Friday, March 20, 2015

Family Friday

This week we would like you to meet Michele & Steven.  This couple lives in one of the busiest cities in the county.  They are homestudy ready and waiting to be matched.  Read below to get to know them a little better.


1) Are you listed with an agency? No we are working with a lawyer. Deborah Steincolor www.theadoptattorney.com

2) What do you see your open adoption or semi open adoption to look like?
Every situation is very different and really is an agreement that both adoptive parents and birth parents feel comfortable with. We are open to sharing pictures, text and phone calls and visits during the year. It really is important that the child knows where they come from and the love that the birth and adoptive family has for them. Family is very important to us and the birth family would be welcomed in to ours as part of our extended family.

3) You live in one of the biggest and busiest cities so I am sure there are tons of amazing things to do every day and weekend. What are some of the things you look forward to doing the most with your child?
One of the greatest things about living in NYC is that everything one desires is right in your own backyard, you never run out of things to do.  We look forward to museums like the Transit Museum, Children’s’ Museum and Museum of Natural History. There are also several zoos like the Bronx Zoo (one of the largest zoos) and Central Park Zoo which is a quick walk from our home.  Central Park is one of the most amazing parks and we love to spend weekends there having a picnic, exploring the park and playing in the playground with our nieces and nephews. We also belong to a theater club and have taken our nieces and nephews too many wonderful shows. We would love one day to take our own child to these shows.  During the summer we love to take weekend trips upstate to visit friends or visit some of the local beaches. We have also taken trips to Coney Island and spend time on the board walk and amusement parks.

4) How long have you been in the process of adoption?
A year ago we decided to start a family through adoption. A friend of ours recommended our lawyer and after speaking with her we knew this was the way we were going to start our family.  We completed our home study and got certified in the end of July2014 so it has been roughly 7 months that we have been actively advertising. We know that when the right situation arises it will be the most wonderful experience.

5) What brought you to the decision that adoption was what you wanted to do?
  We always knew we wanted to have children and have talked about it prior to getting married. Due to certain circumstances we knew that having a biological child would not happen. We did not want this to stop us from fulfilling our dream of having our own family. We love being around our nieces, nephews and friends’ children and wanted to share our life with a child of our own. We spoke to a few couples who adopted and the joy that it brought them. We knew that there were children out there who needed a home and we wanted to be able to share ours with them.
If you would like to get to know Michele and Steven or contact them below is their information.

Our Website :WWW.MicheleandSteven adopt.info

Facebook Michele Steven Adopt


Twitter:  @MicheleSteven1

We at What to Expect Adoption Support wishes Michele and Steven the best of luck for we know what a blessing adoption is.

 

Friday, February 6, 2015

Family Friday

This week we would like to introduce to you Paul and Kim.  This couple are in the waiting stage of the adoption process and are home study approved to adopt up to 3 children from newborn to the age of 3.  Paul and Kim have been married for 12 years but have know each other since they were teenagers.  They love to travel all over the world and experience new things.  When they are not traveling to places like France, Italy, Germany and England they love spending time outdoors hiking, and exploring nature.  Paul loves to make homemade pickles and Kim loves to knit and their favorite holiday is Halloween.  Paul and Kim have also been parents to several exchange students over the years and enjoy a close relationship with the students still today.  
I have to admit the description of their home makes me want to ask them to adopt me.  But all joking aside it is a place a child would be able to make great memories and enjoy growing up at.
I was able to have briefly talk with Paul and Kim to get to know them a little better.   
What made you choose adoption? Kim has known since she was about 16 that she would probably have problems having biological kids due to both genetics as well as a medical issue. After we had been dating a few years, naturally we discussed our future and the idea of kids. Paul loved the idea of adopting too and after we were married, we started doing a lot of research into it had thoroughly embraced the idea of raising a child through adoption.
How long have you been waiting to adopt? That's hard to answer. We've been looking into it for several years, researching, reading books, attending seminars, deciding what path was best for us. We eventually settled on domestic newborn and finished our home study for that in January 2014. So, "officially" we've been waiting a year. Un-officially, quite some time.
Will you renew your paper work after it expires this year? Again, a hard question. We hope and pray that we won't have to because we have adopted before that point. If we haven't, we still would definitely love to have kids in our life to raise. After our paperwork expires, we might choose another path...maybe foster-adopt...maybe international. A lot can happen in a year.
Are you with an agency? Yes, we are currently with an agency, but also have some connections with lawyers, if an expectant mom prefers to not go through an agency. Our home study does not lock us to a specific agency, so it's pretty flexible.

If you would like to get to know Paul and Kim better, speak with them or just offer support you can find them at the link below.

http://paulandkimadopt.weebly.com/

We at What to Expect Adoption Support want to wish Paul and Kim the best of luck in their journey and can't wait to see how it ends for them.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Minnesota Parent Magazine article

Check out the latest article about one family's heart-warming story of adoption that was featured in Minnesota Parent Magazine! This family is very near and dear to our heart here at What to Expect, because she is one of our founders!
The February issue of Minnesota Parent is out now! 



