Jessy's Adoption Story Part 3
Part 3:
We met Tim Blied (the attorney)– loved him from the start. We were so encouraged about adoption. I think we went in to his office in April of 1994. I remember from the point of meeting him, it was about 9 months until Jessy was born – like a pregnancy. I also remember him talking to us about open adoption which threw me a bit but he explained that it’s really good to keep in contact and that letters and occasional pictures are good. I figured I could do that! He also told me it takes a long time and he wasn’t promising any Christmas babies! He said we were young – that it could work “for us” or “against us” – “For us” for the young girls, “against us” for the girls my age. We were 27 years old at the time - well okay, I was 27, Robert 26. Most couples seemed to be in their mid to late 30’s. He told us not to listen to horror stories – that adoptions are great. He only had one mom change her mind in all his years and he won the case. The birthmom’s are counseled well, etc. etc. He was very encouraging. I was so excited. We had to go home and fill out a “dear bithmom” letter. He asked if we had a dog and told us to put him in the picture – that birthmom’s loves dogs!! I remember thinking, “that’s weird, but okay, we’ll put him in!” This is getting long, but oh well – it’s really for Jessy so I’m going to write the whole thing!!!
Writing the letter was hard. You feel like you are bragging or selling yourself. We wrote it the best we could. We both felt strongly that we wanted to birthmom to know that we loved Jesus Christ with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We also got hesitant – would she misread that to think we are religious zealots? We wanted her to know that we tried to live it like Christ, not legalistically but really by the grace of God. We didn’t want her to think we were weird but that it was truly our life! In the end, we left it how we originally wrote it and left it up to the Lord for the right girl to read it and know that we were “real” in our love for the Lord and in our commitment to raise our children according to scripture. Not sure if I’m explaining this well – ask if it doesn’t make sense. I’m a math person, not a writer so bear with me! I will get the letter out and type it in here when I get a chance – I’ll scan the picture too – boy do we look different now! We had to put a whole scrapbook together that painted a picture of our life. That was fun to do. I actually don’t know where that is! I wonder if my birthmom has it? I’ll go look for that too. Hopefully it is not where Steph’s armband and ultrasound pictures are because I haven’t found that yet! I remember Tim telling us he carefully pulled files based on the birthmom’s desires – yet when we ended up meeting ours she told us she looked at tons of portfolios! We turned in all our paperwork and started to wait for that phone call which seemed to never come. I actually think I thought it would come in a week!!! You actually have thoughts like, “who wouldn’t pick us??” or even “who would??” ha ha…it was hard to be patient. One time Barbara called (she works at Tim’s office still!!) and she told me a birthmom was looking at our file. I got really excited but she went with someone else!!! Tim told us to pray for our birthmom. We had never heard that - because what do you pray for?? He joked and said, “oh you never pray for indiscretion, you just pray for conception!” and right away we started praying for our soon to be birthmom – and we didn’t pray for conception (ha ha)– we prayed for her heart, her strength in her decisions she would make with her baby and her walk with Jesus Christ.
We met Tim Blied (the attorney)– loved him from the start. We were so encouraged about adoption. I think we went in to his office in April of 1994. I remember from the point of meeting him, it was about 9 months until Jessy was born – like a pregnancy. I also remember him talking to us about open adoption which threw me a bit but he explained that it’s really good to keep in contact and that letters and occasional pictures are good. I figured I could do that! He also told me it takes a long time and he wasn’t promising any Christmas babies! He said we were young – that it could work “for us” or “against us” – “For us” for the young girls, “against us” for the girls my age. We were 27 years old at the time - well okay, I was 27, Robert 26. Most couples seemed to be in their mid to late 30’s. He told us not to listen to horror stories – that adoptions are great. He only had one mom change her mind in all his years and he won the case. The birthmom’s are counseled well, etc. etc. He was very encouraging. I was so excited. We had to go home and fill out a “dear bithmom” letter. He asked if we had a dog and told us to put him in the picture – that birthmom’s loves dogs!! I remember thinking, “that’s weird, but okay, we’ll put him in!” This is getting long, but oh well – it’s really for Jessy so I’m going to write the whole thing!!!
Writing the letter was hard. You feel like you are bragging or selling yourself. We wrote it the best we could. We both felt strongly that we wanted to birthmom to know that we loved Jesus Christ with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We also got hesitant – would she misread that to think we are religious zealots? We wanted her to know that we tried to live it like Christ, not legalistically but really by the grace of God. We didn’t want her to think we were weird but that it was truly our life! In the end, we left it how we originally wrote it and left it up to the Lord for the right girl to read it and know that we were “real” in our love for the Lord and in our commitment to raise our children according to scripture. Not sure if I’m explaining this well – ask if it doesn’t make sense. I’m a math person, not a writer so bear with me! I will get the letter out and type it in here when I get a chance – I’ll scan the picture too – boy do we look different now! We had to put a whole scrapbook together that painted a picture of our life. That was fun to do. I actually don’t know where that is! I wonder if my birthmom has it? I’ll go look for that too. Hopefully it is not where Steph’s armband and ultrasound pictures are because I haven’t found that yet! I remember Tim telling us he carefully pulled files based on the birthmom’s desires – yet when we ended up meeting ours she told us she looked at tons of portfolios! We turned in all our paperwork and started to wait for that phone call which seemed to never come. I actually think I thought it would come in a week!!! You actually have thoughts like, “who wouldn’t pick us??” or even “who would??” ha ha…it was hard to be patient. One time Barbara called (she works at Tim’s office still!!) and she told me a birthmom was looking at our file. I got really excited but she went with someone else!!! Tim told us to pray for our birthmom. We had never heard that - because what do you pray for?? He joked and said, “oh you never pray for indiscretion, you just pray for conception!” and right away we started praying for our soon to be birthmom – and we didn’t pray for conception (ha ha)– we prayed for her heart, her strength in her decisions she would make with her baby and her walk with Jesus Christ.
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