I Love My Job....I Love My Job......I Love My Job

The end of yet another month and no time to breathe.......no rest for the weary. I work in the Accounts Receivable department of an international uniform company. Luckily, times being what they are, there is no shortage of people to call and ask for payment. Unfortunately, times being what they are, it seems fewer and fewer of those people have the funds to shut me up. Not only do I already have plenty of people to call, but now I have a whole new group of customers to call. Nothing like job security......in a time like this, right?

Mind you, while I love the partners with whom I work and I enjoy the company for whom I work, this would not be my "career" of choice. Numbers hold my attention just long enough to get the bills paid. :-) How many of you feel the same way??

No...crunching numbers and hounding people for money is NOT in any way my career choice. Mom.....now there is THE job title I have ALWAYS wanted. There is no sweeter sound than a child calling out for mommy. Now that we are truly in the "waiting/finding" phase of adoption, we greatly anticipate the day when we will be called mommy and daddy. Not only is that the best job ever, but you never get to retire and you always have job security. In adition to that, the benefits do not compare to any other benefits I know of. Plus the pay and bonuses are mile above the rest.

Maybe then I really will love my job. LOL :-)

Dear Birth Parent(s):

We just want to start off by saying how grateful we are that you even looked into the option of adoption. We know you are facing difficult decisions and pray that the Lord will guide you as you proceed through this process. We can only imagine the challenges you face and circumstances that have brought you this far and pray that you will be watched over and uplifted as you continue down this path. You are always in our thoughts and prayers, though we have not yet met you.

Let us tell you just a bit about ourselves. We are Jake and Cathi, have been married just over 9 years and would love nothing more than to be parents. We knew going into our marriage there would be difficulties with getting pregnant and though we started from day one, through many failures and broken hearted moments, we too join you down this path towards adoption.

We are a fun and loving couple who never quite lost the "newly wed" feeling of being married. We are very close to both our families, who are 100% supportive of our decision to increase our family through adoption. They cannot wait to have the pitter-pat of little feet in the house once more. We are blessed to have parents who LOVE being grandmas and papas.

We are pretty much homebodies who enjoy being with family and friends. Whether it's camping, hanging out, getting together for holidays, or daily menial tasks, family is the most important thing for us. We also have a great sense of humor and get that from both sides of the family.

We do travel a bit, mostly to Utah to visit Jake's side of the family and for time away from California and the daily grind of life. We both work for a uniform company locally, though in different departments. We are blessed to have Cathi's side of the family literally around the corner and willing to provide day care for our children. It doesn't get much better than nana and papa babysitting. Just one of the perks of having family in the same neighborhood, I guess.

We have both been very anxious to begin expanding our family and look forward to the day when our children will arrive and be able to be sealed to us in the Temple. We love the Lord and are so blessed to have the things we do have. We look forward to sharing our love and our testimonies with our children. We think we will be a great mommy and daddy to any child with whom we are blessed.

May you be blessed as you search for adoptive parents as we are blessed in our search as well. We feel honored you would consider us. We feel we have so much love to give and are grateful for even the chance to let you into our lives. We hope you have enjoyed what you have learned, in these brief moments and hope to hear from you so we can get to know you and your story as well.

~Jake and Cathi

The Dream Becomes Reality

We have known from the time we were dating/engaged that adoption would be our future way of expanding our family. When my mom decided to share her inheritance with us kids, the dream...the future....became the reality....the now. It started as a normal evening at my parents' house, on a weekend. Jake had run home to get something, when mom came into her living room, handed my brother a small rectangle of paper, told him it was for his moving fund. She came over to me, handed me a similar rectangle of paper and told me this was for our Baby Fund. Our parents have always been incredibly supportive of the idea of adoption, but this was more then I had even hoped for. Who would imagine this small, seemingly insignificant piece of paper would forever change our lives? I saw the number and immediately erupted into tears. Long hugs were exchanged and many thanks were given.

When Jake came back to my parents house, I took him aside, into mom's office and told him I had to ask for a favor. he could tell I had been crying and was rapidly becoming concerned. I held up the paper, writing side toward him and asked him to please deposit this gift into our Baby Account. He looked at it briefly and said, "OK."

I asked him if he looked at the amount, he looked a bit closer and tears came to his eyes. Our eyes locked, tears were shed, hugs and kisses given.....and those wonderful words said, "You're going to be a daddy." Our dream had become reality in a major way.

Thank you mom and dad.
~Cathi