Adoption News

This has been in the works for about 2.5 years now, ever since Jefferson and I met, the discussion of adoption would be in our future. When we got together I had a "sense" that I wouldn't be allowed to physically bear children, I don't know why, I just thought that I was being prepared for that prospect. So before we made a commitment to one another I wanted to make sure Jefferson was on board with the idea. I had no idea that he was adopted by his own grandparents and is so grateful they did, and he didn't know that my own mom was adopted too. It runs in our family on both sides, and we then realized that we both have a heart for adopting.

We didn't find out anything was actually going to keep us from having our own children until Jan 2008, about 6 months after we were married. Jefferson had some surgeries in Feb 2008 to correct our infertility, but the results were not impressive. The issues were not improving enough so we decided to go through AI treatments(Artificial Insemination - not to be confused with the more invasive IVF procedures) which, thankfully, our insurance helped pay for. After 4 attempts over a 6 month period in Fall '08 thru Winter '09, we realized that we were tired of "trying" to make things happen ourselves and stopped all medical enhanced procedures. Instead, we have decided to move our focus onto adoption and if we are meant to get pregnant someday, so be it.

The decision to actually go forward with the adoption process (paperwork) took all summer to take place. I was so fearful of opening my heart to the idea of actually having a baby in our home soon that I didn't want to start the process until all of the funds needed ($20-30K) were sitting in a bank account. After meeting and talking to many women who are undergoing similar infertility & adoption experiences, we decided to start the process by getting our Home Study complete (as of today we are 90% done!) and then start the finance and advertising campaigns. This week we completed most of our home study with only about 2 weeks left for 1 background check to process. At that point we can start looking for a woman in need of adoptive parents for her unborn baby. A private adoption can save us thousands of dollars. We are hoping to forego an adoption agency and find a mother through a word of mouth grapevine. This will cost less than $10,000! A significant difference!

This is where you all come in. We have been humbled to realize that we will not be able to do this alone. We understand that we are in need of help to make this a reality. We also know that networking is so important in this process. So we have started with 2 things and hope you might be willing/able to help us with them...

1) We opened a special savings account for our adoption. If you look to the RIGHT of our blog page we have a "Donation" button. This is a link to our Paypal account, which is directly linked to our special adoption savings account. We are asking for donatins to help us save up the money we need to move forward should a birthmother be found for us. We will post earnings here every month as donations come in. We have started selling items locally so we can apply all earnings to this account as well. As of tomorrow, we should have $500 donated into this account which will be used to pay for our home study.

2) We are sending this blog post, and I've already sent an anouncement on facebook, that we are looking for a birthmom. We realize all of you are spread out around the country, and have your own networks with in your own communities. If you would all be willing ot keep your ears open for new about an expectant mother considering adoption for her baby, please jsut let us know.

We have already been hearing about possible matches, but nothing has panned out yet, so we are still waiting. Until then, we thought we'd get you all started on our own grapevine.

We want you to know that Mikayl is super excited for this adoption to take place too. We have been preparing her for this possibility in our family for 2 years now. I wanted to wait after our first year of marriage before we had anymore children anyway, so she would know how much we love her and to make sure she has a strong relationship with me and her dad as our first child together. She may not be mine by blood, but I love that girl as my own and would die for her. She says she knows this for certain and has been bugging me about getting our adoption paperwork done for months now. When I remind her of our reasons for waiting, she says to me, "I know already and that was a year ago! Get on with it already!!" Sometimes I think she is more excited and ready than we are!

Thank you in advance for even considering to help us out. We also know that many of you will want to, but simply can't. In that case, we would love your prayers to be with us. We believe prayer is more powerful than money or word of mouth anyway, so that would bless us greatly!

Gratefully Yours,
Jen & Jefferson Martin