I have been reading a wonderful book by Shannon Guymon "Child of Many Colors" where couples have shared their adoption stories. I was sitting there and the thought came to my mind that I needed to make sure I have recorded our adoption story -- all of it. So here it goes ...
Mike and I got married in June of 1994. We had met at Ricks College, now known as BYU Idaho. For the first several years we tried to have kids without any success. We had started to go thru the testing process to see what was wrong. After a certain point the testing was too expensive and since our insurance wouldn't cover any of it we decided to stop and just leave it up to Heavenly Father. We enjoyed the time together getting to know each other better and strengthening our marriage and friendship. The hardest part was the comments from people asking when we were going to have kids. I would just laugh it off but it was something that definitely hurt.
Towards the end of 1999 I started having issues with not feeling well. I guess over time I was looking like I had lost weight because some of the Young Women from church asked their mom's if I was suffering from anorexia and their mom's talked to mine. That rumor was quickly corrected. Mike and I had made a trip to Michigan to visit my sister and on the way home my back started bothering me. I couldn't get comfortable at all. I figured I had pulled a muscle. When I got home I went in to see our family Chiropractor with the hopes it would get taken care of. On a Friday night (in March 2000) while Mike was at work, I found myself in the fetal position in pain so bad I couldn't even get up to fix myself dinner. I ended up calling Mike in tears asking if he could come home to help me. He got home and decided he needed to take me to the Emergency Room. At the ER they hooked up an IV and told me I had a really bad Kidney infection and sent me home with a really strong antibiotic. Things looked like they were getting better until the end of the following week when the pain returned. My mom made a call to her Doctor (Dr. Norwood) and explained the situation and asked if he could see me. He worked me in and my mom took me since Mike was at the Fire Department. After taking my blood pressure and pulse and a few other things I overheard the Dr. in the hall talking about needing to admit me to the hospital -- he was worried my immune system had crashed -- and my Kidney Infection was back. I was scared and in tears while I called Mike in the waiting room. I was admitted that afternoon and they started the tests -- from the dye and x-rays, to an ultrasound and finally a CTscan -- I had finally worked it all out in my mind that I wasn't going to leave the hospital without something being done so I convinced myself it would be something small like my gall bladder where they only have to make a couple small incisions. When the Dr. at the hospital came in with the results of the CTscan he told me that my right kidney wasn't a functioning kidney. It didn't even look like a kidney but just a mass of cysts and they were going to have to remove it. He told me it wasn't infected because I wasn't in enough pain. They did a scope and found that the tube was blocked. The next day they did my surgery -- when I came out I found out that my "kidney" was 80% absessed and my intestines were wrapped around it -- thankfully it hadn't ruptured. So 21 staples later with a scar that about cuts me in half -- only about a foot long ... the road to recovery started.
16 months after my surgery in August 2001 I found out I was pregnant with our little girl. We were so excited -- this was something we had prayed for for years and it finally happened. Looking back we can see the Lord's hand in the miracle called Constance -- my body wasn't ready for it until after they removed my kidney and my body had time to heal. It was a great pregnancy and we were in heaven. We enjoyed every day with Constance.
Before I even had Constance the questions started "when are you going to have another one?" I quickly told people that I hadn't even had Constance and since we had waited so long for her (8yrs) we were just going to enjoy her and we did. The questions continued to come as Constance got older. We were trying but again it just wasn't happening and I am not one to discuss my private life in public or even with the world (until sharing our story). I learned from the previous experience that it is all in the Lord's hand and in the Lord's time and I am along for the ride.
My oldest brother, Kam and his wife had been trying to adopt for years with no success. Mike and I started thinking about adoption. It was something I have always wanted to do. I had told people if I could afford a huge house I would love to adopt as many kids as I could because I didn't want to see any child go without a loving family/home. We met with Matt at LDSFS and talked about the adoption process but left feeling a bit discouraged because we just didn't have the money to do it -- something we hadn't told anyone. As time went on we talked with it some to our family but quickly dismissed the idea because of money.
Christmas 2006 Mike, Constance and I flew to Idaho to spend the holidays with Mike's family. One of the days we were out shopping with his parents I got a call on my cell phone. It was Matt from LDSFS. He asked me if we were still wanting to adopt. I told him we were but we just couldn't at this time. He then asked me if the money issue was the only reason why we weren't pursuing adoption. I told him yes. He then told me that it was not an issue because someone had anonymously paid our adoption fee so we were free to proceed. All I could do was cry. He told me he would send me all the paperwork via email so we could get started.