 
 
 
 

 You’ll find this latest issue for FREE (yes!) at all of our 900 racks now (http://www.minnesot...aparent.com/racks), or you can flip through our digital replica on Issuu (http://issuu.com/minnesotaparent/).

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

The Karls Family


Our adoption journey started with when I first met Ben 2008 playing rugby (he played for the Minneapolis Mayhem and I played for the Madison Minotaurs).  On our first date Ben shared his desire to be a parent. I was relieved because it has always been very important for me to have children. I moved to Minneapolis in 2009 and we got married in 2010 and 2011 (2010 was a ceremony with family and friends, and in 2011, we got married legally in Iowa). After a year of married life our adoption journey began.

            We actively started searching adoption companies in summer of 2011. However, we were limited to only three agencies in our state due to us being a same sex couple. Ben and I heavily researched the agencies and decided the right agency for our family was Lutheran Social Services. I remember picking the agency was so stressful, but in hindsight, they offered very similar services. It is important to get the feel of the agency and the feeling of the agency was right.  After choosing LSS and turning in our initial application, the paperwork started.  It was very detailed (sometimes intrusive) questions, criminal checks including getting fingerprinted, references and a health history completed by my physician.

            After our application was turned in we had education and the home study. Our adoption education was about adoption sensitivity, networking and conspicuous families. I remember being shocked about my feelings about openness and my attitude toward birth mothers after education. I wasn’t as scared to involve birth moms in our family’s life. Immediately after the education, we got our home study approved because we found a possible adoption situation from networking. For the home study we met with our assigned social worker and met with her at the agency and she then came to our house. The home visit was not as stressful as I thought or imagined (they didn’t go through every nook and cranny of the house).

            So we rushed to get our home study done since we had a possible adoption situation. I remember one of our friends contacted us after learning about our adoption plan and expressed possible interest in adopting.  After months of sporadic communication we found out the mother decided to parent the child. Even though we did not meet the mother. I remember the mom’s due date was tough for Ben and me. This situation did leave us heartbroken.

            After that adoption situation did not happen, we waited to get into our agency’s networking book, and the wait was ten months. We created a website, a facebook page, and free profiles in adoption sites. In the meantime, we networked so we could have some control over our adoption situation.  Over the months we got some non-serious inquiries (communication was about one or two correspondences) about birth moms wanting to create an adoption plan.

            By mid-December of 2012, we got invited to join our agencies networking book. Within two days of us being in the book, Ben got a call from our social worker asking if I was with him.  Later that night we called our worker back, and she had a birth mom who was interested in meeting us but wanted to tell us herself.  She was interested in creating an adoption plan with us. We made a meeting with the birth mom who was 8 months pregnant and her two dads (she was adopted when she was 13).  I remember the day we were meeting us we were both were very nervous. I remember thinking what would we talk about, and we brought some photo albums. When we met and started talking, it seemed natural and we got along great.

            After we got matched, we got a chance to know her more. She let Ben and me go to her appointments. At the first appointment, we go to hear our future daughter’s heart beat, and it made us both tear up knowing this was going to happen. Her family had us over for dinner so we could meet all of them, and after dinner we played Dance Central on kinect. I remember our birth mother beating Ben on that game (so the joke is Cordelia beat Ben in a dancing game).  We kept regular contact throughout rest of the pregnancy and we got to go on the hospital tour with our birth mom also.
            On February 3, 2013, the only night my cell phone was on the charger (it is usually next to my bed to wait for the call), Ben and I woke up late with multiple calls from our birth mother and her dads saying she was in labor. Our birth mom wanted us in the delivery room for the delivery of Cordelia (which we are forever thankful for this experience).  We got to the hospital around 10 am, and Cordelia was born at 1:32pm.  Ben got to hold her first, and I cut the umbilical cord.  We were moved to the post delivery area right down the hall from our birth mom. Ben, Cordelia, and I visited the birth mom that night during the Super Bowl half-time show because she was a big BeyoncĂ© fan (and she wanted us to share that experience). Then the next day, it was tough because we didn’t have communication plans in place, so we didn’t want to intrude on the others. Luckily, when her dads came, they broke the ice and brought us coffee and got us together. The rest of the day went smoothly. On February 5, we had to leave the hospital. It was the toughest, most bittersweet feeling for me to see our birth mom say bye to Cordelia.  However, we did see our birth mom a couple more occasions. She came to Cordelia’s baptism, and we went to her high school graduation and had visits.

What to Expect Adoption would like to thank this family for sharing there story of joy with us! We  wish them nothing but the best of luck as they enter the adoption process once again in hopes to make Cordelia a big sister soon!

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The story of Addison

 
 
 
 
Three years ago on Nov 4, 2011, we were waiting at the hospital for the birth of our daughter. I was not the one in the delivery room though. My husband, Adam, and I were anxiously waiting for our birthmother to deliver our daughter, Addison. Let me rewind and start from the beginning.

