A lot of people have asked for our adoption story....
Before I go into the adoption story I want to kind of explain what
led us to adoption. Casey and I both wanted kids and started trying just
about 6 months into our marriage. After around a year and a half we both
obviously knew something was up. So I got tested and I went to our
Doctor....a lot. I did have some other health issues at the time so we
thought it was that . All my tests came back negative. After a few
long frustrating months we had the feeling that it we should get Casey
checked out. That's when we learned Casey has Azoospermia. No
worries I looked up the Definition for you :) is the medical condition of a man not
having any measurable level of sperm in his semen. Our Dr.
referred us to an infertility specialist up in Salt Lake City. We were
very blessed to learn he did free consultations for qualifying couples.
We got the first appt possible which of course was a few months out.
We were both pretty excited since we both wanted twins and it does runs
in both sides of our families and with having IVF increases the chances of
having twins or more.. :) But as
soon as we handed the report to the specialist he looked at the numbers... and
started to go into a long definition and finally saying there is a 0% chance of
having your own children. We can't do IVF because you would
need at least 1 sperm to do that, and you don't have even 1 sperm.......After
years of trying, crying and praying the specialist's official confirmation of infertility didn't come as a shock to us.
Don't get me wrong, the 0% chance part did hit hard, but we knew we could
be bless with children one way or another.
We met with our loving bishop to discuss our options, and we felt that
adoption was the best choice for our family.
That next month we started the adoption process with LDS Family
Services.
The Adoption story :
We started the adoption application Jan 2011 and after a year of
interviews, paperwork, home studies, adoption seminars and back ground checks
we were approved to be looked at, by potential birth mothers. (Jan 2012)
The way LDS Family Services operate, is the birth mother chooses the
adoptive couple to place her baby with. We set up an adoption profile
similar to a facebook profile so that
only registered Birth mothers have access to all our personal details.
Other people could look at our profile but they didn't have full access
like the Birth mother did.
After having our profile up for about 2 weeks we get a call from
our caseworker saying that a Birth mother wrote to us and we hadn't responded.
We were ecstatic! That came as a huge shock. We had
heard of stories of couple's profiles being up for years without hearing
anything at all. We started writing to her and getting to know her better
and after a few weeks the emails started to get further and further apart.
Finally we got an email saying that we were 1 of 3 couples she was looking at and that she chose
another couple. We were both a wreck. Those 4 months were like a
roller coaster; we opened up a little too much and got our hopes up super
high and it crashed down on us. After that experience we learned not to
get too attached with potential birth mothers but to rely on our heavenly father
and his will for our family.
By the summer semester of 2012 I was able to get a great job and out of nowhere we got an email from a
birth mother named Kayla in Texas. I was
at work when I read it and I'm pretty sure I squilled and quickly texted Casey
at work saying to read the email. We continued writing emails and started
to get to know one another. When we learned she wanted us to come out to
meet her. That is when our case worker said we should have been talking
on the phone by now. The most nerve wracking call ever!! Casey and
I were both super nervous! Which seems really funny now :) we
made plans to meet her and her family over labor day weekend. We got to meet
her wonderful family and explore Texas. We loved getting to know her and what she was
going through. She told us the baby was
a girl and that She did indeed pick us to adopt her baby. After we got home and things kind of settled
in, that is when the tears came back but this time it was the extremely happy and
blessed tears. From September to
December time flew by really, really fast.
People told us not to set anything up in the nursery or have any baby
showers because sometimes the birth mother changes her mind after she gives
birth, but I couldn't help it. Everything was all set and ready for
Kenzlee. We had a very good peaceful
feeling about everything. We drove the
21 hour road trip to Texas with an empty car seat in the back hoping that we
would be coming home with a baby. On December 7th we met Kayla's baby girl. The next day Saturday Dec 8th, Kenzlee May
Schofield was placed with us and after a week of goodbyes to Kayla and her
family we drove back home, this time with the car seat full.
For us, these past 4 years we have had the most disappointing and
happiest moments in our marriage. We are still on the adoption journey hoping
to go to court and getting everything legalized so that we can be
sealed to our daughter.
We are have been so blessed
by Kayla's incredible decision to place
her baby with us. We are blessed by a
Heavenly Father who has guided Kayla to us and thereby receiving a beautiful
baby girl. Thank you Kayla, you will
always have a place in our heart!
