A few weeks ago, I gave a little snippet of our adoption experience. One of the reasons I started this blog, was to share this with you. I’ve back-tracked to the beginning of the story, and will continue to add more posts in the future. I hope it brings you LIGHT and HOPE, having FAITH that good things come after trials and struggles. When Ron and I were married December 8, 1983, I never imagined we would be the parents of an adopted child. I was never against adoption. I even had a good friend growing up who was adopted. It was crazy how she looked JUST LIKE her adopted mother! I always thought how amazing people were who could love someone else’s child. Little did I know, a child does not have to be born of our body to be loved as our own. Every child, MUST however be born of our heart, whether they are biologically ours, or adopted as ours – to me there is no difference.

When Ron and I got engaged, I had one semester of college left, and my goal was to continue my own little home sewing business. This is what I did, and enjoyed the creative opportunity and freedom I had of being my own boss and choosing my own hours.

I always knew I wanted to be a stay at home mom, and sewing afforded me to help our family with added income and be home with my kids. We had a hard time getting pregnant, but after a couple years, our oldest daughter Stephanie was born in May of 1986. I was scared to death! I was twenty four and still didn’t feel old enough to be responsible for another human being, but I never dreamt I could love anyone as much as I loved her the moment I saw her.

Steph was an amazing child – she STILL is!!! She is kind, loving, giving, and has the biggest most tender of hearts as she serves with all her might, mind and strength! She slept the night through from day one. I’ve said many times, it really isn’t fair that I had her first! She gave me the false sense of security that this kid-raising thing was a piece of cake! She was blessed with Ron’s calm temperament, and has always been wise beyond her years. We took her everywhere with us, we loved being together. Those were fairly easy, and happy times for me. I LOVED being a mom, and Steph was so easy. She would sit and play with her toys next to me as I sewed. Ron was struggling trying to find an occupation he enjoyed, that would also provide for our family. He had two different jobs before he found his love of selling woodworking machinery. Something he has done now for 32 years.

After a couple of years of marriage, it became evident I had inherited our family reproductive issues, making it difficult to have more children. As friends and family continued to have babies, it seemed it was not meant to be for us.

We spent the first years of our marriage in the Holbrook apartments. In October of 1986, we moved into our first home. It was very small, but brand new and we had the opportunity to choose the plan and colors. Oh those lovely days of mauve and dusty blue. We even had the wall paper border with the country looking geese on it! What in the world were we thinking?!!! I wondered how we would ever be able to afford that beautiful little home, but we were blessed and our dream of living in Kaysville came true.

We are active members of our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and have served in many different callings. When Steph was about three years old, I was called to serve in the Relief Society Presidency of our ward. Relief Society is one of the world’s largest women’s organizations, and the main focus is serving others. Dallen Webb had been called as the Relief Society President. Leuwanna Beagley was called as the Education Counselor and I was called as the Homemaking Counselor. Lori Morgan was my Homemaking Leader. Annette Jacobsen was called as the Secretary. I was so excited for this calling, but soon began to worry I was not on the same spiritual level as the other women. Dallen is ten years older than me, Leuwanna is the same age as my mother, and Annette was somewhere in between Dallen and Leuwanna’s ages. I remember going to our first meeting and coming home anxious and depressed. I had no idea what they were talking about, and felt out of my league.

At the time, I was faced with two decisions. I could go to the Bishop (church leader of our congregation), and ask to be released telling him I was not capable of the calling, or I could choose to step up and learn from these incredible women who were knowledgeable in so many life skills. Thank goodness I chose to meet the challenge and stay, hoping and praying they would be patient with me as I learned from them. There were many times I felt like a rag doll, with Dallen holding on to one arm and Leuwanna holding the other. It felt as though they were running as fast as they could, and because I couldn’t keep up, they held on to me and carried me until I could run on my own and keep up with them! Looking back, I believe I received this calling to prepare me to be open to the Spirit for decisions that would be coming our way in a couple short years.

I learned so much from these dear sweet women, and will forever be indebted to them for their kindness and compassion as I learned how to serve others, build my self-esteem to get up and talk in front of a group, and share of the talents Heavenly Father has so richly blessed me with. They believed in me more than I believed in myself, but showed me how to do hard things.

After serving with these women for two short years, Dallen’s husband was transferred to California and they moved. She was the best friend I had ever had, and I felt as though a part of me was gone. I mourned my loss, as I worried we would not keep in touch. Thankfully, we have now been friends longer than the two short years we were together. I believe there are some friendships that are made in heaven, and we are given the opportunity to reconnect here on earth. No matter what happens in this life, these friendships are Eternal, and this is the case with Dallen. The Lord has blessed me with other besties that have also seen me through some of the darkest days of my life. I heard it said once, “You only need one good friend to get through life with.” I must be a special project for the Lord to bless me with so many amazing women in my life! I Love and cherish each one!!!

For Dallen and me, our phone bills became part of the family budget that we didn’t discuss with our husbands! These were the days before cell phones, home computers, and email. Long distance phone calls were pricey! You got charged by the minute. But the way we looked at it, the phone bills were cheaper than psychological counseling. And trust me, we counseled often. I flew to California to help Dallen decorate her new home, even carrying my sewing machine with me on the airplane many times. The flight attendants would just roll their eyes in disgust, but we had many good times and I continued to learn many gospel principles from my good friend.

Dallen is a nurse and supported me emotionally, through many of my physical issues as we continued to try and have more children with no luck.

