We finish our conference call with Latoya and the case worker continued to talk with us on the phone.  She asked how we were feeling and what we were thinking.  The only words we had were wow! IS this really happening?  We had waited for so long for a baby and it was going to happen, TOMORROW!!  The case worker told us to have a good evening and she would see us in the morning.  We hung up and called our parents.  There was so much to do!  This was happening so fast!!  Thank heavens for Walmart!! My mom took me and Kendall to Walmart to buy a few things we needed for tomorrow, like a car seat, diapers, onsies, some bottles, well we need everything!!  We were both so excited and overwelled at the same time all we ended up buying was a car seat, diapers, wipes, bottles, onsies, a blanket, and a outfit to bring our new baby home in. 

We didnt sleep at all the night, or any of the nights that followed :).  When we woke up that morning we sat at the phone and waited, and waited, and waited.  The case worker was going to call us when they started Latoya, so we waited and waited.  What if she changed her mind, what if something is wrong?  What if What if?  Then the phone rang.  We already had the car loaded up so we headed straight to Salt Lake Regional Hospital where we would get to meet Latoya and our new baby boy!

We were now all on line to have the conference call. The case worker began by introducing each of us. We then began to listen as to why Latoya had decided on adoption for her little baby boy. She explained how she wanted her child to have a better life than what she could give him. She said that she had came to Utah to have her baby and had the intention of having her baby go to an African American family. She had been in Utah since she was 3 months along and had looked at possible adopting families profiles since she arrived. She had not found one that she felt would be the perfect one, until she saw ours, and she knew she wanted us for the parents of her baby boy. Kendall and I both took turns telling a little about our selfs, even though we were both scared to death about saying the wrong thing everything just went smoothly. Latoya then said that she had went to the Dr. that morning. She said that her doctor wanted to start her last week because she was starting having some health problems but she told the dr no because she hadn't found a family for her baby, but now that she found the perfect family the doctor was going to induce her TOMORROW, Sept. 1, and she wanted us to be in the delivery room. Kendall and I looked at each other with a surprised look as we both said yes, we will be there.

The Perfect Profile

When Kathy asked me to fax our profile to her I was excited and nervous at the same time. We faxed the profile to her and then just sat and waited wondering what was next. That night at work, a Tuesday night, my cell phone rang from a number I was not familiar with. It was Kathy saying that she had shown the birth mother our profile pictures and she had fallen in love with it. The birthmother wanted us to be the parents of her baby. Kathy then went onto the cost of thing, which at this point my heart sank. How on earth were we going to come up with that amount of money by Sept. 22, the day the baby was to be born. Kathy then said that the birthmother, Latoya, wanted to talk to us on the phone. We set up a time to have a conference call for 3:00 p.m. on wednesday afternoon. Wednesday morning we went to work on figuring out how we were going to come up with the money if everything went as it as we thought and we would be adopting this wonderful baby. We got paperwork faxed to us from Kendalls 401 K and started to fill out the loan papers. We faxed them back and we had been approved, the only thing was it would take a few weeks to receive, but that was ok beacuse the baby wasnt going to be born until Sept. 22.

Wednesday morning came and it seemed to drag on forever. I kept looking at my cells phone to make sure I hadnt missed a call, then checking the house phone to make sure it was charged. Just before 3 the phone rang. It was Kathy, she began by giving us a heads up to how things were going to go. She said that Latoya went to the doctor today and had some exciting news for us. I was so nervous I felt like the phone was going to fall on the ground cause I couldnt hold it still. Kendall got on the other line and Kathy began to join us in the conference call with her, Latoya, and us.

I pick up the phone and called A Act of Love Adoption agency out f Sandy Utah. The receptionist answered and I began to tell her my story, all about the fertility treatments, how we didn't care if it was a boy or girl or what the race of the child was, and how we had got there adoption information in the mail years ago, but for some reason I felt I needed to contact them again. I then mentioned we had our papers in through LDS Family Services, at that point she stopped me. She went through the checklist of everything we had already had done with LDS Family Services and she asked me if I could please hold for a minute, she needed to talk to the lady that ran A Act of Love Agency. A few short moments later the main woman in charge, Kathy Kokock, got on the phone. The first thing she said to me was, "Sheri, how serious are you and your husband about adopting?". I then told her the whole story which I had just told the receptionist and she then presented me with something that made my whole world stop for a moment, and my heart raced a hundred miles an hour. "Sheri, we have an African American birth mother here that has been here since she was 3 months along. We have showed her profile after profile and she has not picked a family for her baby boy. Would you be able to fax your profile to us ASAP?"

