Well hello there friend and welcome to the My Adoption Coach podcast.

My name is Amanda and I am an adoption coach. I am here to help you avoid unnecessary expense and overwhelm in your adoption journey so you can match faster.

I do this by supporting you at each step of your adoption journey with valuable training designed to help you save time and money. And by helping you create and share your high quality adoption profile so you can bring home your baby faster. I look forward to supporting you in your adoption journey. So let's dive right in to today's episode.

Can you imagine getting a phone call in the morning that your baby has been born? And that is time to go to the hospital and you weren't even expecting a match?

That's exactly the story of Matt and Kenzie, and they're going to share it with us today. Join me in welcoming Matt and Kenzie to the show.

Matt and Kinsey’s Story

Amanda: Kinsey and Matt, thank you so much for being willing to join us tonight. We're really appreciative of your time.

Kinsey and Matt: Yeah, we're happy to be here and help any way we can.

Amanda: Awesome. Well, I'd love if you would take just a minute to share a little bit about yourselves with the audience so they can get to know you as we get to understand your adoption journey a little bit more?

Kinsey and Matt: Well, my name is Kinsey. I am a home health physical therapist assistant and a full time photographer. And I'm Matt, I am a high school science teacher. And I do other other things in school. But yeah, I'm a high school science teacher.

Amanda: That's awesome. And I know we met each other about a yearish ago, I forget now how long it's been; I think it was about a year.

Kinsey and Matt: Yeah, it was.

Amanda: And I know that we met through Lucretius responding. She had I think shared my contact information with you. And I think the world of Lucretius, I think she's amazing at what she does. But I'd love for you to share just a little bit about your background and in the adoption journey. Alright, so kind of where were you when you met Lucretius, and then really kind of how everything kind of transpired to ultimately bring home your baby girl.

Kinsey and Matt: Um, so we started the process in 2020, we went through and did our home study, we actually spoke to Lucretius like prior to even us getting married, prior to even like starting the process. And we kind of knew what we needed. But we didn't know agency wise, how that works and things like that.

So we knew, first and foremost, we had a home study. And once we had that we kind of had a couple of different thought processes of agency-wise who we wanted to use. And we chose one, paid the fee, it was a small fee.

It turned out actually to be a scam, which is awful.

Yeah, no. And then later, we found another one, it took, , tons of phone calls. And we found one based out of Colorado. And we were very comfortable with them, they kept up to date, like paperwork, stuff, they were constantly sending us emails when it came to like when certain things were due paperwork wise on both of us.

But when it came to their, availability of of birth moms, versus how many families were on the waiting list, it was, it was quite a bit, they would get a mom, , in their agency once maybe every six months, if that. So we weren't getting a ton of like, emails or calls or anything like that. So we never got to experience having being chosen or any of those things with the agency side.

A Different Strategy

And so we had been with them for about two years. And, Matt can agree we kind of were like, Alright, we've hit this roadblock like what is our next step and I had gotten an email from Lucretius because she had started doing kind of like group emails and she's, , had us join a Facebook group.

And talking about adoption and her adoption program that she has to kind of help you go through those stages of trying to either match by yourself learning if like hiring a consultant or, and that's how we got your name is that Lucretius brought us in that road and avenue. Um, oh, I lost my train of thought but, um, , it took a couple of years, but we finally kind of figured that we wanted to try to self match.

And then, that brought us to you. And that, was a great experience it actually we got to kind of relive some of the cool things about our lives and our family and find all the pictures and we had a good time actually writing all of the things that you need everything to create your profile, it is some work creating a profile.

Amanda: But I'd love to hear why you thought that was a fun experience, because it is to me. And it's just telling the story of your family and what you guys love to do. And you being a photographer, you had some amazing, lots of options.

Kinsey and Matt: That was really awesome. So you and I worked together to create your profile. And so essentially, we're kind of considering self matching, or moving into self matching at that stage. And then you started sharing your profile.

Amanda: So what happened once you started sharing your profile?

Kinsey and Matt: Um, we actually like, maybe a week after Cleany, you gave us all the paperwork, we started that process of like posting on the Facebook groups. Within a week, I feel like I had gotten a text message from a potential birth mom. We actually spoke to her for a couple of weeks.

And, it took some, I don't know, how do we want to put this, it just didn't feel right.

Amanda: It didn't?

Kinsey and Matt: Yeah, it didn't click well. But I feel like that's part of the process, like, you're going to have those situations where like, what, like, and she's in Indiana? Yeah. So, we were like, 10 hours away. And like, it didn't click, it didn't feel right for us. And, so that contact sort of drifted.

