In early fall of 2007, when we'd failed to become pregnant and were still frustrated over it, Sally had the thought one day that we should adopt. At first, Joe did not agree, and he felt that meant we were giving up on ever conceiving. But as he prayed about it, he came to understand that it was the right path for us to take to grow our little family. We started the process that winter, and first heard from Caleb's birthmom on September 22, 2008. We were going to be parents in January-!
We have a good relationship with Caleb's birthmom, M., as well as with Ella's birth-grandma, A., and our birth families are dear to us. We look forward to having a similarly open relationship with the birthparent(s) of any other child that comes into our home and our family (and of course our hearts!).
We exchange emails with M. on a regular basis, we have kept a special blog with pictures of Caleb just for her, and have occasionally mailed her pictures of Caleb and our family. We text or talk on the phone once in a while, and we hope that one day M. will feel ready to get together with us in person. She knows that we are open to it when she is.
In the fall of 2009, when Caleb was still not crawling, Joe mentioned that he felt like we needed to start the adoption application process again. As we started working through the application process, Joe felt that we needed to hurry, and that we would receive a girl. We hit many "speedbumps" and obstacles in the process that time around, but finally got approved in April of 2010. We realized if we'd delayed acting on the feelings Joe had, we'd never have been ready to adopt when we got the phone call May 7 that our little Ella was going to be born at the end of June. We are so very grateful that we did not miss her--we truly cannot imagine our family without her!
Though we don't have as much contact with Ella's birthmom, our main contact with Ella's birth family has been her birth-grandma, and we enjoy occasionally exchanging emails with her. We hope to one day enjoy more communication with them, once they feel comfortable with that.
As our kids grow older, they will come to understand the love that their birthmoms have always had for them. Adoption will always be part of their stories, and they will always be free to ask us any questions. The birth families of our children will always hold a special place in our hearts, and we know our children will come to love them as much as we do!
We haven't had a chance to meet the birthfathers of either of our children, but we will always welcome the opportunity to have a good relationship with any birthparents (or birth family members!) of any children in our family.
