We first met Karen Nissly, Graceful Adoptions’ Founder, when Sara was a teacher at her son’s day care. Years later after getting married, trying to have children and losing our daughter at 20 weeks, we reached out to Karen.
We wanted to understand our options and learn more about adoption.
We knew we would work with Graceful Adoptions once we were ready to start the adoption process. They took the time to teach us about adoption in general and about how their adoption agency is committed to bringing people together. We really liked that their approach was laid out in well-defined steps. Let’s face it, if you are new to adoption trying to sort through all the information is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Like so many first-time adoptive parents, we were cautious and nervous about all of the unknowns. How do we get through the process? How long will we wait? Will the mother change her mind?
Our questions were answered faster than we ever imagined, it only took three months.
The process was smooth! The Graceful Adoptions’ team is knowledgeable and professional. They know what they’re doing and we followed their instructions. From the activation process to creating our family profile to visiting the mother to through placement – they guided us through every step of the adoption process. And, we could ask them anything, no matter how silly we felt for asking it, there was never a dumb question!
We knew our child was out there, we just didn’t know where. As it turns out, the right child did find his way to us. To our surprise, he wasn’t an infant – he was an active toddler. Three years old and full of energy.
We interviewed with his mother and immediately liked her. We traveled to meet her and her son, and we just knew this was our child. We spent two wonderful days together and then two weeks later we returned to start transitioning her son’s care from her to us.
We loved having that time together to ensure there was a smooth adoption process for our son.
Adopting a toddler, we don’t feel like we missed anything – except maybe the sleepless nights. We absolutely love this age! We get to see him discover new things and watch how his mind works. We’ve only been home a couple weeks and he has already grown so much. We are collecting his baby pictures and videos to share his story with him one day.
Anyone considering adopting a child or placing a child for adoption should talk to Graceful Adoptions. They get that this is our lives. For the Graceful Adoptions’ team, it’s not a 9-5 job. That meant a lot to us.
Sara and Ken
Marian County, IA