But it was one of those deals where like, we were actually having a coffee conversation. And it's, when you go through an agency, they handle some of that and even, I guess, you don't have to worry about it clicking with an agency. But that being said, like we nothing to our agency, at least like it was sort of like, "Okay, now we're actually having conversations with these birth moms who want to get their babies up for adoption and more learn more about us".

So like, that was that was kind of hard, because it didn't quite work out. But at least it was moving in the right direction. Yeah, progress is so long. Very positive thing for us. Yeah. Even though it was it was negative on the birth mother's side. It it made us feel better that it's like, okay, it's not us. That's the road. There's other things that are having seen. Yeah.

And honestly, finding out that early into a connection that it's just really not a good fit for both parties is the best thing ever, right? Because the last thing you want to have happen as you get all the way to hospital time, right or even thereafter and either party start having doubts of , is this really the right fit and am I equipped to parent this child?

Can I keep up my commitments to this birth parent that I've committed to for life, right? So it's hard as it does feel it is because, listen, I've lived the other way where the birth parent has changed their mind.

Amanda: Right.

Kinsey and Matt: And it's, it's awful, it's gut wrenching, but when I look back on it, it's a blessing in disguise, right, because it was leading me to, to my children, to Bible, , that I have now right.

Amanda: So, so you connected with her and then how what happened from there?

Kinsey and Matt: So we had stopped communication with her and basically, , I started the process of like reposting things

I had set up on our Facebook and our Instagram kind of the, the automatic posts that you had set up real neat, and so I was having those, go on quite a bit. And so a lot of our friends and family were seeing us constantly post and I'm gonna start crying too- it was the morning of November 9 of last year.

Okay, can you get through it?

Grab cried that's for sure. Oh my gosh. It was one of my friends who's an occupational therapist who they had adopted two years prior. They have a baby girl, but they did it on the agency side. So they matched pretty quickly in their process. They only waited about six months total. And so she knew that we were, changing our avenues not necessarily going through the agency.

Finding Their Baby

And she called us that morning, probably about 5am. Yeah, and said, my sister helped deliver a baby. The mom, isn't in it, did not want to parent. And they were wondering, about if anyone was available to adopt, and they initially reached out to my occupational therapist friend, thinking that she would be able to adopt the baby.

But she goes, “No, our paperwork isn't up to date. But I know someone.” And so she gave the birth mother's mother (so our daughter's grandma) our information, and she called us and the baby was already born.

And so we made the process of going to the hospital and everything. And it was a wild ride that day. It was a wild Wednesday morning. Wednesday, ready to go to work? And it's like, Oh, hey, well, I should probably call in I guess.

Yeah, our whole world was changed. And it was definitely something. And we were actually, on the flip side, because it was in the same area will increase actually got to help on the other end. Yeah. So our photographer, there'll be, not get to hire her as our lawyer that we initially wanted to, but we were able to connect her with our birth mother. And actually, it was I will say, just already having an attorney sort of like, ready to go, had we not, it actually would have been different. She would have gone probably into foster care and it's almost guaranteed, we would have never seen her.

And so having an attorney ready to go was actually kind of a huge thing. Because Latrice is like, Okay, well, I need to get there now. And she did, she was boom, she got to the hospital, clear everything up with the hospital staff. She was then hired for to to handle the birth mother and her side of things, which obviously, she did an amazing job, just kind of making sure everything went well.

But yeah, it was really supported our birth mother, it was, she didn't feel like we were, pressuring her because honestly, we had never met them, we have no connection with them whatsoever. And so, that was kind of hard, because we really didn't know how to communicate with them. And so I think Lucretius did a great job of just reassuring that, like, I've known this couple, I know they they've done the work they are ready. They are a strong family. And so, I think just all the connections have been really, really positive. It was yeah, it was very nice.

Amanda: That's amazing. And what a an amazing story. I too had a, an unexpected daughter arrive in my world. And you're right that phone call just kind of turns everything upside down to your point of like, I was going to teach kids today and yeah, go hang out with my old patients. And that's quite fun to really kind of, move everything around so quickly.

Adopting in the Hospital

So talk to us about what that experience was like when you went to the hospital. And then when you were- were you in the same state or you're in different states and then kind of same state?

Kinsey and Matt: Same state.

Amanda: Okay.

