SUCCESS STORIES

We had gone through years of unexplained infertility and knew we always wanted to have a family. We chose adoption as the path to grow our family. Our adoption journey was unique. We began working with LDS Adoption Services and a few months later they got out of the adoption business. They recommended a few agencies and Everlasting Adoptions was one of them. We then started working with Everlasting and after several months, we were presented with an adoption opportunity through a friend. Everlasting was kind enough to put our contract on hold as we explored this connection. In 2014, we adopted our son John. About 18 months later, we felt ready to adopt again and took our contract off hold. Three years from our initial contract date with Everlasting, we welcomed our second son, Andrew into the world.

Our experience with Everlasting Adoptions was wonderful. Not only did they work with us to put our contract on hold but also had an amazing team that helped us every step of the way. Birth Mother Consultant, Lisa was especially amazing and helped answer the difficult questions. She constantly reassured us of the support we would receive no matter what decision we made when faced with the difficult decisions.

If we were to offer advice to other prospective adoptive parents, we would say that the process is worth the wait and do your best not to question yourself during the wait. Also, do your best to discuss each situation before it comes along. That way you have an idea what you might do should the situation arise.

Samantha and Jeremy came to Everlasting Adoptions after struggling with infertility for a few years. They had always felt as if their family was incomplete, so they turned to adoption. In March, only 10 months after signing on with Everlasting, they were connected with birth mom, Crystal. Four short months later, they welcomed their baby boy, Nathan into the world.

If they could offer one piece of advice to other adoptive couples, it would be that despite the stress you may be feeling, rest assured that Everlasting Adoptions will be by your side every step of the way. They were so wonderful, very helpful and empathetic.

Thank you Samantha and Jeremy for letting us be a part of your adoption journey and play such an important role in helping to complete your family.

When Jonathan and I first met, within the first week of talking we discussed the topic of adoption. We contacted Everlasting adoptions in October 2016. After speaking with Carol, we got a strong sense of love from her and we knew this was the right agency and decision. Our home study was completed in December and in late February we got a call from Lisa letting us know a birth mother was interested in us. We instantly connected with our birth mother and knew this was God’s plan. Throughout the next 5 1/2 months we talked daily and FaceTime twice a week and would drive up to visit her once a month. We were very blessed that she only lived a few hours away. Our adoption did have its ups and downs, but looking at our precious baby boy made it all worth it.

The staff at Everlasting Adoptions went above and beyond our expectations. Lisa is a true gem and was our rock during the many ups and down of our journey. She always made us feel like a priority no matter what day or time. Her constant words of encouragement and advice, guided us in times of need. Her passion for wanting to see through a successful adoption was very apparent. We felt as though she truly has a love for adoption and was with us every step of the way.

If you’re looking for an agency who does everything in their power to have a successful adoption and truly cares, then we encourage you to reach out to Everlasting Adoptions. Our dreams have become a reality because of the experienced loving staff members at this agency. It’s because of them we have such a beautiful son in our lives. A big thank you to everyone who contributed in our adoption journey. Words can’t express how thankful and happy we are!

Jeremy and I had tried to grow our family biologically for 6 years with no success. We realized all we really wanted was to just be parents to our own little person; biology didn’t matter. Since none of our efforts worked, we began wondering if God had a different, extra special plan in mind for our lives involving the miracle of adoption instead. We of all people struggled with believing this was going to work for us. We doubted, we worried, we trusted God and we doubted again. On May 31st, our little blessing Canaan Reign was born only 8 months after signing on with Everlasting Adoptions!

 

Everlasting Adoptions was exactly what we needed in an agency. Being someone who needs a lot of support and encouragement during times like these, they were so amazingly equipped and empathetic throughout the entire process. We were pleasantly surprised many times by how compassionate and sweet they were. There were a few times I thought I shouldn’t bother them, but I took them up on the offer to “call for anything” and was so relieved I did. They speak truth and encouragement to you in a way that just works. Pay close attention to any negative reviews you may come across, as they seem completely one-sided. I had no doubts we were choosing the right agency after speaking with Carol. She is genuine and really gets the whole adoption roller coaster and is great at her job! Our birth mom even told us how respected she felt by Everlasting and how kind they were to her when all she’d experienced was judgement and criticism by other agencies.

