Tyler Garns

Yesterday Jill & I spent the entire day at an adoption conference.  All day we were surrounded by adoption fanatics; people who are dedicating their lives to promote adoption.  Although it felt a little weird at first, by the end of the day my heart had been touched multiple times as I heard these people’s stories.  No doubt, adoption can be a miraculous process.

We heard story after story of people who had been adopted and adoptive parents that knew deep inside that, although they (or their child) came into the world through somebody else, they ended up in the family they were meant to be in.

Jill and I started the adoption process a couple of months ago with the feeling that we needed to complete our family.  We both feel like a little girl is missing.  We were completely naive (and probably still are) about the process, the potential pitfalls, and the emotional ups and downs.  But, after the conference yesterday, we’re both more excited than ever.  I can’t wait to hold our baby girl in my arms.

Here are a few interesting tidbits I learned at the conference:

• Adoption Scammers – apparently this is pretty big business.  And it makes sense.  Adoption is expensive.  So, there’s potential for people to rip off a lot of people for a lot of money.  But, what’s strange is that some women pretend to be pregnant just to get attention.  We heard a crazy story of a girl who has been scamming multiple people at once (you can read it here).  When she was caught and asked why, she said it was because she liked the attention she got when she told people she was pregnant.  She wasn’t scamming money out of people, she was scamming emotions.
• Most adopted people don’t feel judged or that they’re looked upon any different than anyone else just because they’re adopted.  It seems that people who aren’t adopted often assume that the adopted feel stigmatized.  Usually not true.
• Adopted children are curious.  No matter how great their family life is, and how much they love and appreciate their adoptive parents, they’re curious about where they came from.  In most cases, they’ll eventually want to find their birth parents.  It’s not an attempt to replace their parents, but only to satisfy the curiosity and fill the gaps in their question of “Where do I come from?”
• Open Adoption – It used to be that once a baby was adopted all communication from the birth parents was cut off.  Now, open adoption is encouraged.  In many cases the birth mother becomes a good friend of the family and sees the baby often.  To Jill and I this seemed extremely odd at first.  After hearing the stories of adoptive parents and adopted children yesterday, we’re both much more open to the idea of open adoption.   In some ways I actually look forward to it.  Birth mothers choose adoption because they’re not in a situation to give the baby the life they hope the baby to have.  I know of no better person to be a friend and support to a birth mother in that kind of situation than Jill.  She is amazing at giving love to those in need.

Needless to say, I’m completely excited and anxious as we embark on this search for our little girl.

P.S. We left Spencer & Kaden at home by themselves all day.  It’s the first time they’ve spent that much time alone.  They were so excited to “party all day” without their parents there.  By the time we got home, they were bored to tears. 

A few weeks ago we hopped in the car on a Thursday afternoon to drive to California. I needed to be in San Diego for a work event on Friday, so we decided to take the whole family for the weekend.

Jill was driving so that I could get some work done. Suddenly, she screamed and started to swerve to the left. We were in the left lane on I-10 heading West, just outside of Quartzite. Jill had seen a car in front of us about 100 yards start to turn as if it were doing a u-turn and would be heading back towards us head-on. As I looked up, we saw the car (which turned out to be a truck) roll 3 times off the side of the road. Immediately I yelled at Jill to pull over. As soon as our car came to a stop I told Jill to call 911 as I ran toward the truck. A few steps from our car I heard crying in the bushes about 30 yards from the truck. It sounded like a baby crying. Since Jill is a pediatric nurse, I yelled back to her that there was a baby in the bushes. Once I got over there I realized that it wasn’t a baby at all, but a 24 year old woman who had been ejected from the truck. She was crying & writhing in pain. Blood was streaming from her head, from one ear, and various cuts on her arms and legs. I was concerned about a broken back or neck so I urged her to stay still. Once I determined that she was stable for the time being (and another passerby had stopped to help) I turned to the car where Jill was attending to the lady in the passenger’s seat. As Jill stepped away from the passenger-side window, my heart stopped as I looked into the lifeless face of the woman in the seat. Her eyes were fixed wide open and blood was dripping down her forehead. As I got closer, I realized that she was alive, but she was not aware of what was going on. She obviously had a major head injury and her right wrist was badly broken. After some time, she finally started to come to and was able to talk to us.

Heath was the name of the man driving. Other than some scrapes and bruises, he was fine. He explained to us that he was pulling over when he lost control and the car flipped. The lady in the front seat was his mother and the girl who was ejected was his girlfriends. They were both named Sarah.