Kinsey and Matt: So it was a very busy day. Because we woke up at 5am. At one point we did talk to our daughter's grandma, and she basically we talked for a little bit just trying to get to know him. Yeah. And then she was like, Well, why don't you come off to the hospital and meet your daughter? And it was like, Oh yeah, that was kind of crazy.

And the hospital sort of dead. They had procedures that they were trying to go through and figure out, which was part of the concern that our daughter may had ended up going into foster care, instead of us being because they weren't smiling. This situation doesn't happen very often, they were just trying to sort of follow the right procedures.

We actually luckily had friends in the area. So we were able to the hospital's, Listen, you can't be here, which is fine. They were just trying to follow their procedures, so we were able to go hang out, we went to Walmart, and just I was like, just in case, let's just go buy stuff. Like, we were ready to adopt, but we had nothing. We weren't ready to adopt that night. Right? Preparation. So it's like we were walking around Walmart and I'm just like, throwing things in my cart. I mean, this is his first car. Yeah. So I was like, alright, just put it in the cart.

And so there was a lot of downtime. There was some stressful ways, but eventually, like, what Chris got a hold of us. She helped smooth everything out.

Sorry. Our dog is going crazy.

But like, um, yeah, it was it was just a very, there was stress and a hope and fear and it was all sort of mixed together. Oh, my God.

Anyway, it was kind of crazy. But then when looked, Reese called, and was like, Okay, now you came out to the hospital. And when we got to go, and oh my gosh, just meeting her, she was so little. Oh, she was oh, six pound? And, yeah. Six, eight, right, six pounds eight ounces. Yeah, she was, she was tiny. Yes, but from day one, she was just so cold. Just like peaceful.

So we got to have her for about an hour to an hour and a half.

Because it was such such a small town hospital, we got to be in another birthing suite. Whereas the mom was the birth mom was a couple doors down. And there was only like four or five suites there. And birth grandma was coming in and kind of showing us pictures of her family. And we were trying to get to know them. We still really didn't have a conversation with our birth mom.

There was other, medically things going on and, it didn't feel comfortable. And then, a short period of time they said, we're going to leave the hospital. And they were like, but we want to say goodbye. And so they they took her back out, which was totally fine. We understood the situation. But no one spoke to us for an hour and a half. Yeah, it was so hard. It was the longest hour and a half of our lives. And like we didn't know what to do. Like, the nurses weren't focused where they needed to be focused.

Yeah. we didn't want to bug the family because it wasn't in our place to to do that. And we wanted the relationship to be strong with our birth mom, we didn't want to feel like she was rushed or any of those things. And for us, we have an open adoption and we thought we feel that that is very important. Especially as our daughter starts to get older to understand where she came from and be able to see her so for us. Yeah, it was like, we don't want to be pushy, because you don't want to start that relationship like that.

Oh my goodness, I remember a couple of times like walking out to go get like a drink of water just so like is there any motion is it was Yeah.

It was, at the end of that, they brought her back in, we got to meet, the birth mom, finally she came in there. And we got to tell her the name that we had chosen for our daughter. Because we'd have the name, we're not felt like we were ready with that. So we were able to, introduce her to her birth daughter. Yeah. And it was a good thing. So we were able to kind of, like, hug her, not necessarily have a conversation with her.

Since then we have seen her. But in that first night, like we were the only family in the birth area. And so we got to spend the night there at the hospital. And we were the only ones there was a very small hospital. Yeah. So it was it was good. And we got to got to bond with her. And so it was it was a good experience. It was great.

Amanda: Yes, that's amazing. I'm so thankful that Lucretius was able to get there and really good for people are going, oftentimes, coach people, I'm like, listen, it's really important that you take a copy of those documents with you to the hospital. Because you never know, you may end up in a very rural hospital, just like what you described. And this may be the first time someone's ever interacted with an adoption. But that was good you knew what to do. And like they were doing their best to handle it.

Kinsey and Matt: But, I am so grateful that we had already made the tax increase and that she was able to just like, take care of it. Because otherwise we wouldn't be in the same place. Yeah, we would know, maybe, maybe we would. But like, I mean, but it was it was kind of a fun experience. Because we did have to tell some like our parents because they had to have birth. I have children from my first marriage. And so they had to get picked up from school because it was a random winner.

It was fun being able to, like call our all our friends on FaceTime. And like my sister burst into tears. Yeah. Why? Why is she calling me right now? And we called her and it was so much fun to basically show off our daughter to our friends and family. And we the boys just were so excited and couldn't get over. It couldn't contain and yeah, so I have a picture like I screenshotted the picture when we were like FaceTiming it's like first family photo.

