Annual Adoption Walk

On Saturday October 18th we went to Liberty Park for the Annual adoption walk. Orange is the "official" color for adoption so we all wore orange shirts. It was so nice to meet new people in the adoption community and just spend time with them. One of our favorite things they did is before the event they had people write on pieces of paper who their adoption heros are. I am sure you guessed right, we said that Mama Sarrina is our adoption hero.

 

 

 

Meeting our son Jax for the first time.

After Shaileen sent me the photo about 45 minutes or so after she called me and said that they were done stitching Sarrina back up after he c-section and to meet them back in the room they started in. I met them back in there and when I walked in I immediately gave Sarrina a big hug because we were now family. We sat in the room and talked for a few minutes until one of the nurses came in and asked Shaileen and Me if we wanted to go to the special nursery they had Jax in. Of course we said yes and Sarrina was OK with it. It seemed that the nurse took us on the longest walk ever to go see him. As we got there there were a bunch of other babies in the nursery but for some reason my eyes immediately to Jax and I knew that he was our son. Like I keep saying over and over it is incredibly how there is an immediate love for him, not just as any baby but my son. Heavenly Father had prepared me for that moment for the last year and I am sure he prepared Jax to meet us as well. With him being about 5 weeks early and him having a tough time breathing for the first 15ish minutes and the umbilical chord being wrapped around his neck 3 times we knew there were going to be some complications medically with him. We expected him to be in the NICU for several weeks but he is what we call JAXSTRONG. What a little miracle he is because he is as healthy as an ox (yes a very small ox). When they sent him to the special nursery they put him under heat lamps for the first hour or so to get his temperature up but after that hour he was perfect and has not had an issue with temperature after at all. When we got in the nursery he was not on any oxygen either but nurses decided that it would be best if we put him on oxygen just to be safe. He was a trooper throughout the whole thing because every hour the nurse would come in and turn down the oxygen double or triple the amount that they usually do. As you can probably guess as soon as we were given the ok to hold him we couldn't put him down because he is just so darn cute. Love our little buddy. We left about 1:30 in the morning to drive home and catch a few hours of sleep. The hospital kept him in the special nursery over night to make sure his oxygen was good. Another post about the next day will come soon! 

There is a new term I use now that I am an instadaddy and Shaileen is an instamommy. We were only given about 2-3 weeks notice before Jax was born. Most people have 9 months to get ready and more importantly bond with their soon to be child. As weird as it sounds we did not have only 2-3 weeks to prepare. We have had about 4 years. We have prayed numerous times for this very moment in our lives. I have thanked my Heavenly Father for the trials that he had put in our way to become parents because it has made us stronger as a husband and wife and made us more

Ready than we ever would have been otherwise. 

We Are Going To Be Parents

I first off have to say thank you to everyone for all of their continued support. We have felt your love and prayers. You have no idea what it means to us and we would have never been able to be where we are today without you guys.

The evening of Fathers Day (6/16/16) Shaileen received a text saying someone is looking to place their baby boy  for adoption and wanted to know if we were still looking to adopt. We replied saying of course we were. We provided this person our blog address and personal information so they could give it to this expecting mother to look at us. She said that she would pass our information along and about an hour later we received another text saying that if we are up for it she will choose us. Holy Moly, that was quick and we didn't know what to think but were extremely excited. We were told that this expecting mother would contact us probably the next day. As you can expect we were excited all day to hear from her and later that evening on Monday June 17, 2013 we got the call from Sarrina. Shaileen was the one that spoke with her. It was a good conversation and she reaffirmed her decision to place with us. Shaileen said after the call that she kept referring to the baby as our baby. We decided that we would get together the upcoming weekend so we could get to know each other better. Sunday June 23, 2013 we picked up Sarrina at her friends house and drove to Baskin Robins. We spent around 1 1/2 - 2 hours getting to know each other and talking to each other. We talked about everything from what her other children are like to openness and even names. It is crazy to think that our crazy adventure is going to be coming to a new step here pretty soon in the next month when he is born so we can start a new adventure. He is due on Friday Aug 5, 2013 but she was telling us that all of her other children have been at least 2 weeks early. So, we are expecting probably closer to 4 weeks instead of 6 weeks until he is here. We learned that Sarrina has 8 children, the last 2 she placed with another family for adoption it sounded like several years ago. Shaileen and I believe we have a name picked out but are not positive yet so we are going to wait until we are positive that it is what we want to choose. Sarrina said that she is completely open for us to choose the name and does not care at all what we choose.

