Family ~ Blessing or Bitter?

On almost a daily basis I am amazed at what a blessing family can be. Jake and I have been blessed with "goodly parents", as Nephi put it. We have great parents in Utah who always have their door and arms open to us. They have come to the understanding that our means of having children, is not the most conventional, however, they support us completely and continue to see how the process is going and offer encouragement. We are also blessed to have great parents in California (unbelievably close to us), who open their doors and pull out dining table chairs for us on almost a daily basis. We share many meals, multiple inside jokes, and get together many times a week, and we (all of us) love every minute of it. They too have been extremely supportive of out pursuit for adoption. For both our parents' support, we are so very grateful.

We both have siblings whom we love dearly. Some we are closer to than others. Some share our values, more than others. I have one brother and one sister, both older than I. If you take into account the blended families Jake comes from, he has four brothers and one sister. Some are from his mom and father's marriage. One from his dad and his first wife's marriage. One from his mom and dad's marriage. One from his father's second marriage and one from his father's third wife's previous marriage. I know, tough to keep up.....but we do and we love them all. We don't always get along.....as most siblings....but we still love them.

Thanks to those brothers and sisters, we have many nieces and nephews, whom we absolutely love and adore....and who to some extent have been our attempt to begin somewhat parenting techniques, at I'm sure to some misfortune to them. We love them and relish all the time we get to spend with them. Just to note.....thank goodness for cell phone plans with UNLIMITED texting.....very handy w/ teen aged nieces. :)

In addition to the family we are born with or married into, out of, or have parents changing marriages, we have our wonderful "friemily"........those are the friends you choose who become family. We have great friemily who are also incredibly supportive of our adventure in adoption. Basically our very vest friemily simply has too much dirt on us, and we have dirt on her, that it might be detrimental if we ever "split".....imagine if your best friemily becomes your worst enemy.......imagine the amount of blackmail they would have. Lucky for us, it goes both ways. LOL

Unfortunately, not only have we experienced the blessing of family and friemily, but also the bitterness of them as well. Fortunately, the good has out weighed the bitter and we are truly blessed to have the family and friemily we have and the wonderful support system they provide is unmatched.

Thank you all for your love and support. We consider all of you a blessing.

So now I ask you, the reader, which do you have.....a blessing or a bitterness?? Think about it and if you have cause to, say thank you.

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