"Not of My Blood but of My Heart

Some uplifting reading for the day, click here

December - A month off

As December is such a busy month, we will not be holding chat night or a board meeting. Enjoy the holidays!

Boondocks this Saturday!

Just a reminder, the Boondocks activity is this Saturday from 11 am to 2 pm at the Draper or Kaysville location. The cost is $5 per family (cash only please). We hope to see you there!

National Adoption Awareness Month!

November is National Adoption Awareness Month! Go to: http://www.adoption.com/national-adoption-awareness-month-2010/ for a calendar of ways to celebrate adoption all month!

The gift of story to your adopted child

Celebrate National Adoption Month by giving the gift of story to your adopted child- no matter what age!

We have been invited to attend a workshop held by one of our FSA couples. This is for a masters thesis, and as such is geared toward couples who have already adopted. If you have adopted, this would be a great opportunity to learn about incorporating adoption into story telling. Here are the details:

When: Saturday, November 20, 2010
Time: 7:00 pm-9:30 pm
Cost: FREE! (Even Parking)
Where: Weber State University - Shepherd Union Building Room 312

You and your spouse will receive:
-Dessert
-Free story performance geared for adoptive couples
-Book with 12 adoption folktales
-Workbook on how to share stories with your child (tots to teens)
-Gift bag with goodies for other dates and entertainment

Spread the word to any adoptive couples you know!

The night consists of performance, workshop, and hands-on activities. Before the event, a background survey and consent form will be completed as this is part of a storytelling masters thesis. Couples will email a paragraph once a week for 7 weeks on impact, if any, on their parenting. Confidentiality will be maintained for the written response.

There is limited seating, so RSVP to Rachel Hedman (801) 870-5799 or to info@rachelhedman.com

Upcoming Events

Our October board meeting will be held at the Centerville LDSFS office at 11:00 am on Thursday, October 14.

October Chat night will be held on Thursday, October 21 at 7:00 pm at the Reed's home. Chat night is usually held on Wednesday, but this month it is Thursday because we have a guest speaker coming to tell us about her experience with foreign adoption.

November is National Adoption Awareness Month! Come celebrate at Boondocks in Draper (75 South Fork Drive), or in Kaysville (525 South Deseret Drive) on Saturday, November 13 from 11 am to 2 pm. Cost is $5 per family (cash only please). This price includes unlimited mini golf, 10 arcade tokens, and one pass to chose from go karts, slick track, rookie go-karts, rock wall, laser tag, or max flight roller coaster simulator. We are looking for volunteers to help with some administrative work for this event as well as help cleaning up. Please email centervillefsa@gmail.com if you would be willing to help, or come to our board meeting next Thursday.

Adoption Walk

Chat Night and Adoption Alternatives

Chat Night: Tomorrow night (September 15) is chat night at The Reed's home at 7:00 pm. Email us for the address if you do not have it already. Chat night this month is an open forum. Come bring any and all questions that you may have about adoption.

Adoption Alternatives: Adoption Alternatives is on September 23 at 7:00 pm at the Centerville Library. Anyone and everyone is invited to attend. We will be discussing designated adoptions and how to spread the word you are adopting to find an adoption opportunity. This meeting will be very helpful to anyone who is thinking of adopting in the future, or who is wanting to adopt currently.

Thank you!

Summer Potluck a success!

Thank you to all of those who came to our potluck last month! Although the weather was stormy, we had a great time talking and laughing over dinner.

Our next board meeting will be Thursday, September 9 at 11:00 am at the Centerville agency. We hope to see you there!

Potluck Picnic!

Come join us at our summer potluck picnic this month!

Date: Friday, August 27

Time: 6:00 PM

Place: Mountain Road Meetinghouse Bowery
910 South Mountain Road, Fruit Heights

Directions:
If you are coming from the south, go north on Hwy 89 and turn right on Nicholls Rd. At the top of Nicholls, turn right on Mountain Rd. and travel south for about 1/2 mile. The church is on the left.

From Kaysville, go east on 200 N to Hwy 89 and turn right. Travel south to Nicholls Rd and turn left (to the East). At the top of Nicholls turn right on Mountain Rd. and travel south about 1/2 mile until you see the church on the left.

This is an ADULTS ONLY potluck. You will need to bring a main dish for you and your spouse, as well as something to share (salad, side dish, desert, etc). We will provide water to drink, as well as the paper goods (plates, cups, napkins and utensils).

We hope to see you there!

August Chat Night!