We had some neighbors in our ward (church) at the time, Kim and Kris Randall, and we heard they had traveled to Romania to adopt a child. Romania had been in the news a lot with the overthrow of Nicolai Ceausescu and the communist government. One of the worst atrocities of his regime were the amount of orphan children living in the horrific conditions in state run orphanages. There were many news programs and reports about these children, but somehow Ron and I never saw any of these programs on television, until after we got our Errin.

In September of 1990, we walked in to church one Sunday, and there at the end of the hall was one of the most beautiful children I’ve ever seen. A feeling came over me that is difficult to describe. I wondered who she was and then saw her father picking her up and holding her to get a drink at the drinking fountain. I knew immediately she was the child the Randall’s had adopted from Romania. I also had the intense feeling that I would do the same. What? I asked myself? Are you crazy? Adoption is something OTHER people do. Could I truly love someone else’s child? There was another huge issue. Adoption of any kind, whether domestic or foreign is extremely expensive and we were barely making ends meet as it was.

Ron had just changed jobs, and taken a huge cut in pay. We were worried we would even be able to keep making our house payment. The thought of traveling half way around the world to adopt a child was impossible . . . or was it?

We stopped and talked to Kim and met his adorable daughter Kalee. He told us a little about his experience, which was less than desirable, and certainly not safe. We asked him a few more questions about adopting, which actually surprised me, because we had not even considered it. What I didn’t know at the time, is that Ron had had the same impression I had the moment he saw that adorable little Romanian girl as well. Neither of us dared say anything to the other because it was such a crazy, far-fetched, impossibility.

A couple days later, I got a phone call from Kris Randall. She told me they were inviting a few couples over to their home who were interested in adopting children from Romania, and asked if we wanted to come. I told her, I doubted we would be there, but I would talk to Ron and let her know. I had not been able to get it off my mind since church on Sunday and when Ron got home, I got the courage to tell him about the meeting the Randall’s had invited us to. I told him I felt this was something we were supposed to check out a little further. Ron immediately told me he had been feeling the exact same things. As we talked and wondered how in the world we would be able to afford it, we decided we would go to the meeting and at least learn more about it.

There were about ten couples, and out of all of them, we were the least committed. We later learned that Ron and I, and one other couple were the only ones who followed through and actually adopted a child from Romania.

We went home that night and all we could think about was this was the answer to our prayers, and exactly what we were supposed to do. We had always felt we would have three children. I have no idea why we both came to that number, but there was no doubt we were supposed to have more. We also knew, as crazy as it sounded, we would be going to Romania to get at least one or two of them.

We had no idea how we would pay for it, but Ron assured me if the Lord wanted us to do this, a way would be provided. We went to our parents and told them our plans. I was actually surprised that my parents were the supportive ones and Ron’s parents were not so keen on the idea. They asked if the child would have dark skin? This question came as a shock to us, and I have to be honest, it upset me. However, as I look back on it now, they grew up in a totally different era in the predominantly white, tiny mountain valley of Morgan, Utah. John was born in 1920 and served in England during WWII. Eileen was born in 1928 and rarely left the Morgan Valley. As this question caught us off guard, we told them we didn’t know if the child’s skin would be light or dark, and it didn’t matter to us. We just knew there was a child half way around the world who was meant to be ours, and we would do whatever it took to go and get him or her! John and Eileen were hesitant through the whole process, but once we walked off that airplane with Errin, all the apprehension was gone, and Errin was loved and accepted as much as all the other grandchildren. I also need to say how much I LOVE my in-laws! It’s common to hear me say, “Ron was the bonus in the deal.” I am closer to John and Eileen, than my own parents. They love unconditionally, and I would be lost without them.

My parents told us they would help us in any way they could including financially. I knew this would come with great sacrifice on their part. They told us they always wanted to have more children and felt this was a way to complete the yearning they had felt after losing so many of their own before they were born. My mother had three miscarriages, and I believe this had something to do with mental health issues throughout her life. This was a good time in my relationship with my parents, which to be honest, has been rare in my life. Even though things have been rough with them through the years, I am grateful for their gift of life to me, and for the help they gave us to get Errin. We had more than half of what we needed in savings, but would need to come up with more. Family and friends rallied to the cause, and in the end, we miraculously ended up with just what we needed.

I immediately went to work gathering the mountains of documents in sets of six that would be needed to complete the process. Each document had to be notarized and then stamped with a raised seal from our bank. Even though that raised seal meant absolutely nothing, each Romanian official that looked at our papers would glance over the ink stamp of the notary public, but would intently study that raised seal from Barnes Bank here in Kaysville, before they approved the next step in the process. I would take our documents with Stephanie in tow to INS in Salt Lake City (Immigration and Naturalization Services) only to find out I needed more, that things had changed, and not to count on this happening as adoptions in Romania were fragile.

I remember going to a big group meeting in regard to Romanian adoptions at the Salt Lake Library hosted by INS. We all left that meeting feeling as if all the air had been taken from our sails. They were anything but encouraging and supportive, and pretty much told us it would be a miracle if we came home with a child.

During this time, it was difficult to see the LIGHT. But the Lord loves EFFORT!!! And I was willing to give it all that I had to make this happen!!! Satan did all he could to prevent this child from being ours, but in the end, LIGHT always conquers darkness, and Spring always follows Winter. This is just the beginning of our story . . . There are many more chapters to come.

Have a wonderful week! And please look for ways to share your LIGHT each day!

Love Ya, Les ☺