I'm Grateful for Alex

What can you say when a 3 foot whirlwind enters your lives? Just sit back and enjoy the experience. Alex entered our lives in the blink of an eye and now we can’t imagine life without him. Here’s how it happened:

In the summer of last year we were preparing to go through the adoption process again. Kennedy was 1 ½ and we didn’t want to let too much time pass before trying to add to our family again. Adopting a second child generally takes a lot longer than your first. Finding Kennedy was a miracle, since it took no effort on our parts. We didn’t think that lightning could strike twice, we were wrong.

It was a Tuesday evening and I had just arrived at Bishopric meeting when Dick mentioned that he had some news, “Jared, I think found you a son.” What?! “One of the women in my office was approached by the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) about taking her grandson over the weekend. She mentioned that she couldn’t possibly handle another child, since she had a 3 year old at home. So, are you interested?”

Wow, we were planning on getting a child sometime in the next year, not sometime in the next week. I went home and Tara and I talked about the possibility of adopting a child through foster care. That really wasn’t something we’d ever considered. There were so many challenges about going through foster care: temporary custody, interesting birth parents, problems with substance abuse, etc..

After talking about things for around a week, we decided that we would call the grandmother and see what we could find out. It appears that Alex was taken from his birth mother due to meth in his system at birth. Every thing seemed to be fine and there was no trace of addiction, but there’s so little known about the drug that’s it is difficult to know the long-term prognosis. Even with some possible developmental problems, we still wanted to find out more.

The following week there was a custody meeting to discuss Alex’s future. We were invited to attend and so we showed up at the courthouse in West Jordan, not knowing what we were getting ourselves into. As we waited for the hearing to begin, an interesting crowd started to gather – I think Tara and I were the only who thought that people still dressed up to go to court. Once inside, the crowd got even more diverse as a side door opened and an inmate from the county jail was escorted inside. At that moment I knew that we had to go through with this, no matter the result. Alex needed a chance to have a normal life; one where his parents weren't going in and out of jail, where he wasn't going to end up as part of the system, one where he could have stability at home. Even if it was only for a short time, Alex needed us.

As the hearing progressed it was apparent that the judge wanted Alex placed in the custody of a foster family. We had hoped that DCFS would make a petition on our behalf to receive temporary custody, while our foster care paper work could be completed. As the hearing ended a request was made to give us an extended visit. We thought it was a chance to see Alex and get to spend a little bit of time together. It was much more than that.

Alex was placed with us a week later and he's become a fixture in our lives. We might not have had 9 months to prepare for his arrival like everyone else, but within a few short moments we fell in love with our special little boy and that's all the time we needed. I'm grateful that the Lord put us in the right place, at the right time. I'm grateful for Alex.