We knew we wanted to start a family and infertility treatments did not guarantee that. Our goal was to be parents no matter how and we decided adoption was the right path for us. We are incredibly lucky that the process took us 10 months. Everyone at Everlasting Adoptions was awesome and our experience was great. We could text the Director, Carol at any time and she would respond quickly. Lisa, our Birth Mother Coordinator was our sounding board once we were connected to a birth mother. Our birth mother was unsure if she wanted to place her baby and Lisa was instrumental in calming us down and talking us through that stressful time. If we could offer other adoptive parents a word of advice, it would be to try and remain patient. When they say “it happens when you least expect it”, it is true! If you have doubts reach out to someone. It WILL happen, it is just a matter of WHEN it will happen.

Kirsten and I had spent many years and tried many different methods to have children but were unsuccessful. After some soul searching, we decided to pursue adoption. We would be lying if we said 30 months of waiting were not frustrating and angst filled, but in the end the wait was worth the amazing end result, our daughter Tuesday Elise. We also were able to find solace in the Everlasting Adoptions staff who were always there to ease our frustration, or answer our questions, or to just reassure us that everything we were experiencing was normal.

Since so many of the staff members at Everlasting Adoptions were adoptive parents themselves, they were able to understand our frustration and stress. They were always available and responded so quickly to our calls and texts. They aided us in meeting the birth family and helped us find lawyers. They also facilitated the first few meetings between us and the birth family.

For all prospective adoptive parents out there, try and be patient and trust the staff at Everlasting Adoptions. Be prepared to experience a total range of emotions, maintain strong communication, and be totally honest with yourself and others. If adoption is the path you have chosen, it will be worth it in the end.

Mike and I turned to adoption after being told that we would be physically unable to have children. We had both always dreamed of having children, so we prayed and felt like this was the decision God had for us. After 2 years with Everlasting Adoptions and a few unsuccessful matches, we finally met the birth mom God had planned for us. On January 23^rd, our precious daughter Natalee was born and she is worth every second of the wait.

We are forever grateful to Everlasting Adoptions and would especially like to thank Lisa, our Birth Mother Consultant. I don’t think we would have met our birth mom without her! The Everlasting staff are amazing. Through our ups and downs they never gave up on us.

If we could give one piece of advice to other prospective adoptive parents, we would tell them to keep faith that your time will come! We know from personal experience that this is easier said than done and at some points in our journey it seemed like it would never happen, but we were patient and finally got the call that forever changed our lives.

Mike & Julie

I have a lot of love and gratitude in my heart today as I hold my precious son in my arms. I’ve wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember, but didn’t have the opportunity. In April of 2013, I joined Everlasting Adoptions. I had no idea what a whirlwind of emotions the adoption process would be, but I was grateful for the staff at Everlasting Adoptions who helped me through the process. Finally, after 3 long years, I was connected with the birthmother of my son. Xavier was born October 2016, and is the greatest blessing in my life. I’m so grateful for Carol and all the staff at Everlasting Adoptions.

It is with a very grateful heart that I write this. We are Joe and Kourtney, and if you have been with Everlasting for any length of time and are as nosy as we are, you have most likely read our profile. Like us you would have gone through and read most of the profiles to see what all the different families are like, and then get worried that no one will ever pick you over all these other amazing families! Like us you may go back and forth on whether going with Everlasting Adoptions was the “best” choice for you and worry that this couldn’t possibly work. You may read comments on Facebook or Internet and wonder, “Is this the real deal?” We did all this and more, and to be honest, all of it was our fear taking over. When you want something so badly and your heart just aches with it, you allow so many doubts to come in. When you are talking about the life of a child, it can be absolutely overwhelming emotionally. Coming into Everlasting, we already had three children; two of them biological, and the third, adopted. We had never been with any type of agency before and really didn’t know what to expect. A friend of ours had seen Everlasting Adoptions online and mentioned them to us. So one night, Kourtney filled out an application, and within a day we got a phone call from Everlasting. Our experience with Everlasting, from the very beginning was definitely positive and something that we would repeat and also encourage friends and family to go through if they were looking to adopt. We felt that from day one they were very honest and transparent with us, even telling us that because of our already having children it may take longer to find a match. We have been very satisfied and grateful for everything they have done for us. Every email I wrote was promptly replied to (and I wrote often!), every picture I asked to be put on or taken off of their website was done quickly (again A LOT). If I called them, they answered or called right back. We are so thankful for everything they have done. When we finally made our match (after 18 months) they helped us find lawyers and helped us figure out the next steps. They even helped us in the very first steps of connecting with the birth mom when we were unsure how to proceed. We now have our sweet little Mikaiah Jude and are so in love with him. He is now five weeks old, and already we can’t imagine life without him. He puts a smile on everyone’s face (even in the early morning hours when he’s hungry and we are exhausted). Life is crazy, unpredictable, noisy and a lot more unorganized, but we wouldn’t trade it for anything. I think if we can say anything to you, it would be to stay the course and don’t allow doubt to get in the way of what you already know is the right thing for your family. You will go crazy with waiting, your patience will be tested, you will think time is standing still, but in the end you will have a precious and VERY loved baby in your arms for life and every minute of the past months/years will be worth it.

