Our Next Adoption Story

Last week, we had the pleasure of serving as panelists as part of a day-long training session for a dozen prospective adoptive parents. This wasn’t our first time. We have participated in the panel — hosted by the agency through which we adopted our son, Jack — several times in the past and we always enjoy sharing our story alongside other adoptive parents.

What never ceases to amaze us when sitting alongside fellow adoptive parents is just how different one story can be from the next. It’s a fact adoptive parents must come to grips with each time they start the process over again. Such is already true for us.

Whenever we participate in panel discussions, it seems everything that took place during the first few months after we took Jack into our care seems condensed into shorter and shorter periods of time. Though only a few short years removed from it all, it now feels as if the two-week hotel stay, the legal proceedings, the scramble to buy baby items and find daycare all happened just like [snaps] that.

All of the sudden, our baby boy is a vibrant two-and-a-half-year-old who loves throwing and kicking balls, Thomas the Tank Engine, pizza, popsicles, and sleeping in his crib along with just about every book he owns. At the moment, we’re in the throes of toilet training and teaching manners in between marveling at every new word he uses — even the simplest words, like last night when he said “buns.” Buns?! Who taught him the different words for bread?!

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Where Things Stand Today

We enjoyed being panelists not only for the chance to give hope to other prospective parents, but also to give hope to ourselves as we once again prepare to grow our family through adoption.

The past year has been one of significant life changes. We both left places of work where we had been employed for more than seven years in pursuit of new opportunities. We just moved into a new house a few blocks from our previous house, but this one thankfully has four bedrooms (instead of two), soon-to-be-three bathrooms (instead of two), 2,400-square-feet (instead of 963) and a backyard (instead of none). We have traveled as a family to New York and Portland. Meanwhile, Jack turned into what is basically a full-blown human.

In that time, we also have become licensed foster care providers. Though no children have been placed in our care yet, foster care is an avenue through which we have opened our hearts to whatever may come our way. We are 100 percent all-in on the mission of foster care, which is providing a safe and nurturing home for children until they are able to reunify with their birth parents or a family member. In the event reunification is not possible, we are open to being an option for permanent placement through adoption.

At the same time, we remain open to the possibility of own-source adoption, which we wrote about in our last blog post published last year.

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Once More With Feeling

During the course of moving to new jobs and moving into our new neighborhood, we have been introduced to so many wonderful new people. We love the family and friends that have always been there for us, of course. We just appreciate that inviting change into our lives has created so many opportunities to establish connections.

Last week’s panel and further reflection on our past year reminded us to remind so many of you — while also telling many for the first time — that we would dearly appreciate if you would consider sharing us as an option if ever you know someone who is making an adoption plan.

Let’s be clear: We understand that’s a weighty request.

We’re not Lyft drivers asking for a five-star review.

We’re not real estate agents asking you to share our business cards with your family and friends.

We are literally asking that you refer us as adoptive parents should the opportunity ever arise. All you have to do is share our website URL, our Facebook page or even our personal contact info (if you have it). Whether you involve yourself beyond that point is completely up to you.

In closing, thank you to everyone who has supported our family over the past few years, or even just the past few months. We are eternally grateful to be surrounded by — and to surround our son with — all of the joy, compassion and laughter you’ve brought into our lives.

Another Journey Begins...

Today, our son Jack turned 18 months old. This milestone has no particular significance greater than the 17- or 19-month marks, per se, but as new(ish) parents, it’s another occasion to look back at how much life — his and ours — has changed in such a short amount of time.

Though we never experienced fertility issues ourselves, as adoptive parents, we’re sensitive to the fact family planning is all about choices and chance. You control what you can, however little that may be. 

We can vividly recall the moments leading up to when Jack came into our lives, but it’s easy to overlook all of the choices that were made years in advance to set his arrival in motion.

What if Elizabeth hadn’t chosen at a young age that she would someday become a parent through adoption? What if she hadn’t shared her adoption wishes shortly after we began dating in college? What if we had started our first adoption process sooner — or later? What if we hadn’t chosen the agency that we did? What if we had signed up for an earlier or later info session, thus affecting when we were able to enter the pool of waiting families? There were so many choices we made along the way that guided us toward the moment Jack entered our lives.

