Our feelings on Openness

Post Edit Note:
I wrote this post sometime last year. I still stand by what I wrote but after reading through it again tonight, I wanted to add a little something. I'm afraid that what I wrote about openness will scare away birth families. At the same time, I'm not going to promise everything when I don't know our birth family yet.

But I can tell you my dream of openness and what I envision.

I hope for a communication that is completely honest.
I desire a situation where all of our families come together as one.
I have no issues with our birth families coming to our home and regular visits - I'm just not going to promise it on my blog before I've met you! :)
I pray for our additional birth moms to love all of my children as much as their own (or at least almost as much!)
I hope for a birth mom who I will love and adore, who I can't wait to send letters, pictures, and packages to, who I can't wait to call on the phone and share the latest news with and who we get to see regularly (shouldn't be an issue - I'm pretty attached to birth moms and their families!)

So long story short - don't let anything you read stop you from talking to us. Get to know us. If you are confused by something you've read here, talk to us. We are very open. We have no problem admitting our faults, mistakes and of course, how wonderful we are :) Just kidding!

We love openness. It is wonderful when all the parties involved treat each other with love and respect.

Thanks for reading! Love your guts!

A favorite quote of Jeremy's and mine reads: "We look at adoption as a very sacred exchange. It was not done lightly on either side. I would dedicate my life to this child." -Jamie Lee Curtis

It is hard to explain all of our feelings about openness. Much of what we want to share can only be expressed to our birthfamilies in private. But hopefully we can share a tiny taste of how we feel.

Jeremy and I love this quote because it rings so true. Adoption is the most sacred experience I've had. We have prayed, fasted and totally relied upon the Lord to bring children into our home. We go to the temple and place our birthfamilies names on the prayer roll (currently it reads "C____ family birthmom and her family" - the Lord knows who it is). We pray not only for our desires but for our birthmom. We pray that she'll have the Spirit with her and His arms of love encircled round about her as she makes her decisions. One of my favorite days during the adoption process is the moment we change those prayers from "Please bless our birthmom" to " Please bless _______ and we can change it to her name. Oh how we love to pray for her by name - again, a very sacred experience for us.

We have been through placement day once with our daughter and her birthmom and family. It was hard, it was beautiful and it was sacred. I will never forget the look on E's birthmom's face as she strapped her in the carseat and then walked to her car. For that reason alone, openness has become very sacred to our family.

Like the quote says, "It was not done lightly on either side." We know it wasn't done lightly on our side and having gone through adoption once before we absolutely know it wasn't done lightly on the side of our birthmoms. Because of the sacrifice involved, we don't expect you to hand over your child and then walk away forever. We absolutely want you to be involved with letters, pictures, and regular updates. We want you to know about the colic or the first smile, the first skinned knee and the first visit to Disneyland.

The quote continues to say "I would give my life for this child." Adoption is tricky because instead of just the usual set of 2 parents that would do anything for a child, you actually have more. All desire the best for this child. All want this child to be happy and healthy. We truely believe openness goes hand in hand with this. We want you to be involved with our family but we can't promise regular visits, family vacations, extended stays at our home, etc. (Keep reading - don't stop!!!) What we can promise you RIGHT NOW is open communication, honesty and always the ability to discuss those things. We can't promise anything because we don't know you. We want to get to know you though and as our relationship builds and grows, we are always willing to discuss openness and what is best for the child and each of us involved. We know that is what a loving birthmother would want as well.

I'll end this with a sweet example of our love for birthmothers. Emmy has quite the bedtime routine - bath, pajamas, stories, snuggling, family scripture reading, prayers, lots of tickling and giggles, etc. In her room she has hanging a picture of Jesus. She often blows kisses to Jesus or says goodnight. On other walls in her room she has a picture of Leslie's Dad holding Leslie the day she was born and in tears (we have a similar picture of Leslie holding Em for the first time in tears), and a photo of her birthmom. Many nights Emmy blows kisses to everyone - Grandpops, Jesus, Mommy and Daddy, and her birthmom. On one evening Emmy blew all her kisses but stopped and paused before blowing kisses to her birthmom's picture. She just looked at it. She had a very intense look on her face. Then she did the sign language for the word "Thanks" and blew her birthmom a kiss. Emmy is only 2 and while we speak of adoption and her birthmother to her regularly, she doesn't understand yet what her birthmom did for her. But I don't doubt for 2 seconds that she didn't mean it or that she doesn't feel it somehow. I do feel she knows in her own little way that her birthmom loved her very much and wanted her to have a Mommy and a Daddy and a more stable life than we should could give this child. We love birthmothers in our home. Not a day goes by that we don't pray for you and offer our thanks to many who have put their children first in their lives. We love you.

The conversation jar

While perusing ideas for Young Women's (my calling in our church as a leader to 12-18 year old girls), I came across some adorable conversation starter cards for the girls to use with their families at the dinner table.