I am sure there will be more posts coming here soon, but again we just want to say thank you. Also, remember that there are tons of couples out there that are hoping to adopt that need your help to build their family. Each of our situations that were brought to us were because family and friends were thoughtful enough to open their mouths and not be shy to talk about us. We would like to ask that you continue to search and pray for hopeful adoptive couples as well as expecting parents. If you ever run across a situation let us know and we would be more than happy to pass it along to one of several couples that we know that are looking. Anyways, thanks again.


WE ARE GOING TO BE PARENTS!!!!

Adoption Panel April 19, 2013

This past Friday we had the wonderful opportunity to attend an adoption panel that was put on by Families Supporting Adoption. We look forward to these get togethers so much because there are other people there that are in the same shoes as us as hopeful adoptive parents. The thing I like the most about these monthly get togethers though is I want to learn as much as I possibly can about being the best parent I possibly can. I know that I will never be fully prepared when we are chosen but why not be prepared with the most knowledge as we can. At this panel there was a wide variety of panel members that were from 2 families. There were adoptive parents, adoptive grandparents, birth mothers, and adopted adults. These families this past weekend reinstated my testimony of adoption in my heart.and how it is such a great thing. The love that each of these families had for each other was incredible on both the adoptive family side and the birth parent side. This panel brought back some great memories of the adoption classes that we were required to take over a 2 day period during our approval process. Before these classes we were not sure what we thought about the idea of open adoption and were sort of against it too. However, after going to listen to the panels of people it changed our heart completely on the thoughts of open adoption. The love we gained for expecting/birth parents grew indefinitely. If you ever have the opportunity of going to one of these panels I would definately recommend it. They are open to anyone to go. The idea that lots of people have with adoption is not accurate, just like LDS Family Service's motto says and it is so true is that. Adoption- Its about Love. How true is that? Expecting parents place their children out of love and hopeful adoptive parents are trying to grow their families out of love as well. I love adoption and am so thankful for it, without it we would never have the opportunity to grow our family.

Open Adoption

About 2 years ago Shaileen and I decided that we were ready to start the adoption process. We prayed and went to the temple and it was confirmed to us that adoption is the way that we are supposed to build our family. We knew that there was a good chance it would not be an easy process and may be long but who are we to not do something just because it may be tough even though it is right. I feel really awkward saying this but when we first started the adoption process we had a tough time understanding and accepting the idea of an open adoption. Open adoption sounds like such a scary thing. We went to the required adoption classes to be approved through LDS family services back on 10-22-2011. As we walked in we were excited to get on with the process of our adoption process. We were looking forward to learn as well. It was a 2 day course. The first day consisted of a panel of adoptive parents sitting in front of us answering questions that the group had. As Shaileen and I left after the first day of classes we were way overwhelmed because the panel of adoptive parents were talking about their open adoption relationships that they had with their child's/children's birth parents. They talked about how they love them and are so happy when they are able to get together with them. Shaileen and I talked as we drove home in tears about if we were really going to be able to follow through with the promises of open adoption. We were scared of co-parenting with the birth parents and just wanting that relationship in general. Were we going to be able to continue? The next morning we woke up and got ready for the second day of classes even though we were resisting it because we were scared of what else we were going to learn. Wow, I sure am glad we went because that was one of the best days during our adoption process that I have had. When we showed up there was a panel of birth mothers. Some of them placed many years ago, some of them within the last couple of years and even some as recently as a month ago. I personally was scared to hear them talk and almost didn't want to listen to them.

 

As soon as the first question was asked and the first woman started speaking I immediately felt the spirit in the room. It was so strong that I could not deny that there is an incredible love that exists throughout the adoption triad (child, birth parents, adoptive parents). The main thing that was thrust into my heart is that the birth mothers as well as fathers have an incredible love for the child. It is not as if at placement the love just went away. They really do continue to care about them and their well being. However, they still have enough love that they choose to place for whatever reasons that they have. Later in the day a group of adoptees (not sure if that is the correct term to use) came and we had some questions for them. Some of them have open adoptions and some of them have closed ones. The main thing that most of them said that they would want to tell their birth parents is that they really are ok and that that have turned out ok and wanted to tell them thank you as well. As you can imagine there was not a dry eye in the room. I was personally bawling like a baby. We learned a lot about ourselves and what we really want in adoption. The relationship we have with birth parents is a relationship that very few people understand. We love them very much and will consider them family for life. It may sound weird but I am thankful for the trials that we have gone through with our adoption process. With those trials it will make me never take my child for grantid and will hopefully make me a better Father and husband. I am thankful for Shaileen. She is the best wife I could ever ask for. With the things we have gone through it has made us closer as husband and wife. I am so glad that I get to spend eternity with her. I cannot wait for the day that we get to meet our child. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. I know that with Heavenly Father we can make it through anything because it has worked in our lives this far. Like always I would like to thank everyone for their constant support, prayers, fasting and love. We have felt many prayers in our behalf.