And I mean, this we're saying like here in Nebraska, there's a 48 hour period where the birth mom can change your mind. So we didn't get like fully public until like after that, but there how to tell some No, yeah.

And so like, a lot of people knew, but we held off on like, making it making it like fully official until, until we we got the Agusta official word. But it was, yeah, it was a Wednesday, I took the rest of the week off. Luckily, I work in a district where they're very understanding, very family friendly. My job to you. And so I will never forget those three days of just getting spend time with that little baby that little oh my gosh, yeah.

Amanda: That's amazing. So from when you started sharing your profile from social media, you said within a week you got kind of your first connection.

Kinsey and Matt: Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda: About how long after that, do you think it was until your daughter was born? You have a rough idea?

Kinsey and Matt: So we saw that the we had the communication, like a week after I had posted stuff. We had been speaking to the birth mother from Indiana for two and a half, maybe three weeks total. We had kind of Matt and I had a conversation like this. This isn't where we need to be. And we had stopped it prior. And my oldest son had a birthday at the

end of October and we were at a birthday party like I remember, I just kind of remember that, like the little girl was weak. And so there was only about a week and a half between the time that we stopped our conversation to her being born. And that it's just weird because it's just like we had nothing for three years.

Yeah, it's actually kind of crazy looking at pictures.

Go get it.

Yeah. Sorry, hold on.

We made a pause. Yes, I'll take a drink of water while we pause.

I almost lost it. I was like, biting my lip, and all the things are you talking about your daughter, and I was just like, I'm gonna start to cry, don't pinching my knee underneath my desk here. Every time I tell like my patients about it. Because a lot of my patients know this, the occupational therapist, because like we work together. And so explaining that is it like, brings tears to my eyes, like, every time because, she and I have like a fabulous relationship, like a work relationship. And, now like we started the adoption process together, like, we have the same social worker for our home study.

And so like, we were able to kind of bond in that side of things, but they got matched a lot earlier than us. And they were in a position that they were able to spend more money than what we could, like, that was never going to be the cards for us, some of those agencies the the level of financial commitment, that is, we couldn't we couldn't match that. Yeah. So, they they matched a lot quicker. And but now we have this other bond like I , we will continually be close to her and her family and what's like, also really cool. She had called us about two or three months ago.

It's not weird for her to call us or anything like that. But he called us and she goes Kinsey, when was your daughter born? Crazy thing our daughter was born on National Adoption Day. Yeah. And then, we had told her like November 9, and she goes, I'm do with a baby. On November 9, her and her husband were unable to conceive. And so that's why they went the adoption route for their second child. And out of nowhere, she got pregnant, and it's like, super miracle pregnancy. And she's do like her due date is on our daughter's birthday. Wow. Go like that, the full circle of fame. God put her in our lives and then rewarded her.

Yeah, the baby. So good. So I'm definitely gonna grab the full body chills went through. I don't know.

Yeah, no.

She's, he's at like, our daughter is absolutely beautiful and perfect. And, are the boys have bonded so well with her? And yeah, it's just amazing. It's been amazing.

Advice to Hopeful Adoptive Parents

Amanda: Yeah, that's awesome. So I would love for you to just close this out. And one, thank you for sharing everything. But I'd love for you to close this out by just sharing anything you'd like to with hopeful adoptive families that are sitting there in that spot, right, that have been waiting maybe a week, a month, three years, right with their agency or in their own journey? What would you want them to hear what, what do you remember as you reflect on your journey that you think would be helpful for them?

Kinsey and Matt: I mean, the big thing for us is that we just, we didn't give up hope that we needed to put all our eggs in one basket, being able to reach out and find other groups and having having that connection to be able to find other other having having the connection like reaching out to like Facebook groups and seeing what what's working for them. And, being able to connect with other people as well like such as yourself and and Lucretius, really helped us feel like it's not over our journey is not over there is there are other ways to adopt. It may not look like what you thought it originally was going to. But, if you can try everything you possibly can it, don't give up on that hope.

Because, we had hit that, like with our agency, we had stopped that hope with that agency. And with that, like, my husband and I were able to kind of have a conversation, it's like, Alright, what's our plan B, what do we want to do, and that's when we finally were able to reach out within, with Lucretius, who is she kind of has this like adoption program, and connects you with other people. And that's how we got connected with you. And, it's it, it was a really good experience to try to do things more on our own. Another avenue that we kind of thought about was the foster to adopt, but you could foster through, people that are already given out their,

their rights, like already given away their rights. And so we kind of looked in that too, and just kind of, it opened the line of communication between between Matt and I, and that would have never happened, if we were like, Nope, we're just gonna stay with this agency, we're never, we're not gonna keep pushing towards our goal.