In my mind, I remembered back 6 years ago at this time. I was teaching seminary (a gospel centered class for high school students) and had a conversation jar on my desk. At random times I would pull a question out of the jar and ask my students a question.

6 years ago this very weekend, Jeremy and I started becoming more than just friends. We began to hang out more and more and I think he might have actually asked me out on one date by this point. (he was slightly intimidated- good grief!)

As we dated and got to know each other I discovered one thing about my man. He needed a few lessons in conversation.
So I helped him.
Isn't that what you do when you're in love?

I brought home my trusty conversation jar from school and on evenings where we were just hanging out, I pulled out a question from the jar and we would discuss it.
Jeremy hated that jar. I still have it in a box somewhere and the next time I find it, I may just whip it out again.

How about we have a little conversation jar fun of our own?

From time to time, I'll post a question and then answer it.
I'd love to hear your answers as well so leave me a comment!
Let's get to know each other!

Five for Friday!

Wow, what a week and a half! Here's what you've been missing out on since I last blogged!

1. Last Wednesday/thursday, Jeremy and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary (a month late but we still celebrated!). Emmy stayed at her cousins house for her first overnight slumber party and had a wonderful time. I love that she is so happy wherever she goes and has no issues when Mommy and Daddy go out. As for me, I was a little teary leaving her for the first time overnight but reminded myself all night that she was having a blast and probably wasn't missing me! (I was right by the way - when we came to pick her up she was too busy to even come hug us! She loves her cousins!).

Jeremy took me to the Melting Pot for the first time. Fabulous food - I think I'm still full. The dessert was by far the best - how can you go wrong with dipping cheesecake, brownies, strawberries, pound cake and mallows into melted chocolate. You just can't. So Yumm!

That night we stayed at the Anniversary Inn. Nothing says "I love you" like sleeping surrounded by alligators, elephants and monkeys. Wow. Kinda Special. It's always good to laugh a lot!

Seriously though it was a really great getaway and much needed with the Hubs. We went shopping, ate lunch at Chipotle and then did sealings at the Draper Temple (hence why the Hubs is looking so fine sitting near his alligator.)

(the Hubs and I posing with our pet Elephant)

2. The night we got back from our little getaway, I had a message from the Bishop's secretary saying that the Bishop wanted to meet with me. That pretty much meant a new calling. A huge surprise considering I've only been teaching Gospel Doctrine for a year now ( a calling which I LOVE!). Well....I am now the YW 1st counselor!!!!!! I am so excited! I love the youth so much and I have wanted to serve in YW for awhile. I love the women that I am serving with and am so excited for all the new adventures that lie ahead.

3. Pioneer Day. We took Emmy swimming to the new community pool. Emmy is quite the fishy and she's learning how to swim pretty well. I think I'll be putting her in swim lessons this fall at our indoor pool. We had a blast swimming all morning - all of us could probably live at the swimming pool during the summer. Especially when your local pool involves water slides, lazy rivers, splash pads, flowriders, and hot tubs. Not too shabby. Later that night, Emmy and Daddy did poppers - Emmy learned they make much louder noises when you stomp on them.

4. The biggest excitement of the week started on Sunday with my little party animal kidney stones moving around. Monday morning the pain increased quite a bit and I ended up in the ER by Monday afternoon. IV drugs can be a fabulous thing. Since then it's been a week of blocked bladders, persistent stones, much throwing up, and lots of pain. Good times. However, I was finally able to eat yesterday and I'm doing better today. My body feels like it's had major surgery but Jeremy was able to go back to work today and I'm beginning to feel like a contributing member of this family once again. We're praying I pass the stone this weekend so I don't have to have surgery next week to remove the stone. Much power of positive thinking will be happening this weekend!

5. What this weekend holds - The National FSA (Families Supporting Adoption Conference) is today and tomorrow. Unfortunately because Jeremy took this entire week off to nurse his wife back to health, we weren't able to take today off to attend. But we'll be there tomorrow and I'm so excited! I love FSA and this conference. I have many friends presenting so I"m looking forward to being spiritually uplifted and taught.
Other things to look forward to - teaching my last sunday school lesson on sunday, our family fast for our birthmom, cleaning our house, and giving Emmy lots of attention and much needed kisses from her mommy!

Have a good weekend everyone!

It's Been 5 Years!!!!

Happy Anniversary to my hubs, Jeremy! Today is our 5th anniversary! CRAZY! Here's 5 reasons why I love you honey! (I could think of a lot more but we're going with a "5" theme today!
1. He does the dishes for me everynight.
2. He is the bestest daddy in the entire world! Seriously, hands down. You may think your husband is the best daddy, but we win. Don't even bother trying to argue! When it's your anniversary, you can win!
3. He is unselfish with his time.
4. He doesn't complain when I go shopping and he actually likes going with me (see, I told you he was the best!)
5. I like kissing him. A lot sometimes in fact.