Our Adoption Story

We started the process of adoption in May of 2007 with Lutheran Social Service of MN(LSS). We entered their infant/open program, which we created a profile of ourselves and that profile is entered into the Waiting Family Books. These books are looked at by birthparent(s) in order for them to select families that they want to meet. We had several birthparent(s) look at our profile and take copies but nothing seemed to be happening. During our wait, we told our families and friends about our adoption process. On July 16th, 2008, a friend of ours from our church called and asked if she could give someone our names and number. Of course I said YES! I also dropped off a profile to her so that she could give it to them. On July 18th, we got the call that the birthmom and her mom had liked what they had heard and read about us and that they wanted us to be the baby's parents. The baby's due date was October 1st. We were very EXCITED! We had the birthmom and some of her family over for dinner that night. I made lasagna, which come to find out is the birthmother's favorite meal. We spent several hours getting to know them. When they left about midnight, Scott and I looked at each other and said that this feels so right and that they felt like family already. During the evening, the birthmom told us all about the birthfather and she said that he didn't want anything to do with the situation (WHICH we later found out NOT to be TRUE). Birthmom wanted us to be involved with the pregnancy so we were able to go to ultrasounds, doctor visits and even be in the delivery room. We tried to get together with birthmom as least once a week to get to know her. During one of the visits she said that she got some papers in the mail from birthfather. The papers were from the Father's Adoption Registry, which means that the birthfather WANTED to be involved in the process. After our birthmom met with the birthparent social worker from LSS, the social worker was then able to call the birthfather to set up a meeting for us to meet him. But before the social worker was able to schedule the meeting we found out that Scott's sister, Kyra and the birthfather's aunt were friends, which made us a little nervous to meet the birthfather. Well we had our first meeting with him and his mom and everything went GREAT! The following week we had them over so that we could do a cooperative agreement and they could see our house and to get to know us better. We were able to share with the birthfather and his mom the ultrasound pictures that we had and they were greatful that they were able to see them. Then on September 8 at 6:45am while I was on my way to work, the birthmom's mother called and said that birthmom was at a friend's house and was being taken to Lakewood Health System in Staples to be checked because she was having contractions. I told her that I had to make some calls but we would be there as soon as we could. I made some calls and then picked up Scott from the job that he was working at. We quickly stopped at home so Scott could get a change of clothes. We got to the hospital at 7:45am and the birthmom was dilated to a tight 3cm. When the on-call doctor came in to check her at 8:45, the birthmom was going to ask if she could go to Brainerd to delivery but the doctor wanted to check her first. At which time she was dilated to 5cm and the doctor told her that she had to stay. The crazy thing is that the on-call doctor was the doctor that we had used for our infertility. Our son, Matthew was born at 1:18p.m. Being able to be in the delivery room was the most emotional experience that we have ever experienced. Throughout the hospital stay (the hospital gave us our own room at no charge because they had never had adoptive parents stay there before), we spent time in both our room and our birthmom's room and we all had LOTS of company. When Matthew and birthmom were discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, it was so hard on all of us. I cried all the way home. I am not sure if I was crying for the birthmom or if I was crying for how happy we were. We have had several visits with the birthmom and birthfather since Matthew's birth. We even got pictures of both of them with us at Matthew's baptism. We never really realized what type of a relationship we would have with a birthmother/birthfather. It is amazing how both the birthmom and birthfather and their families feel like they were meant to be a part of our lives.