loved by her.
Denise puts the fullness of her being into everything she does. She loves her family endlessly and is devoted to fulfilling the calling that God has placed upon her life. She is hardworking and driven in anything she commits to, be it being a mom, a wife, or a minister. She possesses within her a deep and abiding strength, a surety of self, and just a dash of stubbornness, but she measures that with sensitivity and caring.
As a mom, Denise is amazing. The patience and creativity she reveals in parenting help me to be a better dad. She has taught me so much about what it means to love and raise a child. She has a tremendous heart for children and I am lucky beyond measure to get to be a parent with her.
Denise is a woman with style and she has always been effortlessly cool, creative, and artistic. But my favorite thing about her is that she has a wonderful goofy and silly side. She loves to laugh, both at herself and with her friends and family.
Denise is the love of my life, and I thank God every day that he has set me upon this journey with her.

Our Hope for the Future

We thank you from the depths of our hearts for the decision that you are making. In reading this blog, we hope that you will gain a better idea of who we are as a family. We truly believe in the miracle of adoption, and we trust that the parents that you choose will be the right parents for your baby. If you choose us to be your baby’s adoptive parents, we hope that you will consider an open adoption. We would very much like to get to know you and to be there for you during your pregnancy, whether it is accompanying you to doctor visits to being present on the day that you deliver your baby. We are also open to discussing ongoing contact even after the adoption is complete.

If you would like to contact us, please click onto our e-mail address at the top right of this blog.


We thank you for reading about us, and please know that our prayers are with you and your baby as you travel on this journey.

With Appreciation,
John & Denise