Feature Family of the Week: The Foster's

The Fosters are a great family full of giggles and fun!  They have five children, and are excited to add more love into the mix with a new baby!  The Foster's have a great video showing the love and fun that you can find under their roof. 




They have some neat fundraisers on their blog too, go check them out at http://frogmama.blogspot.com/. 

 

As we kick summer off, lets KICK START their fundraising!  You know what to do!! Click the link below to back their adoption fund, send them $1!

Featured Family of the Week: The Schoenecke Family

We would like to introduce to you our new featured family of the week, Bryan and Samantha Schoenecke.  

I'll let Samantha tell you a little about their story:

In the fall of 2011 when we had been married for about a year and a half, we both felt like God was speaking to us that it was time to begin having a family.  The timing didn't make complete sense as I had been having some health problems, and we thought that a move might be in our near future, but we trusted God that His timing was/is perfect.  By the summer of 2012, we had had 3 miscarriages and really began to pray about where God would have us go from there.  We saw a specialist wondering if maybe we should do some medical testing, but God made it really evident that we were not to pursue any further testing, at least for right now.  About this same time, a friend of a friend asked us to adopt her beautiful newborn son.  We said, "Yes!" and were so excited to welcome him into our family!  Sadly, after we had loved this sweet boy as our son for 11 days, his mom changed her mind and decided to parent him.  We were heartbroken.  Our time with him did really stir our hearts for domestic adoption though, and after much prayer, we began the home study process officially.  In November 2012, we were matched with a birth mom who was expecting a baby girl.  We spent many long hours getting to know her over the phone and over Skype.  We even made two trips across the country to visit her in person.  After two months, she let us know that she too had changed her mind about her decision.  Now we are waiting to be matched again, and hopeful that our next match will be our precious firstborn baby!  

Even though it has not been an easy journey, God has been so faithful!  This process has really strengthened our marriage and united us as teammates.  We've also both grown so much in our relationships with the Lord and are learning to place our hope in Him rather than in the hope of growing our family.

As the Schoenecke's wait for their match, let's show them love, dollar by dollar.

Featured Family of the Week: The McMillian's

                I'm happy to introduce to you our first family of 2013, Brittany and Christian McMillan.  This amazing couple has been married for 8 years, and cannot wait to grow their family through a private domestic adoption.  They struggled with both male and female factor infertility, but through all the struggles, their desire to parents only burned stronger.  Brittany and Christian were in the process of starting the foster care process when they were lead to this adoption through a relative.   They are currently matched with an expectant mother due in February.  This was a very quick match for them, so they didn't have much time to prepare.  As they wait the final month before delivery, they are working on raising money to pay off the final lawyer bills.  Let's kick off this new year with a bang and show Brittany and Christian how awesome this group of supporters are!

For the next two weeks we will be featuring The McMillian's and we ask that our Give1 community donate $1 (or more) towards their adoption costs. You can donate to the McMillian Adoption Fund by clicking the donate button below. Thanks so much!

From Open to Closed

Just another reminder to check in and meet our cute little Family of the Week, the Caulk Family! If you haven't yet donated your $1 this week, we sure would love it if you followed the link on their post to donate to help bring home their newest little one. Next, we have a featured post from Jennifer discussing her family's pursuit of an open adoption.

When we first signed up with our agency, we told them that our preference was to have a semi-open adoption, with all contact with the birth family to go through the agency.  After we were matched with our first expectant mother, we found our views changing.  As we got to know her, we could see her in our life, texting, sending emails, etc.  Though that match failed, our feelings toward an open relationship didn't, and we changed our status with the agency.

When we were matched with Isaac's birth parents, we met them later that week at a restaurant for a long lunch.  We talked a lot, and part of it was about communication expectations.  We told them we were open to have communication with the directly, but also agreed to send letters and pictures to the agency several times during his first year.  They were in a time of transition, and were going to move states within months of Isaac's birth, so everything going to the agency was the best solution for them.