In the stories I read in "Child of Many Colors", others described this push they felt to get things done. I felt it too. I just had to get the paperwork done. I told Mike I wanted everything done that was within our control so that our baby wasn't waiting on us. I was expecting to wait for a long time, after all my brother and his wife were still waiting and they had been in this process much longer, but I was going to make sure it wasn't on us.
There was one page in the paperwork I struggled with filling out. It pretty much went thru what you wanted in a child or what you would accept, from color of skin, to medical issues. I remember going to my mom struggling "how do you fill something like this out". My mom sat me down and simply asked -- if it was your child would you turn them away for any of these things. Real simple -- absolutely not. No restrictions.
The first part of April we had our in home visit with LDSFS and while he was going over the paperwork we had finished he noticed that page and asked if we were ok with adopting a black child. We told him most definitely. Matt then told us there was a birth mother due in June and if we could get everything done he would really like to show her our profile. Great! He shot us an email of some forms we needed to sign and we had to get our letter to the birth mother written and our photo collage done.
On the Monday following our in home visit, Mike was at work a the Fire Department, I had received the email from Matt and was debating about whether or not I should run to the Fire Department to get Mike's signatures. I had just left my parents and I needed to get Constance in bed. I just kept feeling like I needed to get the signatures done so I took them to the station. On my way home from the station I got a call from Matt. He told me he was on his way from Atlanta that the Birth mom he had told me about had gone into labor and if I could get the letter to the birth mother, photo collage and one of the forms he had sent signed he would swing by and pick them up because he really wanted to show her our profile. I immediately headed to my mom's calling my sister-in-law, Carol on the way begging for her help. I had the forms all signed and we finally got the photo collage done but were struggling with the letter to the birth mother -- we just couldn't get it to come together. After we talked to Matt again we learned she was only 16 years old. After that it just all fell into place. Matt swung by my parent's house about 10:30 that night to pick everything up.
The next day we were going about things as normal, running and getting shopping done when we got the call. "Congratulations, you are the proud parents of a little boy! Can you come to the hospital to meet Ebony and your son." We made arrangements for Constance with family and headed to Baptist Hospital in Nashville kind of in a daze. This was fast -- I expected to have to wait. I was thinking we would get a toddler because so many want babies and here we were looking at a preemie. We met Ebony and visited with her for a while. Her and her mother had happened to hear a commercial for LDSFS and called. She wanted an open adoption which was fine with us -- she wanted letters and pictures once a month or so -- which again was fine with us.
We asked what name she had picked & wanted -- she said Emmanuel as a middle name -- sounded good. She also told us one of the reasons she picked us was because of Constance and the pictures in the photo collage. After a while she took us to the NICU to see our little boy. We were given "grandparent" passes so we could come and visit as often as we wanted as well.
Jordan Emmanuel was born on April 17th and weighed 3lbs 8 ozs when he was born. He was 11 weeks early and was so tiny. The only reason he was in the NICU was because he was so small and until he could learn to take a bottle and until he was 4lbs -- thankfully his lungs and everything else were fine.
This began my life for the next several weeks. My daily visits to the hospital to see my baby. The ladies from my ward were kind enough to share in babysitting Constance so I could go and Mike when he wasn't at work. We told Constance about her new little brother on April 19th, her birthday, and she was so excited for her birthday present. She had been praying for years for twins -- in fact she asked me where her other baby was. We told her it was one at a time. She went with us to meet her little brother and was so excited and overwhelmed by everything.
2-3 weeks later we were able to bring our little boy home thinking everything was done. Wrong! Not too long after we got a call about a possible problem. With the expense of being in the NICU unless they could get Jordan on insurance the agency wouldn't be able to do the adoption. Throughout this time we had such a sense of peace -- this was our son and it would all work out. We were thankful when we got the call that that obstacle was taken care of.
After a change of agents (Matt transfered to another state) paperwork problems, and other issues we were finally able to finalize almost a year later and were able to have my Father perform the sealing in the Nashville, TN Temple.
There is no doubt in my mind that Heavenly Father is in charge and miracles do happen. I am so eternally grateful for all who played a part in helping us find and bring our son home.
On a side note ... I found out 6 weeks after the adoption was final that I was pregnant with our youngest, Dominic. As soon as Constance found out we were expecting she asked if the baby would look like her or like Jordan.
There is more to the story -- by others involved in helping us, and as soon as I get their story I will include it here.