And we simply can’t overlook the role of chance — the serendipitous forces that conspired so that Jack’s birth mother chose us.

What do we mean?

If not for Elizabeth one day finding an Iowa Hawkeyes baseball cap in a restaurant and choosing to keep it…if not for a day fishing with her dad when she chose to wear that cap…if not for the fish she caught which led to her dad taking a photo of her wearing that cap…if not for that photo being chosen from hundreds to appear in our adoption book…if not for Jack’s birth mother having a special connection to Iowa, seeing that photo of Elizabeth in that cap, then deciding we were worth meeting…we might not be anticipating Jack’s 18-month milestone.

Adoption has been an incredible experience for our family, though we will be the first to acknowledge beginner’s luck. Our first adoption process was quick, smooth and without a hint of heartbreak. We're reminded of how blessed we were every morning when we see Jack's smiling face. 

Today, we are choosing to grow our family by pursuing our second adoption, and just like last time, we are using this website to share our story in hopes you might share it with someone you know who is making an adoption plan. 

An own source adoption process actually looks a lot like an adoption through a private agency. Adoptive parents still submit an application to an agency, submit to a background check, participate in a home study and attend several educational sessions. Furthermore, the agency chosen to facilitate the adoption also provides ongoing counseling to the birth parents post-placement. The biggest difference is we would not be among 15-30 families an agency would present as options to an expectant mother who approached them seeking a to make a plan.

Whether its family, friends, neighbors, fellow parents, parishioners or co-workers, chances are your personal network is vast. It is not rare to know someone (directly or through someone else) who is navigating an unexpected pregnancy and who is seeking an adoption plan.

That is where we ask that you think of us. We can be a part of their plan. And connecting us can truly be as simple as sharing our website address and letting chance intervene. You don’t even need to let us know you shared our info.

We are in the very beginning stages of our second adoption and couldn't be more excited to make Jack a big brother. We hope you will follow us. And who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to help us, too. 

Meet Jack

This is the blog post we have waited almost five months — if not several years — to write. It's both the happy ending and the happy beginning. On April 3, 2016, we became parents to our son, Jack. On Friday, the adoption was finalized by the State of Minnesota. Now that we have completed the adoption process and all the necessary legal steps, we are excited share the news. 

The funny thing about updating this website is reading the last post we published just a few weeks before Jack was born. I remember publishing it and thinking, Watch — now we're going to get a call.

That's actually sort of how it happened. 

We received the first significant phone call from our adoption agency on Tuesday, March 29. Our social worker informed us there was an expectant mother interested in meeting us and another couple on Wednesday, April 6. (She was due on Monday, April 11.) Of course, this was an exhilarating development, but one we kept to ourselves to avoid the real possibility of disappointment for our family members. 

On Saturday, April 2, I received a phone call from our social worker while — of all things — pumping gas. She informed me the expectant mother's water had broken early that morning and she was now leaning toward Beth and I as adoptive parents based on our profile. How I remembered to remove the gas pump from my car before taking off still amazes me. Muscle memory, I guess, because every synapses in my brain was firing at once. 

Frantically, I called Beth, who was at work at the time. As with the initial phone call earlier in the week, we weren't together at the time this life-changing news was delivered. When I was finally able to get through to her, I explained we would maybe possibly likely become parents tomorrow. She claims her co-workers watched her go completely pale, and one of them even volunteer a waste basket as a precaution. (When I proposed to Beth, her first response wasn't "yes." It was, "I'm going to throw up." Luckily, she didn't.) 

We met for the first time since receiving the news later that evening at Target, where we purchased a pack-and-play, stroller/car-seat and various baby sundries because we didn't have any of it. None. We assumed we would be waiting anywhere from 12-18 months. At the time of this call, we had been in the pool for just shy of two months. 

Although everything happened so quickly, time nearly stood still over the next 20-odd hours as we waited for a call from the agency to go to the Wisconsin hospital where the birth took place. The nighttime passed quickly and we were both able to somehow sleep decently (for probably the last time since April 3), but when Sunday came, we started to become concerned by the silence. Our imagination ran wild. Like a fool, I at one point searched Google to read stories of last-minute changes of heart that left adoptive parents back at square one. So, I took a nap. Beth, who also had to work on Sunday, kept her head down and focused on her work.  