We didn't see either of them again until Isaac was born, and even then we only saw his birthfather briefly, while he stood in the hallway waiting for the nurses to take her to recovery after the c-section.  Once they went to court to have their parental rights terminated, we were able to take physical custody of Isaac, but still couldn't leave the state while ICPC was getting approved.  We talked to the social worker, and asked her to pass on our willingness to meet with them before we left for home.  They decided not to meet with us, so our next contact was the letter we sent to the agency, one month after placement.

We've written four more letters.  All of them are sitting at the agency.  Unrequested.  We'll continue to write letters, until he's 18 if we need to.  We want Isaac to know we've tried to open communication, so that he could have a relationship.  That was our promise to him the day they put him in our arms, that we would always support a relationship with his birth family.

We've found out through looking at their facebook pages that they indeed did move, called off their engagement, and his birthfather moved back home.  We've struggled with the decision to contact them on facebook through a message, but what do we say?  How do we not pry or offend them?  How do you gently try to open up a relationship, for the sake of your child?  And if it doesn't work, how do you explain it to them when he gets older? 

For now we just wait, undecided on what to do, and wonder if this closed relationship will ever be open.  

National Adoption Month

As we begin November, we leave all the pink ribbons behind in October.  Everyone knows what they represent and honor.  You can buy you're cereal with a pink ribbon on it, and even the NFL players are willing to wear pink one day a month.   Now that the month is behind us, the pink doesn't seem to be plastered everywhere.  However, do you know that November is known for something too, it's National Adoption Month.

There was quite the conversation that many of my friends on Twitter had.  Many of them had been touched by adoption, either as an adoptive mother or a birth mother.  It was during that conversation that my opinion about this being a 'special adoption month' changed.  Many times, this month is seen as a celebration, however this celebration often leaves out one critical part of the adoption triad.  Though the adoptive parents are beyond thrilled to celebrate the addition's to their family, it ignores the third side of the adoption triad, the birth families.  Though they may celebrate the life their child has, their pain and grief are mostly ignored for this month.

Our family has chosen not to celebrate this month anymore than we celebrate each day Isaac is in our life.  Instead, our goal is to bring awareness to all the many different aspects and types of adoption.   Though our family chose to adopt domestically through an agency, there is also foster to adopt, and kinship adoption, and private adoptions that happen.  These are each important and special types of adoption, often clouded by assumptions and misinformation by the general public.

As we go through this month, I think of Isaac's birthmother.  She's on my mind often, but the frequency increases when he hit's milestones and around holidays.  I think of how no one in her family knows what a brave woman she is, putting her son's life above her own feelings.  The only person that knows about the adoption is Isaac's birthfather, who lives several states away from her.  I often pray that the hurt and grief will become lessened  and that she will be able to find joy, no matter how small, in Isaac's life.  Though we don't have contact with his birth family at this time, I am lucky to know several birth moms.  They have each opened my eyes to the daily struggle and joy that they feel.  I am grateful for my friendship with them, because  they have made me much more aware and sensitive to the third, and often forgotten, side of the adoption triad.  

May you think of them too, and honor them with me.

Featured Family of the Week: Meet the Bolingers!

Please join us in welcoming the Bolinger Family to Give1Save1 as the newest Featured Family of the Week!!!!

Chris and Misty have been married 11 years and have a son and a daughter. Although they are a happy family of four, they still felt that someone was missing. As an adoptee, Chris and his wife Misty felt that adoption was a special part of their family that they wanted to continue. The Bolinger's are fellow BSU alumns (Go Cards!) and live in Zionsville, Indiana.

The Bolinger's have a completed home study with a local adoption agency and are hoping to raise the last funds needed in order to move forward. Their next step is to present their profile to potential birth mothers to see if they might be able to find a match for their family.

Check out Chris and Misty, and the two littlest Bolinger's, Max and Whitney below.....

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Let's help get the Bolinger Family a bit closer to adding the 5th member to their family by donating $1 or more at the link below.

From all of us here at Give1Save1, thank you Bolinger Family for sharing your adoption story with us this week!

