Jack's Story

It was March 8th, 2014 that we finally got the phone call we had been waiting for all this time. I remember I was doing laundry when an adoption agency we were working with in California called us. They told us there was a baby boy in the NICU whose mother had decided to place him for adoption, and asked if we were interested. We were on the plane in less than 24 hours. I just knew, deep in my soul, that our son had arrived and was waiting for us. 

Meeting Jack for the first time was an incredible experience. I was so sad that I never got to see his birth mother in person to thank her for the incredibly brave thing she was doing, but I understood how difficult this decision was for her, and respected her wish for privacy.

Even though his adoption is closed, it is very important to us that Jack knows how much his birth mother loved him. To help him understand this, I wrote a children’s storybook for him and filled it with pictures of our adventure finding him (we have a link to it on our Facebook page). I plan to write all of our adopted children their own adventure story of how they came to our home from the arms of their first mother, who “loved them so much she searched high and low until she found us to be their Mommy and Daddy.”

On March 29th, 2015 We had the incredible joy of being sealed in the St. Louis LDS Temple to Jack.  For those of you not of our faith, in the LDS church there is a ceremony where we dress all in white and kneel at an altar as a family, just as a couple who is giving their wedding vows does, and there we vow as a family that we will love that little one as if they are flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone. That there is NO DIFFERENCE than as if they had been born to us in the normal way. That we accept and love them completely, that they are ours and we are theirs. And when we say we are forming a 'forever family' - we don't just mean - for the rest of our lives on this earth. We mean forever, beyond the grave, and down through our children's children's children, we will all be linked as one.

Jack is a cheerful, happy little boy who absolutely ADORES being around other children. His little sister is his very best friend, and the two of them are inseparable. He loves splash pads and dance parties in the living room, gymnastics and Tball, and swimming. He loves books and the library and considers every kid he meets to be his "friend." (Even complete strangers). He adores Lightning McQueen and Buzz Lightyear, and has quite the imagination. His favorite place EVER is Disneyworld, and since he got to go twice in the last year he chatters away about it nonstop to whoever will listen. 

Towards the end of 2016 Jack started asking Richard and I to go an "find me a brother." He began praying for a brother to come every night, and would periodically wake up in the morning to ask "Did you find me a brother yet?" His prayers were answered in spectacular fashion when Isaiah was born.