And then we received the call.

It came at around noon. We were told by our social worker to meet her at the hospital a few hours later. Beth rushed home and we frantically packed our SUV, unsure of how long we would be away from home. We took our dog on a short walk — her last as an only child — before texting Beth's brother who lives in Minneapolis to say we would need a dogsitter for the night. Then, we made way toward the hospital, anxious about what lied ahead. 

We knew that if we had a boy, we would name him Jack. We had no idea and could not agree upon what we would name a girl. We spent the 30-minute drive proposing names for a girl. We didn't make a lot of progress, and felt a sense of relief when we found out from our social worker a boy was born earlier that morning. Jack it is!

We won't go into great details about the more personal and intimate moments of our meeting with Jack's birth family, but it was a beautiful, peaceful introduction filled with tears, hugs and laughter. It was a perfect beginning to our open adoption.

Then, we met Jack. Tiny Jack, born at 6 pounds and 7 ounces, totally healthy, the child we had always dreamed of. The connection was instant. The whole experience was surreal. One by one, we contacted our immediate family members to introduce Jack via FaceTime. Suffice it to say that not one of them has missed a FaceTime call from us since!

We realize this blog post is already running pretty long, so we'll jump forward to present day. Our little guy isn't so little anymore. He's somewhere near the 80th percentile in weight. He is immediately trusting of anyone he meets and loves to be held. He has big, beautiful brown eyes, an easy smile and has shown a preference for his left hand. He despises tummy time, but is prodigious in the walker. He nearly slept through his baptism. He has already collected his first game-used ball from a Major League Baseball game. He's made a few friends at day care since he started a few months ago. For the most part, he now sleeps through the night so long as he doesn't have a cold. (Gotta love day care!) 

As for Beth and I? No question, life as parents is different, but we couldn't be more blessed to have Jack in our lives, and we're infinitely appreciative of our loving and supportive families and friends. We also are happy to report that open adoption has been fulfilling as we had hoped. (We have agreed to meet at least five times per year in person, and each month, we send an email with photos and updates on his milestones.) We look forward to continuing to add to our family through adoption without hesitation. 

At the outset, we started this blog to spread awareness and hopefully become a part of someone's adoption plan. Along the way, we hoped to share about our adoption journey, pre- and post-placement. Over time, our desire to do so has shifted out of respect to Jack's privacy, as well as his birth family's. We are incredibly proud of our adoption story, but of course, nothing could be more personal. Therefore, we invite anyone who reads this who has questions about adoption to contact us directly. Truly. We are happy to answer most any question about our experience. We just prefer to do so in a more private forum. 

If you've made it this far, whether you're a family member, friend, colleague or total stranger, we appreciate your support, and it means the world to us the way Jack is loved and embraced. We also want to thank anyone who has shared gifts to ease our transition into parenthood. (You can expect a Christmas card!) Finally, thank you for reading our adoption story, and we hope you'll consider us a resource if you or someone you know is considering adoption. 

While We Wait — And Wait

Multnomah Falls, Oregon — Spring 2010

"...Then one night, they got the call. They learned there was a baby waiting for them at the hospital. And just like that, they were parents." 

No, this isn't our story. Not yet, anyway. 

That would be some kind of bombshell to drop for blog post No. 3, huh? 

Instead, that's the version of a story you hear quite often from well-meaning friends, family members or colleagues while you're waiting, distilled down to its conclusion. When you think about it, it's pretty amazing considering how radically unique each adoption story is that somehow, most re-tellings rush ahead to the final chapter — an unexpected phone call, a mad dash to the hospital, the miracle of adoption completed. Maybe this happens because everything that comes before that life-changing phone call is, well, kind of uneventful. 

No waiting couple wants to hear...

"...They waited and waited for months on end. A year passed. Now and then, an expectant parent would approach their adoption agency, but another couple would be chosen, or the expectant parent would have a change of heart or go with a different agency. So they waited some more..."

And no one wants to tell that part of the story, either, right? It's easier to just start at the good part, the fairytale beginning to parenthood. The waiting is treated as trivial. Minutiae. Easier to cut that part of the story completely, I guess. 

But that's not fair, because most of the adoption process is the waiting, pure and simple. That's neither good or bad — it's just a fact. 

