Brek, Veronica, Dakota and Chance's Adoption Story

It  was always our dream to have children. We had our son in 1996 and thought that it would never be a problem to have more. We tried for about seven years to have another child, going to infertility specialists and OB doctors, but with the outcome being only doctor bills. So, a couple of years ago we talked about adoption, but talking about it was all we had done.

In August of 2006, we heard from a friend about American Adoptions and what a wonderful experience he and his wife had, so we decided to make the call and get the process started. We got our application done and sent back. Next thing we knew, it was time for our home study. We did our profile and we were activated on November 10, 2006. We got a room ready that would be for a boy or girl and waited, thinking that it may be 12 months or so before we would get a match.

In March 2007, the day that will never be forgotten, Veronica got a call from Roxanne out of American Adoptions of Florida and she was calling us to let us know that we had been matched with a birth mom and she was due to have a baby in June. We went to Florida in April to meet the birth mom and take her to her doctors appointment. She wanted us to be there with her becuase she was finding out that day what the sex of the baby was. We took her and found out that she was having a baby boy. She wanted us to be involved in every decision that she made, including the date of her c-section. We can't express enough how much help Roxanne from American Adoptions was through this whole process. If we would call her with questions, she was always good about returning our calls the same day. As we were going through this, we got to be so close with Roxanne and our birth mom.

We went back to Florida on June 7 so we would be there for the delivery of our son. On June 8, 2007, we picked up our birth mom and took her to the hospital and Veronica got to go in the delivery room with her to have her c-section. This was a very happy, emotional day for all of us. Our 11-year-old son and Veronica's mom also went with us. Our son was born at 12:53 p.m. and we had to wait 48 hours after that for the birth mom to sign the papers. We got to take care of him in the hospital and we let the birth mom spend some time with all of us and took some pictures of her and him, she was just like another part of our family. The hardest part of the whole adoption was after we signed the adoption papers and we told the birth mom good-bye as she was dismissed from the hospital. We got to leave the hospital with our son and live out of a motel for seven days in Florida. We finally got the call that we were free to come back home with our new baby on Friday, June 15, 2007, so our oldest son and Veronica immediately went to find airline tickets. We got home on Saturday, June 16, 2007 with our new son, the day before Father's Day. What a wonderful day that was!

We can't thank everyone enough at American Adoptions for everthing that they have done to help us through our whole process, especially Roxanne. From the first time we talked to her on the phone, she helped ease our minds and made sure that we understood everything! She was a huge help and became a wonderful friend to our whole family! We had our final court hearing on September 24, 2007 and we are now complete with everything and have this week just received our son's birth certificate! Chance Ryan, our new addition, will be 5 months old November 8, 2007. He and our older son, Dakota, are the pride and joy of our entire family! Again, we would like to thank you, American Adoptions, and thank our parents, friends and family for all the support, prayers and love that you have shown us during our wonderful journey!

Brek and Veronica.