
In January of 2007, we were the biological parents of two girls: one lived with us on earth and the other lived in heaven and would remain “forever 5 ½ years old”. My husband and I had given birth to our first daughter, Molly in 1998 and then again to Clare in 1999. The day Clare was born, we found out that she had a rare genetic disorder and that my husband and I were both carriers of the gene, which meant a 1 in 4 chance of the disorder appearing if we were to have more biological children.
In January of 2005, we lost our dear, Clare and a piece of all of our hearts.
We had always dreamed of having more children. My husband, Chris is 1 of 9 children and I have 4 sisters. The thought of not having multiple children never crossed our minds. We had always considered adoption, but investigated many other avenues: taking a chance and getting pregnant again, egg donors, sperm donors and pre-implantation diagnosis. While we were unsure of what we should do to have another child, the one thing we knew for certain is that a baby was not going to magically appear on our doorstep. If we wanted to have another child, we would have to let the world know. Once we made the decision, it became clear to us that adoption was the avenue we would pursue.
While we had made the choice to adopt, we didn’t know how to go about it. I wrote away to a couple adoption agencies for information and started saying out loud, “we are hoping to adopt a child.” It was during a conversation with some new friends that the name “Child and Parent Services” was mentioned. We decided to make an appointment with Cathy Eisenberg.
Cathy met with us and directed us on how we should proceed. Our social worker, Nancy Hibbert was invaluable and helped us get the paperwork in place and our profile book completed.
While we thought we were great candidates, there were a few items not in our favor. Chris and I were in our early forties, we had suffered the loss of a child and we also had a 9-year-old child at home. Still, I knew we had to risk not getting picked by a birthmother. We never looked back and kept going.
In August of 2007, we returned home from a week up north and there was a phone message on our machine. A birthmother had chosen us and wanted to meet us! In September, we met our awesome birthmother. She and I got to know each other and I hold her very closely in my heart.
On December 6, 2007, our beautiful daughter, Annie was born. Annie has changed our lives. She is almost 5 years old and my husband and I our still look at each other with wonderment that we were given the gift of Annie, to raise her as our child and to love her for life. Annie may never fully understand how special she is to us, nor how she not only mended our broken hearts, but made them fuller, forever.
-Katy W.
In January of 2005, we lost our dear, Clare and a piece of all of our hearts.
We had always dreamed of having more children. My husband, Chris is 1 of 9 children and I have 4 sisters. The thought of not having multiple children never crossed our minds. We had always considered adoption, but investigated many other avenues: taking a chance and getting pregnant again, egg donors, sperm donors and pre-implantation diagnosis. While we were unsure of what we should do to have another child, the one thing we knew for certain is that a baby was not going to magically appear on our doorstep. If we wanted to have another child, we would have to let the world know. Once we made the decision, it became clear to us that adoption was the avenue we would pursue.
While we had made the choice to adopt, we didn’t know how to go about it. I wrote away to a couple adoption agencies for information and started saying out loud, “we are hoping to adopt a child.” It was during a conversation with some new friends that the name “Child and Parent Services” was mentioned. We decided to make an appointment with Cathy Eisenberg.
Cathy met with us and directed us on how we should proceed. Our social worker, Nancy Hibbert was invaluable and helped us get the paperwork in place and our profile book completed.
While we thought we were great candidates, there were a few items not in our favor. Chris and I were in our early forties, we had suffered the loss of a child and we also had a 9-year-old child at home. Still, I knew we had to risk not getting picked by a birthmother. We never looked back and kept going.
In August of 2007, we returned home from a week up north and there was a phone message on our machine. A birthmother had chosen us and wanted to meet us! In September, we met our awesome birthmother. She and I got to know each other and I hold her very closely in my heart.
On December 6, 2007, our beautiful daughter, Annie was born. Annie has changed our lives. She is almost 5 years old and my husband and I our still look at each other with wonderment that we were given the gift of Annie, to raise her as our child and to love her for life. Annie may never fully understand how special she is to us, nor how she not only mended our broken hearts, but made them fuller, forever.
-Katy W.