The Bolinger Family is waiting for a match with a potential birth mother. If you are looking to make an adoption plan and are interested in contacting the Bolinger Family, you can contact their agency, ABL Adoptions c/o Cheryl Reed at 317-507-7628 for more information on their profile.

Adoption Through Two Generations

This might look like any other family picture to you, grandparents glowing while their child and spouse hold the newest member of their family. And that’s what it is, in essence. My parent’s coming to visit my husband and I right after we got home with our son, Isaac.  However, to me, this picture is so much more.  It’s the happy ending that a mother promised her daughter would come.  

It was the answer to prayers that had been said.  It is the proof that all the tears and longings that those two women had for a family had been worth it.  It shows me how beautiful and wonderful adoption truly is.  

Because, in this picture, there isn't just one adoptive mother, but two.

My parents had been married 17 years when they adopted me.  They had been working with the state (who did all the adoptions at that time), but were actually matched with my birthmother through my Mom’s OB/GYN.  I was born on Saturday, and they got the call to ‘get ready’.  My Mom, Dad, and Grandma went on a shopping spree to prepare for me on Sunday, and my parents brought me home Monday (my Grandma’s birthday!). 

I know my adoption story.  Always have.  My parents started using ‘positive adoption language’ when I was very young, but to them, they were just doing the right thing.  They had no desire to hide anything, just to let me know how loved I was, by everyone involved.  Because I was born in the early 1980’s, it was a closed adoption, and since it was private, my parents got very little information from my birthmothers lawyer.  They knew basic info, height, complexion, age, hair color, eye color, where her family originated from, but nothing much more.   

As I grew older, they shared a bit more ‘age appropriate’ stuff with me, like the fact that my birthfather had been married, but had an affair that I was a product of.  That I have a half brother or sister very close in age, because both his wife and my birthmom were pregnant at the same time.  That the adoption plan my birthmom had made caused quite the conflict in her families relationships.  After that info, there wasn’t much more that they had, and with my records sealed, I would have to wait until I was 18 to try to get more info. 

As we were going through fertility treatments, I asked my Mom how she survived everything.  She had been diagnosed with endometriosis, and wasn’t ever given any treatment options.   I wondered how she made it through all of her friends getting pregnant, the baby shower invites, the newborns in church.  She shared stories, some that made me laugh, and some that made me realize, she knew the exact pain and hurt that I did.  We talked about her never being able to get pregnant, whereas I could get pregnant, but never could maintain the pregnancy.  We decided they each have their own type of pain and sadness.  

It was nice to know, that when I was sad, or depressed, or angry, that I had someone who had been there before that I could talk to.  Friends are great, but nothing beats a Mom who will listen to you, and TRULY understand what you are talking about.

When Travis and I began down the adoption path, we of course bounced a lot of things off my parents.  They had been here before, though we quickly realized our paths were quite different.  Many things have changed in the adoption world, and differences were a surprise to my parents.  As we went through our 8hr+ home study interviews and questioners, my Mom dug out their 2 page report that their social worker had written saying they were fit to have a child in their home.  As we agonized over our profile book, my Mom wondered how much my birthmother knew about them before she placed me with them.  When we were nervously driving the 8 hours to go meet our son’s birthparents, she told us she would never have had enough courage to do that.  While we were holding our son minutes after he was born, she wondered if she would have had the strength to do that, knowing that the placement might not happen. 

For us, each of those steps was just one more thing we had to do to bring Isaac home.  We really had no choice in most of them, because many agencies have similar requirements.  Just like, 29 years ago, my parents did what they had to do to bring me home, and just like 7years later, they did anything to bring my little brother home.  

Adoption isn’t easy, but you just do whatever you have to.  And the reward is worth it.   

I remember in the days after we got Isaac home, when it was just my Mom with us, she stood in my bathroom with me as I was holding Isaac and put her arms around both of us and cried.  After so many years of sad tears, from both of us, these were tears of joy.  

In that moment, she embraced her life, and how it had been blessed by adoption.  Through two generations.