August 18 is chat night at the Reed's home. We will be talking about how to find and use agencies outside of LDSFS. Bring any and all questions you have! Also, if you have adopted through another agency we'd love to have your input. Chat group will be at 7pm at the Reed's home. The address will be sent to you in an email. If you do not receive the email, please email us so we can add you to our contacts: centervillefsa (at) gmail (dot) com.

Elizabeth and Jeff's Adoption Story

We are Jeff, Elizabeth, Caleb, Jake and Olivia. All three of our kids are adopted. Caleb is adopted through LDS Famly Services and Jake and Olivia are adopted through other agencies. Since Olivia's adoption story is the most recent I'll share that one with you.

It started out like any other day. I got Caleb off to school, I hadn't woken up at 6 to work out as planned, so I had that to do, I had laundry to do...
Every day, several times a day I check the sites of multiple adoption agencies because they post their available adoption situations online. I always want to be the first to call if there is one we are interested in. For about two years I'd been having dreams about a little girl who has a little darker skin, either Hispanic or half African American. I have known this is what I needed to look for when I look at these situations. When I woke up that morning the thought came to me to look at babies who are full Caucasian. I could be wrong about what I'm looking for. Wednesday morning an agency posted a situation about a full Caucasian baby girl. It said she was due in about 6 weeks. I called and left a message expecting to hear back in a week or so.
About 10 minutes later the phone rang. It one of the agency owners calling to tell me the information on this baby. She also told me that the birth mom was in labor right then and the baby would be born that day. I told her to go ahead and show our profile and she told me she would take the profiles over to the hospital when the baby was born for the birth mom to look at and choose a family. At 2:22pm the call came. She asked if I was serious about wanting a baby that very day. Of course! She told me the birth couple really liked us and had chosen us. I called Jeff, who was in a meeting. Because he knew we were being shown he answered anyway. For whatever reason when I told him about this baby that morning he hadn't realized the birth mom was in labor. He was shocked when I told him she'd already been born. He left work and we headed to the hospital for a meeting with the birth parents. The drive to meet the birth parents is always a long, nervous one. This time felt even longer since she was already born. I was so nervous. I wondered if it would be easier if we just didn't do it. Every time I got that scared I felt strongly that we should just go forward in faith, put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. One of my main concerns was that she was full Caucasian. I had always, always, pictured her to be something other than that, but I felt peace about this particular baby.
Our case worker called when we were about a block away from the hospital. She told us that when the doctor had examined the baby he realized that she is not full Caucasian after all... she's half African American. The birth mother confirmed this when she was asked. The case worker needed to make sure we were ok with that. That was my first confirmation that what we were doing was the right thing. I had been right all along thinking that the baby we were looking for was not full Caucasian. Had I not called on her that morning because she was listed as Caucasian we would have missed her.
When we got there we talked to Olivia's birth mother for a long time. She told us why she chose us and what she liked best about our profile. She told us that the case workers had told her that when she looked at profiles and saw the right couple she would know. She looked through them all and knew we were the right family for her baby.
The kids were super excited to meet Olivia two days later when we brought her home.
Because Olivia's birth mother lives on the other side of the country we haven't had a chance to see her since placement. We love to hear from her though and enjoy sending her pictures.

National FSA Conference - A Success!

On behalf of the Centerville branch of FSA, we would like to say that this year's National Conference held this past weekend in Layton was amazing! The classes were educational and the panels were inspiring. It was such a great place to be this weekend, surrounded by adoptive couples, birth parents, adoptees, social workers, and everyone else who supports adoption. We urge everyone to come next year (July 29 & 30) to enjoy this wonderful conference that the national FSA board puts together.

National FSA Conference

Just a reminder, the National FSA Conference is this weekend in Layton, UT. You can still register, there is a link on the right side of the blog. The conference is really a great place to learn more about adoption and is a great opportunity to meet other adoptive couples, or couples hoping to adopt. Hope you can come!

Adoption Story - Mike, Kira and G

We are going to start sharing Centerville family's adoption stories on the blog every couple of weeks. If you would like to share your story, please email Kira at mikeandkira@yahoo.com or at centervillefsa@gmail.com and we would be happy to share your story with the rest of the Centerville FSA couples. As this is just starting up, I thought I would start things off with my family's adoption story:

Mike, Kira and baby G, written by Kira:

