Our July family was the first “walk-in” we have had. Literally, we met while walking on base! I’ll talk about adoption with anyone, and when Allison recognized me and shared a bit of her story I knew we had to feature their family. Check it out – as usual, in their words.
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I ran into Kathleen and her sweet daughter on base one day and I knew they looked familiar…then all of a sudden it dawned on me! We had connected over a Faithful Adoptions Consultant (from our first adoption) post on Instagram after I saw that they were also an Air Force family living in Colorado Springs. I recognized her daughter from all the darling pictures of her modeling bows! I felt like I was meeting a mini celebrity. When she heard that we were adopting again, she kindly reached out and asked if she could feature us as her July family. We are so honored that you are taking the time to stop by and check out our story and our bows!
Here’s a little bit of our story…
About six years ago, Jacob was attending the Air Force Academy, and Allison was working as a volunteer coordinator for a ministry called Young Life that sets up mentors in the community with middle school and high school students. A mutual friend suggested we meet because Jacob would be great at hanging out with students and Allison needed an additional volunteer for one of the middle schools she oversaw. Even though the relationship started off in a professional capacity, we became fast friends, and it didn’t take long before we realized we were falling in love. We got married in June 2013.
When we were dating and had conversations about what we wanted our future families to look like, we both talked about wanting to adopt. Once we were engaged, we dreamed about our future children, thinking we would have a biological child first and then adopt. After a few years of marriage, we began trying to get pregnant. After 14 months of trying, 6 months of which we received fertility treatment, we decided to stop pursuing pregnancy and chose to pursue adoption. Allison realized her deepest desire was to be a mother, not necessarily to be pregnant, and that adoption also fulfilled that longing.
We see God’s design for adoption reflected in the Gospel. He adopts us as His sons and daughters into His family forever! We recognize that adoption is a broken hallelujah–the breaking of one family and the forming of another. We don’t take that lightly and highly respect and value the selfless bravery of birth families. We adopted our first daughter, Liliana Joy, from birth and couldn’t imagine loving her any more. It has been a humbling delight to be parents and we want to grow our family!
We are pursuing another infant, domestic adoption. We are open to either a boy or girl!
We adopted Lily when we were stationed in Louisiana. Because we live in Colorado now, we had to start the entire home study process over as it is state dependent. Thankfully, the process was not quite so daunting this time because we had done it before. It is still SO. MUCH. PAPERWORK. I heard someone once compare the paperwork of an adoption to the morning sickness of a pregnancy. If that’s the case, we were super nauseous, ha! We completed our interviews and home inspection and our home study was just approved. We are officially active and waiting to be picked!
We chose to work with a local agency this time called Hope’s Promise. There are two main reasons for that. First, it should help keep the cost down a bit (for a variety of reasons, Lily’s adoption was extra expensive). Second, if we get matched with a birth mom desiring more of an open relationship, Colorado is the place to do it! Even if we don’t get stationed here again (we hope we do!), it feels like home base. Jacob and I both went to college here, my family is here…we will always have a reason to come back to visit.
Our agency told us to expect it to take 1-2 years to get matched. The waiting is so hard, especially for my planner personality, but we know that God has the perfect timing and plan for our family. We can’t wait to hold our second baby in our arms and to see Lily as a big sister!
Kathleen again- Check out the bows they chose!
We are thrilled to be working with another Air Force family, and thrilled they chose the mountains to represent their home when this second adoption happens. The other bows were selected because honestly – they just loved them. Remember, any purchase on our shop this month goes to support the Forbes family! 100% of profit!