Can This Be Real?

We had looked into other adoption agencies before, but we didn't know how to come up with the money. It had been a little over 2 years when I had the strong feeling my baby was out there. We waited and never heard from LDS Family Services. The feeling was strong some days, and others I just put off thinking that I had the feeling because this is something that I had wanted for so long.

One Friday evening as we said our prayers both together and as I said mine by myself I had the strange feeling to call A Act of Love Agency. We had looked into the agency before but there was just no way we could afford it. The feeling continued Saturday and as I talked to Kendall about it something just felt like we were being pushed from behind to get to a phone. Sunday came and that is all I could think about at church. That is all I could talk about to Kendall is how we needed to call the agency, just to see. Monday morning came and went, and the feeling was stronger than ever and I finally pickup the phone and made the phone call.

Is It True?

During the years of waiting through LDS Family Services, more babies were born into the extended family. Each time the emotions would flow. The why? and How come? and I don't understand.

I prayed every night hoping for a baby, some nights I prayed with all my heart and others I would just go through the motion giving up hope that I was ever going to be a mother.

The worst was one evening I ran into a wonderful friend and she gave me a big hug and congratulated me. I was very confused, and she said "well is it true? Your expecting". WOW!! Now that one just about knocked me straight on my butt!! After I explained things to her I got back into my car, well truck at that time, headed home and the tears began to flow. I cried all the way home and told Kendall about what had happened. He is the best husband in the world and answered with, "OH MY HELL!! WHO HAS BEEN WINDOW PEEKING!" Now on most days his comments make me one very angry woman but this one, lets just say we still talk about who might be "peeking in our windows".

The wait...

At first we were in contact with our case worker every week, then it went down to every month, then every 3 months, if we were lucky. There were so many people looking to adopt through LDS Family Services, and not many babies. The cost of adoption with LDS Family Services are very small compared to the other adoption agencies. They go off of your income so the price is different for everyone, but it is still in a range that you can afford. After the first year of having our papers in to LDS Family Services we started looking into other agencies to adopt from but the price was so much higher there was no way we could afford it so we just waited and waited to hear from LDS Family Services.

Two years passed without any good news from LDS Family Services. We could update our profile, start handing out pass along cards to people to see if they knew of anyone who was thinking of placing their child up for adoption, but because the wait had already seemed like eternity, I had given up on the fact that we would never be able to adopt a child and that I would never be a mother.

Time passes on....

I was able to watch my wonderful nephew for 4 years. He became part of my heart.

Kendall and I talked about adoption off and on, but deep down inside we didn't want to give up the hope of having a baby. We began praying about it and looking into adoption more and more. Could we really love a child that wasn't ours? What if the baby didn't look like us? What would people say? If we did adopt everyone would know that we couldn't get pregnant, so they would look at me differently, like I had something wrong with me. Adopting for was me saying I am OK with not getting pregnant, but I wasn't OK with it!!

One night we drove up the sheep trail for a 4-wheeler ride. I was having a very emotional day. We drove for awhile then we stopped and went for a walk. We sat at the edge of a cliff and Kendall asked me what he needed to do to make me happy. He didn't need to do anything, He knew what I wanted cause he wanted it to. We had been married for 8 years, we wanted to be parents. We wanted to have our house filled with children's laughter, we wanted to hold out kids tight every night and snuggle on the couch. Whenever we talked about adoption Kendall would always clam up and I would just get frustrated, not knowing his reason why he didn't want to adopt. Up until this day I didn't understand why, he became to tell me how he felt about it. He knew it would be hard to raise a baby of our know, but he could handle that, but he was terrified of raising a child who was not ours. What if there was something wrong with the baby? What if things didn't work out and I was finally pushed over the edge? What if the baby was a different color than we were, what if our families could not accept the child, what if the community wouldn't accept this child? What if, What if, What if? We talked about things for a few hours when we decided to pray about it and see what the lord wanted us to do.