Adoption was something that Bill and I had always talked about. We talked about adoption before we even had decided to start a family. We really felt that it was an incredible opportunity to love a child in the way, we believe, God loves us. We had a difficult time getting pregnant with our first son and ended up using fertility treatments. After having Boden, our oldest, we made the decision that adoption would be the way we built our family. We began the process and were a “waiting family” for two months when we found out we were pregnant. We then put the adoption on hold and restarted the process at the end December 2015. We continued to feel called to adopt a baby as a way to love the child and birth parents in a way that is radical and selfless.

After restarting the adoption after having our second son, Jack, our adoption took about 3 months. We restarted on December 24, 2015 and were called on April 4, 2016. The wait was nothing like we had expected. We expected to wait at least a year and were floored when I received the call about our little girl only 3 months into the process.

Because our process was a little unconventional, having to put it on hold for a time, we had a lot of contact with Carol and the staff. I would say that our “rock” through the process was Carol. We had positive experiences with all of the staff, but Carol was the one who helped us to feel most cared for and made the process feel very personalized.

For those parents who are waiting, we remember those months. The most cliche response I’d have would be, it’ll happen when you least expect it. In our case I’d also say, be ready for it to happen fast. We thought we’d have time to prepare, but we were notified by Carol about Mila, two days before she was due. During our season of waiting we prayed a lot. We prayed for our birth parents and for our unborn baby. We didn’t know when it would be, but we knew that God had already chosen our child for us. We knew that there wasn’t anything we could do to make it go faster or slow down, when God ordained for our daughter to come into our family, it would happen…and it would be perfect. Our other advice would be to those of you who have children already. We would encourage you to be talking to your children about it now. Prepare their hearts to be a big brother or sister. Help them to understand adoption and why you want to build your family this way. Also, allow people into your lives to be a part of your journey. It can be painful and its emotional, but we had such a supportive community around us praying fervently, that we felt cared for regardless of the outcome of our situation. If you are called to adopt, your baby is coming. It will be the perfect baby, at the perfect time, through a perfect story.

Our experience was phenomenal. The beginning of the process was tedious and felt long, but it was worth every penny. Everlasting’s staff was wonderful and went above and beyond to be sure we were pleased with everything from our profile book, to the website, to our monthly updates, and more. When the rubber hit the road and we matched with Jenn, Carol was our backbone and guide through the process. It all went very quickly but there wasn’t a time, day or night, where Carol was not available to us. She was texting Jenn at all hours of the day and diligently worked to keep communication open between Jenn, us, and our lawyer. Carol’s passion for adoption and for families is incredible, and it made us feel very cared for and special. When I hear of other folks who want to adopt, I tell them Everlasting is the only way to go. We couldn’t have gotten through that emotional week without Carol’s support. We are so thankful to her for her guidance and heartfelt interactions!

When we think about our experience and look at our beautiful daughter, we are reminded how blessed we are. When I stare at Mila, I’m often brought to tears with her beauty and the responsibility and gift I’ve been given to love her for the rest of her life. We didn’t know how our adoption story would be written, but Mila’s story is so much more beautiful than we ever could have imagined. Not only do we have her as a part of our family, but we have another new family member, Jenn, her birthmom. I love Jenn in a way that I never knew was possible and look forward to what our open adoption will look like for years to come. Adoption is a difficult decision for the birth parents, and we don’t take that lightly. So as we move forward, we are so excited to care for Jenn as a part of our family as well. Thank you for helping us to be parents again Everlasting Adoptions. Special thank you to Carol as well for loving us as family throughout it all.