Our story begins with a dream, a dream to be parents. We talked about the beauty and miracle of adoption early in our relationship knowing it would be a challenge for Jess to get pregnant due to fertility issues.
We spent five years ensuring we had a solid foundation for us and our child. We were ready to share unconditional love and acceptance, because for us it’s love that makes a family, not blood.
Our adoption process took about three months with Graceful Adoptions. We loved that baby boy the second he was born. It was immediate and unconditional. We don’t think it’s even possible to love him more than we already do.
Graceful Adoptions wasn’t the first adoption agency we reached out to, but they are the adoption agency we chose.
As adoptive parents, some of our beliefs didn’t match the beliefs of other adoption agencies, so we continued our search.
We searched adoption agencies in Iowa and Graceful Adoptions came up. We read through many of the adoption stories and gave Graceful Adoptions a call. We talked to Lacey Jo, the Adoptive Parent Coordinator, and felt at ease after Graceful Adoptions answered all of our questions, it was clear they were very knowledgeable. After reading through more adoptive parent success stories and birth mother stories, we selected Graceful Adoptions.
We applied to Graceful Adoptions on July 25, 2015. Our application interview was on July 31, 2015 and by August 21 our status was activated. Little did we know in less than three months we would become parents to a beautiful baby boy named Jaxson on November 6, 2015.
Graceful Adoptions shared a lot of information and insight about the thoughts and experiences birth mothers with unplanned pregnancies go through, it made us much more comfortable with our decision and ultimately made the adoption process more successful.
Another reason we would recommend Graceful Adoptions is because they really went above and beyond for us. We knew about the mother, but didn’t have an opportunity to speak to her because Jaxson was born before we could reschedule our phone interview. Graceful Adoptions called us at 6 a.m. to tell us she went into labor. We were on our way to Kansas from Iowa! We were in a rush, hadn’t packed and didn’t have any supplies.
We packed our personal items and brought the car seat with us, it was still in the box. We stopped by Graceful Adoptions office where Lacey Jo had bought us everything we would need: blankets, bottles, a pack and play for the child to sleep in, a diaper bag, etc. We left their office and headed straight for the hospital to meet the mother and baby.
When we met the birthmother at the hospital, we thought we would be much more nervous. She was so easy to talk to. It was just us in the hospital room so we really got to know her and we appreciate that we will be able to tell Jaxson about her. We talked about everything from her background, to plans for Jaxson and country music. She knew we were going to spoil her baby. It was surreal holding Jaxson for the first time. The only time we put him down was at night when we needed to sleep.
Looking back on our experience, our advice to parents who would like adopt a child would be to take things one day at a time. Don’t take your frustrations out on each other; everything will come in the right time. I’d recommend Graceful Adoptions to other couples who are thinking about adopting. Their team is very knowledgeable and they have good processes in place for a smooth adoption experience.
It really helped to approach the entire adoption process with an open heart and not stress in a situation with so many unknowns. The adoption process goes by much faster and is much easier without all the stress and obsessing.
Thank you Graceful Adoptions for helping us make our dream come true; we are parents to a wonderful and very happy baby boy.
Jess and Matt
Marion, IA
