Thoughts on adoption

Thoughts of expectant parents and birth mothers are never far from our thoughts.  Our adoption and having a birth family in our life is such a blessing to us.  When we were first applying for adoption, the thought of an open adoption was terrifying.  Now, having an open adoption, we see the blessings of having the contact.  I love knowing that when my little boy has questions about his birth or adoption, I will have answers or at least be able to find them.  We know that open adoption isn’t for everyone.  There are members of August’s birth family that would rather not have a close relationship and we respect and honor that.  For other members of his birth family, I think it is a great comfort to have pictures, e-mails and visits.  We have also found it very natural for each person to choose their level of contact.  I always thought it would be more difficult, but it hasn’t been.

I am surprised sometimes by the love I feel for expectant mothers who have come to this huge decision.  I rarely know them personally, but there are some that my friends tell me about and then will occasionally update me on.  I can’t imagine making such a decision, it must be so scary and frustrating to try to do the right thing for you and your baby.  When I hear these stories my heart goes out to you.  I wish you peace in your decision, whatever it may be.  In our adoption of August, I find it a great comfort that his birth parents have found that peace.  They thank us frequently for our part in it, which always amazes me because I just want to thank them every time I look at my little boy.

Our little boy turned two in April and has been with us for a year.  He is a wonderful little guy with a lot of words (he talks really well), a lot of questions and tons of laughs.  As a stay-at-home mom he is obviously the center of my life and I love it.  I don’t mean to sugar-coat it, he is an average two-year-old.  He is getting opinions on EVERYTHING.  He will tell me exactly what he wants for breakfast, which shirt he wants to wear today, what toys he wants to play with, books he wants to read and a thousand other things all day long.  I kind of thought the “terrible twos” were more about tantrums for no apparent reason, and maybe it is for some children.  With August, I just see him figuring out that he has his own ideas and feelings and needs to be heard.  Full-on tantrums are rare with him, but we do disagree more than we used to. 

He is very interested in babies, too.  I think he is looking forward to the blessed day we get to bring home another child as much as we are.  I think he will be a sweet brother and enjoy some company.

Adoption has been a miracle for us.  We know several other adoptive families that feel the same way and birth parents who do as well.  We wish all of the expectant parents out there comfort, hope and love.  We hope you will be blessed with peace and joy in your decision.  We love you and pray for you.

Be sure to check out our letter to expectant parents and birth parents.

Some more about us

It is hard to know what to write on a blog like this.  I know you don’t want to hear about the mundane details of our lives, but I feel like I want you to be able to get to know us.  So, I was thinking I would just tell you a few random things about myself and maybe throw in a few about my dear husband and my precious little boy.

I am the one writing this blog because Ryan is a lot busier than I am and he doesn’t really like to write.  He is a nurse who works full-time and he is also going to school to get a Bachelor Degree in nursing.  We will talk more about him later.

As I have told you before, my name is Amorie.  I work from home managing two websites for a newspaper and stay home with our little boy who we were very blessed to adopt in 2010.  He will be two years old in less than two months.  I like to read.  The book I am reading currently is called “Midnight Riot” which I won from a Goodreads.com giveaway.  It is a pretty good story, but has a lot more profanity than I prefer, so sadly, I can’t in good conscience recommend it. 

I love to snowboard.  I was even an instructor for a couple of years.  This winter, however, I fractured my foot and don’t think I am going to get to hit the slopes at all.  I love to wakeboard or water ski in the summer, but we don’t have a boat and the only members of my family that do are my parents and they live out of state.  So I don’t get to do that a lot either.  I like to exercise: Walking, running (not far and not too often), swimming, yoga, weights… you name it, I like it.  I haven’t been able to exercise for a while because of the broken foot, and I really miss it.  I like to take the stairs, walk somewhere when I have the time and the weather isn’t awful.  I love tulips in the spring.  I think I have about 150 bulbs planted around our yard.  I like to read to our little boy, lucky for me he likes it too.  I like to cook, this is kind of a new thing since becoming at stay-at-home mom. 