After about 30 minutes, two Highway Patrolmen showed up. 10 minutes or so after that, an ambulance showed up and the paramedics began taking over medical care of the two Sarahs. A little while later, two helicopters showed up and the two ladies were airlifted back to Phoenix.

This experience was one of those times that makes you stop and realize that it could all be over in the blink of an eye. Take time today to let your family & friends know you love them. Give service today. Mend an old friendship. Ask for forgiveness. Make another’s day brighter.

You may not have another chance.

If you’ve ever had the “sex talk” with your kids, or you still have that moment to look forward to, let me tell you how it went for us last night (hopefully they won’t kill me when they grow up and find this post).

We had the talk with our two older sons, Spencer (10 yrs old) & Kaden (8 yrs old).

It was a fun, hilarious, serious, and fascinating experience for everyone.

The night started with a great dinner prepared by Jill, complete with locally grow, fresh corn-on-the-cob.  Yes, that’s relevant to the story. But no, not in the way you’re thinking.  Get your mind out of the gutter.

Before we get into it, you need to understand Spencer & Kaden.  Spencer is the attentive, logical, scientific, good student.  He accepts what you say as gospel and tends to be very obedient.  Kaden often seems to be aloof – off in his own creative world.  Yet, he’s always listening.  He’s the deep thinker.  You wouldn’t always know it, but he has deep insight into many things.

With our medical backgrounds, Jill and I planned to approach the talk from a scientific standpoint first and then transition into a discussion of morality, chastity, and obedience.  We paper-clipped the necessary diagrams, photos, and laproscopic images, made a quick game plan, and jumped right into the discussion.

Since the boys were aware of Jill’s surgery last year, we figured we’d start there.  We explained that mom can’t have babies anymore because she doesn’t have a uterus.  At this point, the boys were attentive and following just fine.

Then we got into how a baby grows inside the uterus.  We showed diagrams of an egg coming from the ovary (from mom) and sperm (from dad) joining the egg and creating cell that splits over and over again and grows into a baby.  During this time, Spencer was nodding his head, following along just fine.  It all made perfect sense to him.  Kaden, on the other hand, held a perplexed look on his face until finally he blurted, “Wait! How did that sperm get in there?”

It’s not necessarily a funny question, but it broke the tension Jill and I were feeling and we all ended up laughing pretty hard.

After we finished explaining how the baby grows inside the mom, along with all of the female anatomy (met with Kaden hysterically laughing – to the point of crying) it was time to explain male anatomy.  More laughing and rolling on the floor.

Puberty was the next topic.  They both thought growing hair in their armpits was a rather hilarious subject.  I explained all the changes that their bodies would be going through including changes below the waist, acne, muscle growth, hair in various places, and a deepening voice.  We spent a few minutes talking about how the development of an “Adam’s Apple” causes a guy’s voice to get deeper.  Right in the middle of that discussion, Spencer blurted “Finally!!!!”  Jill and I thought for sure he was excited to finally develop a deeper voice.  But his sentence continued, “Finally!!!! I got the corn out of my teeth!”  Jill and I busted up with nervous laughter (because the big stuff was still coming).

As we got to the point where we actually had to tell them EXACTLY how all this works, I realized that I hadn’t rehearsed that part in my head beforehand.  So, I went in circles a few times trying to find the words.  I could feel Jill tensing up, probably wondering why the heck I wasn’t just getting to the punch line.  Well, the punch line eventually came and it was met with acceptance from Spencer and total confusion from Kaden.  Don’t get me wrong, he understood completely what we had just explained.  He was just mentally trying to figure out the logistics.

He abruptly stood up, thrust his hips forward, and said “So, you just stick it in there?”  Again, the ice-breaker.  Jill and I were immediately rolling.

Needless to say, it was a great experience for all of us (I think).  Jill and I hope it’s the start of many talks with our boys and relationships where they can be 100% open and honest with us.  They’re good boys.  We love them to death.

Recently Jill & I decided to start looking into adoption.  She had to have a hysterectomy a couple of years ago and now we’re wondering if our family really is complete.

So, a couple of days ago we started the process by submitting the initial paperwork.  We talked to our kids about it and asked them to pray that we’ll be able to make the right decisions.

Last night, Ashton, our 4 year old, said our family prayer.

During the prayer, he said:

Thank you that we could get a new baby.  Thank you that someone else doesn’t want their baby anymore and they’ll give it to us.

Funny, sad, & poignant – all at the same time.