I have never sat down and documented our families adoption story, and it is something I need to do. Asher was 6 and Nelson was serving as the bishop in our ward at the time. We had kept saying that we needed to decide if we were going to have another kid since he was getting so old. Nothing seemed to happen for us and we could never make a decision of what needed to happen for our family. I was still struggling with my pain that went from my neck to my lower back and we were daily trying to figure that out.
A family in our ward, the Hyers, had adopted their grand daughter who was 4 months old. Nelson had asked me to help watch her while the parents taught their primary class each sunday. I did this for a few weeks and would try to hold the baby during the meetings. I would come home each week, just sobbing. Holding the baby put my body in so much pain and I couldn't handle it. After doing this for a few weeks I told Nelson that I really didn't think I could have a baby. I didn't think my body could handle it, as I could not even hold a baby without pain.
We didn't say anything for awhile and went about doing our thing. One day I was driving to work in Layton after I got my kids on the bus for school. The thought had hit me (the spirit) to start looking into adoption. Nelson came home that night and without me saying anything said "I started looking into adoption today." What ???? the spirit had spoke to us and guided us the same day. This is a direction we never imagined we would head down. We decided we had better fast and pray and see if this is what we needed to do. We got that confirmation yes it was.
We were very clueless and had no idea what we were doing, the only thing we could think to do was just move. We decided if we started doing our part heavenly father would direct us where we needed to go. We looked into LDS services, adoption agencies etc.. None of this was the right direction. We ended up looking into Foster Care but was still leary about it. I remember we had our first meeting and I told the lady we would have one placement and we would adopt that one placement. Now knowing what we know I am sure she thought we were the dumbest people alive. That is not how the process normally works.
We started our classes and all the certification we needed to get done. This took a while but we could the lords hand in it all. Nelson missed church meetings on Weds for a whole month and never had to make them up, this is not normal.
It took us about 6 months to do the classes and get our certification finalized. The classes started in March of 2011 and in Nov of 2011 we got a call asking if we would take in 2 girls. The only advice I was given by a co worker was to pray and listen to the spirit and you will know what to do. We did that and asked them to give us a day to figure out what our decision was. We ended up saying yes. We were scared, terrified and had no idea what we were doing.
We started in the process of meeting them and having them come to our house for a few hours over Thanksgiving break. We meet Liliana (4) and Passion (7) and loved them instantly. Passion was very street smart and knew her way around. She was a very hungry kid and ate everything. Lily clung to Passion a lot and was shy at first.
They were adorable girls and we were excited to get them started in school and normal life at our house. When they first came they didn't know much, nothing about the gospel and basic principles that our family was so familiar with.
It was such a learning curve and was hard to get used to. It was definitely a challenge getting used to two girls in our home when we were not used to girls. We did have our struggles but felt the whole experience was with it.
We had the girls for 13 months and then it was determined they would go back to their birth dad Brandon. This was hard because they started slowly transitioning the girls home and their emotions were all over the place. They went home 2 days before Christmas in 2012. We kept contact with them and talked to them when we could. In April of 2013we got a call that we were getting them back. Once we got them back we had to go to endless court visits. By the way I hate court, my stomach just would get so sick as it was not my favorite place to be. We went to mediation trying to get the parents to sign over their rights. None of this worked. July 2013 Tasha's rights were relinquished. We then started to see what would happen with Brandon. In September his rights were relinquished and then we were able to move forward with Adoption.
It has been such a roller coaster but something that we definitely know we were suppose to do. We could feel Heavenly Fathers hand in the whole experience. It taught me to love unconditionally to all people. An amazing and humbling experience for me.
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