My nephews parents and older sibling were going out of the country for a few week and asked if we would be willing to watch him while they were gone. We said yes, during that time we prayed together hoping for an answer. The weeks passed and my brother-in-law family returned from their vacation. Our house was now quiet again, no little one running around, no little one crying and being comforted by me. Laying in bed, not cuddling with a little one, Kendall said, and i will never forget it, Lets put our papers in to adopt.

We contacted LDS Family Services and the process began. We filled out all the paper work, we met with our case worker, we had our home study done, now all we needed to do was wait, and wait, and wait......

A Blessing

My sister-in-laws both had their babies, one had a boy, one had a girl. Neither lived in the same town as me so it was easy when they visited to put on a happy face and not let them see the hurt.

Time went by, and on Thanksgiving day we got together with Kendal ls family and had Thanksgiving breakfast. As my oldest nephew said the prayer he said he was thankful that his mom was pregnant. My heart once again sank and as we all said amen Kendall looked up at me with the look that I had seen so often, I love you, everything will be OK. I didn't say much that day. I was numb. I felt like I was in a trance. My body was here but my mind wasn't. The next morning I had a sense of calm come upon me that things would be all right. Was this baby my sister-in-law was having a blessing for me? How could it be?

A few months later my brother-in-law and sister-in-law came to me and asked me if I would be interested in babysitting their baby after he was born. It would be from 8:00a.m. to 5:00p.m most days. I was filled with both excited and anger. I was going to have a baby in the home that I got to take care of like my own, and on the other hand I didn't understand why my in laws would want someone else to take care of their child day after day.

The time came and the baby was born. Words cannot explain my love for this baby and his parents for allowing me to help in taking care of him. My heart was filled with more love than it had been, and a part of me was healing. I loved every moment I had with this baby.

The hurt of me not having a baby was still there, but whenever this wonderful child was in our home Kendall and I were happy.

Another Day........

We talked about adoption off and on but always ended up angry, frustrated and confused at why I couldn't get pregnant. The doctors said we were both normal, so why was it that everyone else was having baby's, and we couldn't.

Everyone around me was having babies. The first big shot to the heart was when I found out my sister-in-law was expecting. We had bought an older camper and we had been working on cleaning it up, painting, and redoing the inside. One afternoon when I was outside sanding the walls the phone rang, it was my dear mother-in-law. She became the conversation by asking if I had talked to my sister-in-law that day, I hadn't so my mother-in-law proceeded to tell me that my sister-in-law was pregnant. My heart sank. After ending the phone call I sat in the camper and began to cry. Kendall got home from work to find me in the camper sobbing and he know that I had just heard the news about my sister-in-law. He sat beside me and held me. I asked him why? How was that fair? We had been trying for so long.

Soon the next big hit, my other sister-in-law was also expecting a baby. How was it possible to have so much hurt when someone else was feeling the joy of expecting there first child. As time went by, the hurt grew stronger and then came the hate towards all those who were pregnant, everywhere I went, all that people talked about was be pregnant.

First Mention of Adopting

Once again the ride home was quiet. We just had short small every day conversation that really didn't mean anything to either one of us. Arriving home was just like every other time, we both went our separate ways Kendall working in his shed and me doing stuff around the house to keep my mind busy. At night we would lay in bed and watch TV and hold each other tight. That is usually when the tears started rolling in and Kendall would hold me and comfort me.

The following Sunday was quiet interesting. Like all the Sundays had been recently I didn't want to go to church. We were sitting on the recliner talking and the tears started to flow again. Kendal ls emotions started to flow too with the thought of me not getting pregnant. We held each other tight as I asked if he had ever thought about adopting a baby.

Alrighty folks!! I finally got myblogs back up and running! I know it only took me a year, but here we are again!! lol I will continue posting very soon!! Thanks for all your support!