November is a special time year with families gathering together to celebrate Thanksgiving. But for me and many people I know it's an extra special time because this is also a time to bring awareness to and encourage people to adopt kids in foster care. I think I would adopt every child in foster care if I could. A child is still a child no matter what they've been through in this life and they all deserve someone to love them.

It's also a time to recognize Birth Mothers, Adoptive parents, and children. In my own family I have cousins and an Aunt who have placed babies for adoption and an Aunt and Uncle who adopted a little girl. These were things I always knew about but never really knew or understood. I think that's how it is in general. I think people know about or have heard of someone at some point being affected by adoption but never really stop and think about what that all entails or what it means.

I try really hard not to get too worked up over the overwhelming lack of knowledge about adoption that plagues our society and even our culture as Latter Day Saints, but it's hard. Poor Clint has endured many rants about this topic. I of course have to share a little rant otherwise Clint might start to feel picked on. ;-) So here's my beef: 1. I don't think our church does enough to bring awareness or support to those affected by this topic. I think they are trying and getting better, but I can tell you right now when I placed my baby for adoption their efforts were not enough. If you live in Salt Lake your set in this department. They have every resource a birth mother or adoptive couple, or even adopted children could ever need, but if you live anywhere else you're left to fend for yourself. Not good! 2. Outside the church (and I really, really, really, try to ignore this stuff) people just flat out don't know and don't understand. Because of that we have teenage girls getting pregnant and doing unspeakable things to these precious children of God. Every so often I catch a blip on the news here or there about babies being left on church doorsteps and hospital doorsteps, and these are the lucky babies. When I hear about other things like babies being dumped in garbage cans, dumpsters, alley ways, ditches, etc. it makes me want to cry for the mother who felt she had no other choice, cry for the baby who had to suffer because of ignorance, and scream because why oh why did that mother not know?!

It's hard for me because I can see both sides of the "birth mother" coin. It's so easy to feel trapped and even easier to feel like no one understands. I can only imagine how hard it must be for those girls who work up the courage to tell their parents what's going on only to have their parents turn their backs on them or force them to do something they don't want to do. I can only imagine the agony of feeling that baby growing inside and feeling like you have no where to turn, no one to talk to, and carrying that secret for all those months. The saddest thing of all is that if people, parents, children, teens etc. just had the resources and the information there would be no need for them to feel so alone, so helpless, so out of control, or for bad things to happen to innocent children. I find it interesting that our nations schools can teach our children about sex and even hand out contraceptives, but to talk about what to do if they do get pregnant is considered wrong and indoctrinating. If we're going to hand out contraceptives to our children shouldn't we go the next step and tell them what to do if they do get pregnant?

Okay I'm done with my rant for now. There is a lot more I could say about all that but for time sake will move along. I've obviously never adopted a child so I can't speak for adoptive parents or children who have been adopted. But I can say that every adoptive parent that I have spoken with can hardly express their feelings of love and gratitude for their children and for the birth mother who helped give them the family they always wanted, dreamed of, hoped for, and needed. And I can say that if I ever had the opportunity to adopt I would. The birth mothers need the adoptive parents as much as they need them.

My own personal feelings about my situation are feelings of gratitude for a Heavenly Father who carried me through, a Bishop who never left my side and worked tirelessly with me, a birth father who cared enough to be there for me and for his baby, for parents who loved me and supported me no matter how hard it was for them, for adoptive parents who, to this day, go above and beyond for me and for their kids, and for my sweet Lindsey who gave me my life and who will always be in my heart.