Adam and I were married July 21, 2001 and started our lives together. We decided to wait five years before trying to start a family. They were wonderful five years and then the heartaches started. In 2007, we started infertility testing because things weren't happening naturally. Four surgeries later and a diagnosis of endometriosis, we still weren't pregnant. But God opened a window and we chose to consider adoption. Through a friend of my moms, we found Adoption By Choice in 2009. It's a nonprofit, Christian adoption agency that works with the Women's Help Center in Erie, PA. We completed our paperwork and homestudy in Feb 2011. And then we received "the call" on Friday, July 15, 2011 and met our birthmother and birthfather on our ten year wedding anniversary (7/21/11). It was God's perfect will for us that we be Addison's parents. We had the opportunity to meet with our birth mother five times prior to Addison's delivery. What a blessing to get to know our birth mother and learn about her likes, memories, and what she wished for this baby. We can honestly say that we fell in love with our birth mother because of her sacrifice and unconditional love for her baby.

So fast forward to the hospital...what an exciting and nerve-wracking experience. And then we got to meet and hold our daughter. The angels in heaven rejoiced that day because we were a family.

Since Addison's birth, we have kept in touch with our birthmother and have met with her on three occasions so she can see Addison. It's a family reunion of sorts and such a blessing for us to have the pictures and memories. Addison was born out of love and to this day, is cherished my two mothers and a father.

Friday, November 7, 2014

The story of opening to Joy

This is the story of our opening to Joy, our 10 month old baby girl.

We have two biological children. Our "plan" was only to have two children. When we miscarried twins, the idea of a bigger family entered our minds and hearts. After the birth of our daughter, we knew that we were not complete as a family. There was room in our hearts for more. God had begun to work in us.

I had always had a desire to adopt. In fact I can't remember I time that I didn't dream about my little adopted daughter. As we grew or own family, adoption took a back seat. For many years I didn't really consider it. As our children for older, I began to ponder the idea again. The desire grew and became too strong to ignore. It took a bit longer for my husband to come around. We took in a girl from Belarus for a month a few years ago. She was 9 and came to the U.S. for much needed health care. We realized very quickly that we would have kept her in a heart beat. It took a few years, but eventually after much prayer, he came to the conclusion that adoption was the right choice for our family.

We started the process in January of 2013. At the time we were unsure whether we should pursue an international or domestic adoption. The process was daunting and difficult. The paperwork was overwhelming at times. We hated feeling like we were "choosing" a child. Deciding what scenarios we were willing to be considered for was a difficult, soul searching process. We prayed a lot. When the choice of having an open or closed adoption was presented, we honestly had no idea how we felt about either one. I read a lot and did my research. It was a scary thought to think of being so open to the birth parents, but God was still doing a work on us.

That summer I spent 3 weeks counseling at two teen camps. It became very clear that God had called me to minister to this age group, and that I had a heart for these hurting youths. I knew then that an open adoption with a teen mom was what I was being drawn to. My husband and I agreed that this was what we thought God was leading us into. Up until this point we had not seen one adoption situation that seemed right for our family. We had become discouraged.

I remember that Monday night in August. We had never prayed and asked the Lord for an open adoption, so on this particular night we did just that. We prayed specifically, requesting a teen mom who we could have a lot of contact with and minister to. Tuesday night we did the same. On Wednesday morning we were greeted with the email that would forever change our lives. It was the one, and we both knew it. A teen mom was looking for an extremely open adoption. She wanted weekly visits and a close relationship with the adoptive family. We were elated!

A few weeks later we were matched with the mom. We developed a bond instantly. We spent time together before our daughter was born and began to love this young woman. We even named our daughter together. It was the first name we suggested that just happened to be the name she had chosen two years prior for her daughter! Our whole family was there at the hospital when she was born. I was able to be in the delivery room the entire time. The birth mom and I often reminisce about that day, as it holds a special place in both of our hearts. Something happened in that room that changed us both. We are now connected by a deep bond and through our beautiful baby girl.

We see each other often, at least once weekly. She is just as much a part of our family as our adopted daughter. We have worked through some pretty tough things together. Our bond continues to grow and we are so excited for the future. Our children love the birth family just as much and are already asking to adopt another sibling.

When we agreed to an open adoption, we had no idea what it would look like. We could not have imagined the blessings that would come from opening our hearts up to not only a child, but to her birth family as well. We now have a blended family who loves this little girl so much. She is thriving and happy and I have no doubt it is because she is loved so much! It is only fitting that her name means " opening to joy ." We are such huge supporters of adoption, and encourage open adoption for those who feel called to it.

What to Expect Adoption would like to thank this family for sharing there story of joy with us.  It is a great example of how open lines of communication came make an open adoption an amazing thing.  This family also has a blog if you would like to read more it is  http://openingtojoy.blogspot.com.