Adoption Option: How We Found Our Baby

When my husband and I came to the decision that adoption was the way we should start our family, we were very excited!  We decided to just go for it, and we started the adoption process.

Coming to the realization that adoption doesn't have to be a "Plan B" was very comforting. We knew this was the way we wanted children to join our family. How our children came to our family would not matter.  What mattered was, they would be ours, just as if they had been born to us. 

We went into it having no idea what to expect other than what we had been told from other people.  We chose to go through an agency called LDS Family Services. We started in May that year.  We had our first meeting with a caseworker who was very compassionate and helpful.  She told us some of what to expect and gave us a big stack of paperwork to fill out. Along with that, we had to make about twenty profile packets for different birthmothers to look at while choosing an adoptive family for their baby.  It included a letter to the birthmother, a page all about us, and two "scrapbook pages" with pictures of us doing things we like to do.  We also were required to take 6 weeks of classes, get a background check, reference letters and have a home study done.  There was a lot to do, and we felt overwhelmed, but we were excited to be able to take some action and make our dreams of a family become a reality.

Our lives suddenly became like an open book, or a drive in movie for everyone to see. We had to give answers to everything about our lives. We answered questions like,  "What was the most traumatic event in your life?", "What did you do in High School?" , "How much money do you make?", "What are your brother's hobbies?", " What color are your mother's eyes?" and "Does your house have natural gas or propane?" Yes, we answered every question under the sun.  We really didn't like the idea of telling everyone about our personal life, but we were willing to do whatever it took to make this happen.

Finally, after what felt like ten years, but was really six months, we were approved for adoption in November of that same year.  We were so happy! We knew it could happen at any time now. And, we were anxiously waiting, praying and hoping to be chosen to adopt the baby that was meant for us.

At that point, we knew we had two choices.  We could sit around and wait for a birthmother to go to the agency, find our profile and choose us, or we could do everything we could to find her.  We did not just stop and wait for her to find us, we found her and she found us.  How did we do that? I will tell you.

The agency we went through has a wonderful website set up for adoptive families to post their own profiles. This way birthmothers, who are trying to make a decision about what to do, can go to this website and look through the different adoptive family profiles.  We posted our profile there.

Another thing we did was make little pass along cards.  They were like a business card, but it had our picture and the website address where our profile could be found.  We wrote a letter, included a pass along card, and mailed one to every person we had ever met in our lives.  We were hoping that someone would know a birthmother who was considering placing her baby for adoption and give her our card. We actually had quite a few people tell us they had given our card to some one. Although some of our friends found their miracle this way, this wasn't the way we found our baby. 

My husband and I were still trying to come up with ways to "advertise" our desire to adopt. We felt like little puppies in a pet shop waiting for a little girl or boy to come and take us home with them. It was unnerving.

My husband owns a barber shop, so he was able to talk to a lot of people about it.  One day he came home from work and said we should have a rifle raffle for our adoption. Charge a certain amount per ticket and then when we got a certain amount of people signed up, we would draw a name and that person would win a rifle. I was quite apprehensive about the idea because I did not want people to think we were asking for hand outs. But, something told me to just go with it anyway. 

So, we put a big ad in our local newspaper, and a sign at the barbershop.  Surprisingly to me, we had a lot of people buy tickets. They were more than happy to support us and help us spread the word.  It wasn't long at all before we were able to draw the winning ticket. This is the way we found our baby!

One day, during the raffle, one of my husband's normal customers came in for a haircut. He asked about the raffle and said he didn't know that we wanted to adopt a baby.  He mentioned that his daughter was pregnant and considering placing her baby for adoption.  My husband came home and told me about it, but neither of us thought a lot about it, because we had heard of others several times before and nothing ever came of them.

Weeks later, we got an email from a birthmother asking us a few questions. We excitedly answered them and wondered who it was.  A few weeks went by and she emailed us again. In this email she told us who she was and said that she had decided to place her baby girl for adoption. She was actually the daughter of the man who asked about the rifle raffle in the barber shop!  She also asked us if we wanted to meet because she wanted us to be the parents to her baby! We were shocked and overjoyed!  It didn't feel real.  It seemed to good to be true. But, it was true! The baby was due to be born in about 3 months and we were thrilled.

So, that is how we found our dear birthmother and she found us.  We quickly fell in love with her and we still have a great deal of love and respect for her. She made the choice to place the baby with us because she wanted her to have a mom and a dad. She did this unselfishly.  Adoption is a miracle.  Our little girl is a miracle.  We can't imagine our lives without her.

Over the next couple weeks, I will be sharing the rest of our adoption story. Although it has been far from easy, I can look back now on our life and see God's hand guiding us down the right path. I know that although life has seemed dark at times, He has lit the way for us to go. We thank God every day for the birthmother who gave us this gift.