Mike and I were married in the summer of 2006 in SLC, UT. We always planned on trying to have a family a couple years into our marriage. But after a year, I had a doctor appointment that put up some red flags about how it may be for us to get pregnant in the future. We decided to start our family at that time instead of waiting another year. Almost a year passed without any success and I had another doctor appointment that was devastating for us at the time. It was found that our chances of getting pregnant were very slim, and that if we did get pregnant, the chances the baby would survive were slim as well. Mike was more open to looking into adoption at that time than I was. I fought it hard, but in December of 2008, we both all of a sudden felt VERY right about adoption. We started our paperwork with LDS Family Services in January of 2009 and were approved February 27, 2009.
On April 29, 2009 our case worker asked us to come in to sign more paperwork. In my head I thought, "Seriously? MORE paperwork? Ugh!" Thank goodness I didn't say that to her! We went in to the agency that day and in the middle of talking to our case worker, the secretary came in with the cutest basket of baby things that our birth mom "K" made for us in order to make the big announcement:

When the basket was brought in, we were both completely shocked! It just felt too good to be true. I started crying and Mike couldn't stop smiling. We were told that K had chosen us, was due in November, and didn't know what she was having yet. The blanket she made us was blue because K just knew it was a boy. So did I!

We met K on May 16 along with her mom. We were so nervous to meet her! The meeting went well. We asked why she and "K" (G's birth father) had chosen us. She said it was because she asked her case worker to show her profiles of couples who were willing to have a very open adoption. Then when she had the profiles to look at, they thought that we looked similar to them. She liked that we did not have any other children and that we liked to travel, and G's birth father liked that we had pictures of us in the outdoors and camping. They both liked that in the pictures we looked like we were really in love with each other and had a good marriage. To clarify, G's birth parent's names both start with K. They were together when they chose us, but broke up shortly after that. We didn't meet G's birth father until August. That meeting went great as well.

We started to work on getting to know K better and she invited us to her ultrasound appointments. The day we found out G was a boy, we were so excited! We would've been excited for the baby to be a boy or a girl, but it was fun just to know the gender. During the 6 months that we were waiting for G to be born, we had a lot of fun getting to know K. We went shopping for maternity clothes, went to movies, dinner, got pedicures (just us girls of course, not Mike!) and we took her to get a maternity massage which she loved. While this was a wonderful time, it was also a bit of a roller coaster on our emotions. K never changed her mind throughout the 6 months, and never said anything to make us think she would. But it was still hard to be in such a vulnerable situation. We decided to put our trust in our Heavenly Father as well as K and got the nursery all ready. I even had a few showers before G was born!

On November 1, K text me saying that she was in the hospital with contractions, but they were sending her home until morning. We didn't get much sleep that night, we were too excited for our baby to arrive during the upcoming week! On November 2, 2009 Mike and I went to work as usual. At 9:00 am, I received the following text from K:

"They broke my water. You guys better get up here"

So we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off getting everything ready to go. We had a plan in place and everything packed prior to this text, but once we got it, we felt so unprepared and frantic! We drove the hour and a half to K's hospital and when we arrived we were able to spend time with her in her room while she was in labor. Poor K, she had a rough beginning to her labor and would not dilate. We played card games on the floor of her hospital room with her best friend B. After she was given the epidural, she was able to relax and G was born 45 minutes later. Mike and I were on the other side of a curtain when G was born. When we heard him cry, we both were overcome with emotion and just hugged each other and cried. K held G first, then we were able to go with him to give him his first bath and watch him get all of his tests done:

So cute!

We are so thankful to K that she allowed us to spend the first two hours with baby G. Mike and I felt so much love right away for our son. He was born at 4:13 pm and weighed 7 lbs 11 ounces and 20 inches long. He was absolutely beautiful and perfect! What a wonderful day!

That night, G stayed in our hospital room. We only got 2 hours of sleep because all we wanted to do was hold him and stare at him. We couldn't believe that it was all real, that we were parents! On November 3, at 4:15 pm, K signed the papers to make him our baby. We were in the room when she signed, and she was well composed and at peace. She said it was the hardest thing she has ever done, but she has never regretted her decision. We love her so much! G's birth father K came to visit at the hospital and loved how much G looked like him! He had signed a few months prior and was so supportive with the adoption. We really appreciate him for that and love him as well. We have many pictures of G's birth parents, but I don't feel comfortable sharing them on a public blog.

Taking G home was such a great experience. We were so happy that everything went through so well, and that he was finally home with us. We had prayed for him to come into our home, and our prayers were answered. We LOVE being parents to the cutest baby in the world! G is a happy little boy with such a sweet spirit and he brings so much joy into our home. We never imagined we could love anyone so much, but we do!

We were able to finalize G's adoption in May, and take him to the temple for his sealing in June:

It was a wonderful day!