If it feels like it's not going anywhere, maybe you've got to just try something different. And, sometimes there's something different does have a price tag to it. But in in the ultimate goal, like, that's it, it's nothing like, Yeah, anything. It's like, for us, our communication was so important.

But like I have a friend who I worked with last summer before our daughter came along. And he actually adopted and it was, he would keep telling me, because he knew that we were trying to you keep telling me, I don't remember, before I had and he's a little bit older, he'd be like, I don't even remember my life before I adopted her. And like, I kind of understood what he is saying, but I didn't fully understand what he's saying. But I don't remember my life before I adopted my baby, like, I now fully get it. And I think it's important that like, we waited so long, and there was, there are financial expectations that at different points along the path.

But honestly, I don't remember any of that. All of that is so much in the past. Because when I look into her eyes, when I when when she smile, like when I when I pick her up from the the babysitter, or she's been spending time with our parents and she sees me, and she looks at me and smiles at it's just amazing. The stuff that came before matters. Yeah, it's it's like, that's so it's, it can be hard. And it's it's work and it takes work. It's effort. Yeah. But the payoff is, it's, it's more than that you can just like imagine creating, , a whole new family element. And it's been really beautiful to be able to, to see my boys, and my boys with her and how they are just overwhelmed with happiness, because they had been waiting to Yeah. And so, they are super happy.

So, keep the communication open between, you and your partner. What, how do you want to do this? And I think, , part of it is in your home study you start that communication process, but don't stop. And I think part part of what happened while we were in the agency, we had stopped communicating and just only doing the paperwork side of things. And once we started communicating and starting the other avenues that we did, it really opened up our eyes of like, what we wanted our adoption to look like, how do we want to continue it going? And that really, it's been really positive for Matt and I. Yep.

Amanda: That's amazing. Well, thank you again, for being willing to share your story with our community. I know that so many people will find value in it and I hope that they find hope and inspiration in it just to keep hanging in there and to put themselves really in the driver's seat, right. You gotta take consistent action. You got to be willing to do the work. Because in the end, it absolutely is worth it.

But we again, we appreciate you guys sharing your story. Thank you so much.

Kinsey and Matt: We're very thankful for your team works amazing. And, , we bid the things that you created for us. Were absolutely beautiful. And it was very well thought out of how we wanted to do things. And I think that level of detail is amazing. And I hope that other people have I actually know like, someone found me on Instagram, and is now using you. I don't know, I haven't seen that they've posted anything. But they had reached out to us because we had used you. And so like, I was able to make that connection. And it's really cool. So thank you.

Amanda: I appreciate that. Yeah, it is a small world. I, as I tell everybody, my hobby is helping families tell their story so they can make their family, right. It's just what I love to do. But it's, it's awesome when I have it's amazing when I've awesome clients like you guys, because it just makes it much easier. And it gives me hope to keep going right?

It's worth getting up at 3am to work on this profiles because I get to see babies stalk your social and watch the babies grow up. And for me, that's like quite a lot of fun. Yeah, thank you again.

Kinsey and Matt: Of course.

Amanda: I think there are a few key lessons that we can learn from Matt and Kinsey story.

First of all, they were not giving up, they were really committed to their adoption journey. And they were willing to put in the work and try different ways of sharing their profile so that they could ultimately match with their expectant parent.

Second, they followed a proven path of sharing their profile in multiple different ways with frequency, and asking their friends and family to do the same. That ultimately led them to the connection point with the expectant parent that chose them to place their her daughter for adoption.

And third, they formed a lifelong relationship with their expectant parent based in respect and trust and honoring the space that she needed during their time in the hospital, which ultimately has led to a really great relationship today.

Listen, I know adoption is not easy, my friend. I know you've likely have more questions. And if you do, head on over to the my adoption coach Facebook group and leave them there. I'm happy to answer your questions. And I'm on Facebook a few times throughout the day, and so you'll get a timely response.

Remember my friend anything's possible the right plan and support and if you're looking for additional resources, I suggest you scroll down to the show notes and click on the episode that I've got linked there for you because I know that will help you achieve your dreams of adopting and 2023.

I'll see you soon friend.