Ryan doesn’t snowboard; he skis.  I taught him how to snowboard, but guess he didn’t like it well enough to switch over.  We still go together, which just proves skiers and snowboarders can get along.  Ryan likes action movies and groans when they crash/blow up/or otherwise destroy the fancy cars.  He likes to cook as well and I think he is better at it than I am.  He likes surprises — giving and receiving.  He also remembers everything… important dates, people’s names… I am glad because I have to write things down if I want to remember them or just bring him along so he can remind me later.

He loves being a dad and is good to take some time each day to play with his son.  Ryan always has something he should be working on so the time he makes for August and me is very special.  He loves to tease and tell jokes, he likes to travel and dream of traveling.  He is a good man.

August is an active almost two year old.  He loves to help out around the house especially emptying the dishwasher.  He gets very excited when that time comes.  He is starting to talk really well and uses full sentences now.  One of the cutest things he does right now is say “Bless you” if you sneeze, cough or blow your nose.  It is very sweet.  He loves to play outside, throw a ball, drive cars.  He loves trucks and trains and points them out all of the time.  He likes to do puzzles and is quite good at them and coloring is another favorite pastime.

Well, there is a lot more, of course, but it is getting late.  I will continue another time.  Our best wishes to you.  Goodnight.

Happy (late) Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day has never been my favorite holiday, I enjoy celebrating in general.  Ryan and I usually make a nice dinner and stay at home.  Going out just seems crazy to me.  I can’t handle waiting 2 hours for a table.

This Valentine’s was not so romantic, but it’s ok.  Ryan had to work the evening shift at the hospital so August and I went to the park for an hour, enjoyed dinner together and colored for a while.  I think I traced his had 25 times or more.  He loves it when I do that.  Funny, huh? 

August is getting pretty good at talking.  He makes us laugh all the time.  This morning when he was ready to get out of the bathtub he handed me his rag — it is a hand puppet rag that looks like a shark — and says, “Mom, squish it, water all gone.”  It isn’t quite as funny when you can’t hear it in his voice, but it cracked me up.  I told my mom that story today and she gave me a speech about writing great stories like this down.   I do get to send e-mails to his birth parents about some of these fun things, so I have a record there of some of them.  Still, I think I will take her advice and get a book for things like that.  It will be good to get in the habit now, as our family expands it will be even more important to keep track of these fabulous memories.

In other news, I can’t believe February is half gone.  I am glad though, it has been nice to be able to spend time outside in the last few days.  I don’t want to be one of those people who complains that it is too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer… but I do like it to be above freezing. 

Happy almost spring.

Beginning again

Ryan and I have been talking about starting the adoption process again and yesterday we went into LDS Family Services, the agency we began with last time, and asked when we could start again.  They told use we can start now, but we won’t be approved until May.  That timing works out pretty well because it took us five months to go through the approval process last time, so that should be just about right.  For anyone out there thinking they would like to choose us and go through that service sooner than May, I think they would work with us to go faster.

We have orientation at the end of the week and we already filled out the preliminary paperwork, so we should be getting started soon.  There are a lot of questions we are required to answer and it takes a while to get through.  We are so excited to be starting this journey again.  We love being parents and are looking forward to another sweet little life in our home.

Here is another picture I dug up since my first post.  It is more recent.  I have more, but haven’t figured out how to post multiples yet.  I am going to figure this out!

Family pictures in July 2010.

Introductions

Amorie and August (1 year old) getting ready for the day.

This is one of our earliest pictures with August, he was just over a year old.

We are Ryan, Amorie and August and this is our adoption blog. For now, we hope it will serve to let expectant parents see who we are and for parents making an adoption plan for their baby to consider us as potential adoptive parents for their child. We welcome you to our site. Have a look around.  Be sure you read our letter.