To end this, I wanted to share a couple more thoughts:

- We realize that we were chosen to adopt G quickly. We are sometimes embarrassed to tell couples who have been waiting for this blessing for quite some time that we were chosen so quickly. But, I just wanted to say that the reason we were chosen quickly had nothing to do with our profile, or us. We know that G is our baby, and was meant to come into our home. Everything fell into place so perfectly, it was not a coincidence. If he would've been born 2 years later, we would've waited 2 years. It was just the right timing, but we do feel lucky that we did not have to wait too long. For those who are still waiting: Hang in there. Your child is worth the wait, even though it must be so difficult to be patient. I respect families who are waiting for this blessing, it will come!

- Open adoption is a blessing. We were hesitant to have an open adoption before we were approved. Once we attended the classes to get approved, we changed our minds. We put on our profile that we were willing to have a very open adoption. This has been a blessing for the following reasons: K has been able to move on so much more quickly and feel more at peace, we enjoy seeing K and sending her pictures, we know G's medical history, and G will always know why he was placed for adoption and that it was all because of the love his birth parents have for him. Another blessing is that K's best friend B has chosen us to adopt her baby girl that is due in September. K's friend B was very against adoption a year ago. She found out she was pregnant in January and said she felt comfortable placing with us because she knew us, and because she saw how good we are to K. If we did not have an open adoption, she would not be placing her baby for adoption. We were sad to learn that B was in this situation especially after seeing K go through everything she did with her pregnancy and placement. But we feel blessed to hopefully be welcoming another child into our family in a couple of months. We love having an open adoption. If you ever want to talk to me about questions you may have about open adoption, you are welcome to email me and mikeandkira@yahoo.com.

Adoption is a miracle. G is a miracle. We love him so much!

July Board Meeting and July Chat Night

This Thursday, July 8, we will have our second board meeting held at 11:00 am at the Centerville agency. All are welcome to attend. We are looking for volunteers to be chairs over our education committee as well as our activities committee. If you are interested, please come, or email us at centervillefsa@gmail.com. If these are not areas that interest you, this is not a problem. Please just come and bring ideas you may have that could strengthen our chapter of FSA. We would love to have you there!

Thursday, July 22 at 7:00 pm will be our next chat night at the Reed's home. The address will be sent to you in an email. This month's topic is open adoption and how to discuss and educate your children about adoption. Chat night is a fun way to meet other adoptive couples and learn more about adoption. We would love for you to come participate!

Thank you!

National FSA Conference - Help with Childcare

July 30 & 31 is the annual National FSA Conference at the Davis Conference Center
(1651 North 700 West Layton, UT 84041).
This is a wonderful conference to attend to learn more about adoption and have a lot of fun at! If you would like to register, please go to:

http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=851705

We have been asked by the national board to see if we could find any volunteers from our chapter to help with childcare at the conference. A good idea they gave was to see if the young women in your ward may be interested in volunteering, and it could count as a project toward their young womanhood award. The shifts are listed below of when volunteers are needed for:
Friday
8:45-12:30
12:30-4:30
5:00-7:30
Saturday
9:00-1:00
1:00-5:00
If you would be interested in helping out, please email us at centervillefsa@gmail.com.

Thank you,
Kira Mortenson & Elizabeth Reed

Volunteers Needed

We had our first board meeting as Centerville FSA earlier this month. It went really well and it was helpful to have committee chairs there to update the board on what is going on with their committees. We really appreciate all the work that those who volunteer with FSA do. We are currently looking for those who are interested in helping with Adoption Education to be committee chairs. If you are not interested in being a chair over a committee, please still come and find where you can use your talents and skills to become involved with FSA. We also need more volunteers to help with activities. We are hoping to have a barbecue in August to kick off the start of Centerville FSA! This will be an activity for couples only, and will be so fun to get to know everyone involved with Centerville FSA. We are looking for a good location for this barbecue and good ideas for activities that we can participate in while there. If activities sounds like a place where you would like to volunteer, please contact us at centervillefsa@gmail.com. Our next board meeting is on July 8 at 11:00 am at the Centerville Agency. We hope to see you there!

Welcome!

Recently, Davis County FSA has been asked to separate into Layton and Centerville. We will still do a lot of activities together, but we will have our own boards. We have our first board meeting on June 10 at 11 am at the Centerville Agency. If anyone is looking to learn more about Centerville FSA, this would be a great meeting to come to! Check this blog often for updates on upcoming meetings, activities, chat nights, adoption articles, and more! If you have any questions, please email us at centervillefsa@gmail.com.
Thanks!
Centerville FSA

"For this child I prayed..." Perspectives from an Adoptive Parent - Sherilyn Clarke Stinson

This is a great article about infertility and adoption. It talks about a lot of the myths that are associated with adoption:
http://ce.byu.edu/cw/fuf/archives/2003/Stinson.Sherilyn.pdf