Every morning, not longer after I get up and make coffee and the house is silent and notably absent of the sound of a child waking, the thought crosses my mind. What if today is the day? What if the agency reaches out to tell us an expectant parent would like to meet us? What if our future becomes a little more clear?

And that's as far as I let my imagination go. I might think about these life-altering what-ifs a few times throughout the day, but then I try to remember to be patient. Our time will come.

When our adoption journey is complete and our story is told to other waiting couples by our friends, family members and colleague, I hope they include a little about the time we spent waiting: 

"...Beth passed the time by learning to build furniture with power tools and her bare hands, all the while converting their garage into a fully functional wood shop. Andrew spent time golfing (poorly), running (slowly) and mostly sweating and wobbling at a weekly yoga class. They spent more time with friends, made more trips home to see family and took weekend getaways. The more they waited, the closer they became." 

The end doesn't have to be the only happy part of the story, after all. 

Valentine's Day in New York City

About a month ago, I was in Brooklyn on business travel and enjoying chicken and waffles at Sweet Chick, the greatest dining establishment in the history of modern civilization. I sat alone at the bar, texting Beth to explain how incredible the meal was, using a mix of adjectives and emojis that just couldn't do it justice.

Sweet Chick — much like visiting New York City — is something you have to experience firsthand to really appreciate it. Unfortunately, Beth had never enjoyed this heavenly chicken-waffle combo, nor had she ever taken in the Big Apple. 

So, the day I returned from the work trip, we decided to book flights and hotels for NYC to spend our first Valentine’s Day together since we got married in 2012. (The previous three years I was out of town for work.) Over the course of four short days, we managed to squeeze in a lot: 

• We checked out typical tourist traps like Times Square, Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center and Central Park.
• We visited the Museum of Modern Art to see Picassos, Van Goghs, Matisses and Rothkos.
• We visited the 9/11 Memorial Museum — a somber, but masterfully curated installation.
• We attended mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown.
• We enjoyed Sweet Chick (twice), Valentine’s Day brunch at Jack's Wife Freda, as well as Korean, Chinese, Mexican and New York-style pizza sans real cheese. (Beth has a dairy allergy.)
• On a whim, we each got tattoos inspired by the song we chose for the first dance at our wedding. Very YOLO, we know.
• We walked a total of 30 miles in wind, rain, sleet and snow. (Uphill, both ways.) Beth nearly froze to death at one point, while I nearly sweated to death. Pretty common situation for us, actually. 

We've seen several friends who are expecting set off on so-called "babymoons" — exotic trips during the third trimester as one last hurrah before activating Parent Mode. Planning such a well-timed trip is a little more complicated when you're waiting to adopt. Our trip worked out perfectly because it was highly unlikely anything major would change within the space of three weeks from booking it. However, if we were to plan a big trip for sometime in the summer, for instance, we couldn't be as confident nothing would happen.  

We're not dwelling on this fact, however. We actually hope to travel as a family as often as possible when we become parents. There's really no better way to understand the world around you then to go out and see it — the culture, the traditions, the landscapes. Perhaps the New York City banking titan David Rockefeller said it best: 

"I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education." 

We hope the same is true for our children. 

So, maybe it's only appropriate that on the last day of our trip our return flight was canceled, forcing us to stay another night to catch a 6 a.m. the next day. It was a great reminder during this adoption process that plans change, and usually those unforeseen changes are completely out of your hands. You just have to adjust course, remain patient and enjoy the ride. 

Our Journey Begins...

Welcome to MillersAdopt.com! We are Andrew and Elizabeth Miller, and we are ridiculously excited to share our journey through domestic infant adoption. 

So, what exactly is going on here? Well, this website was created with at least three objectives in mind: 

1. To share our story with expectant parents in the process of making an adoption plan. 
2. To update family, friends and colleagues who are interested in our journey to parenthood.
3. To shed a little light on what this process is like for those who may be considering or are just curious. 

Since we officially began this journey last summer, we have learned that every adoptive parent arrives at this process with their own unique story. If you would like to learn more about ours, we encourage you to check out the About Us page.

As for this website, we intend to post on a weekly basis anything from updates about our process to general news about adoption to what it's like to wait for only the most important moment in our lives to come. 

That's all for now! 

Sincerely,

A+E