Hello family and friends! Since we’ve started our adoption adventure (Bryce coined that term, and I’ve enjoyed using it 😁), many of you have asked how you can help us. Here I’ll answer that question and share some things we’ve learned about adoption along the way.
What Kind of Adoption are We Doing?
First off, some definitions. We’re currently pursuing a private domestic infant adoption. “Private” here means that we are partnering with social workers and legal professionals to provide the legal necessities of adoption, while forgoing the extremely expensive matching fees that adoption agencies charge. This means we need to find a match on our own.
There are several reasons we chose this route, and I can go into more details if you want to chat about it. Suffice it to say that private adoption is a very common form of adoption nowadays. We spent a whole weekend up in Salt Lake with Utah Adoption Specialists to get thorough training on the process.
How You Can Help
Now to answer the main question: How can you help?
Share!
Whether it’s in person, online, or spreading around our little business cards, spreading the word will help us find our match so much quicker. Don’t worry if you don’t know someone, because your cousin or coworker might!
Adoption is about connection. Like so many other things in life, we need our community to find this connection.
Think about it. When you’re looking for a job, you network. When you’re dating, you may ask a trusted friend to help set you up. When you’re looking for a dentist or a plumber or a babysitter, you look around for recommendations. So here we are, networking, asking you to “set us up”, and looking for recommendations.
Who We Are Hoping To Meet
Who is this birth mother that we are hoping to meet? Well, first off, she’d actually be an expectant mother right now. She is expecting a baby and considering her options. Considering whether or not to place her child for adoption is an extremely difficult and personal decision. She should be allowed the time and space to make that choice for herself.
Please set aside any preconceived notions you may have. This mama is brave and loves her baby so so much. She wants to protect her baby and give him/her the best life possible. Because of her love for her child, she is considering the very hard, mature, and selfless sacrifice of placing her child in someone else’s home and asking someone else to be her baby’s parents.
If she is considering or decides on adoption, our website and social media are here for her to get to know us. If she feels that we might be a good match, she can reach out to us any way that she feels comfortable—email, social media, text (if you want to give her one of our numbers), or even with a personal introduction from you.
We’d love to meet up, get to know each other, and answer any questions she has about us. If she decides that yes, this is the right choice for her, we can pull in our team of professionals to lay out an adoption plan.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully this post gives some clarity. Feel free to reach out at any time with questions. And thank you all SO much for your love and support.
Adoption is hard, but those same things that make it hard also make it beautiful. It is a story full of sacrifice and love.