Welcome! Some of you are visiting from Facebook or my post at http://kristalynnejensen.blogspot.com/2013/06/life-at-full-speed-ahead.html to find out more about our recent news. Below is my letter to the Waiting Child Caseworker at Great Wall China Adoption. It pretty much explains why we decided to make this decision to adopt, and I thought it would be a good starting place for blogging about this new aspect in our lives. I will post more information soon!
April 12, 2013
Carrie,
My name is Krista Jensen
and my husband and I would like to know more about Sarah. My cousin, JessicaMcComas (who has adopted 3 times through your organization) is advocating for
her and sent us a little bit of information. We are eager to know more and
whether or not we have a chance of making her part of our home.
If you'd like to know a
little bit about us, I am an author and I work from home. I've always been a
stay-at-home mom and I love to cook, sew, garden, and manage the household. I
have two books published and more to come. They are mainly inspirational
romance but I'm working on a children's fantasy. My kids are my inspiration.
My husband, Brandon, is
a high school principal. Before that he taught Spanish and World History, and
coached football, basketball, and track. He values the time he has with his
family, especially his summers off, and takes time to be present at
their activities and be the Dad when he's home. We have been in Wyoming
for six years, but are currently looking for a job back in Washington state,
where my family is and where we both grew up. We're fairly secluded here in
Cody, and miss the diversity and opportunities we had growing up. Cody has been
a good place for our family, though.
We have four children.
Chelsea, our oldest, is married and she and her husband are at college. She is
getting her dental assistant certificate and he is pursuing a Bio-Engineering
degree so he can work in prosthetics. Chelsea graduated 3rd in her class. She
is my worrier but is also vibrant, sweet, and they are expecting their first
baby in November.
Braeden is 17 and a
senior. He is quiet and funny. He is gifted, very smart and musically driven.
He plays piano and sings and has the lead in the school musical, which is
something new to him. He tends to shy away from the spotlight. He is very kind
and has an innate sense of what is fair and what is not. He was bullied in
middle school, but we worked through it and he's overcome that. He's just
a likable kid with a gentle heart. He'll be leaving the house soon,
to college or a mission for our church.
Jacob is 14 almost 15.
He is one of those kids who will do things because they are the right and good
thing to do, no matter what anyone says. He is confident and has blinders on to
ridicule and bullies. He is nearly always smiling or eating, and sings to
himself a lot. He is very social and loves being surrounded by family and
friends. His little cousins love him and tackle him. When he was little we
called him Taz or Tornado. He plays football, runs track, and plays the trumpet
in band.
Maren, who just turned
11 on the 8th, is the youngest. She loves school and is excited to learn to
play an instrument next year. She is silly, playful, and thoughtful. She is
often loud. :) She likes to read, draw, and use her imagination. She loves to
swim and is interested in playing tennis. She is a great helper and just likes
to be part of her family. She is social, too. She misses the older kids being
around.
We love to camp, read,
play games, go on trips, play ping pong, hang out. Both our families have
reunions every year, with lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. We laugh a lot
and try to be there for each other. Brandon and I are both the oldest in our
families.
We did lose a baby girl
between both boys. When I was pregnant she was diagnosed (through
amniocentesis) with Trisomy 12, and we prepared ourselves as best we could to
have her home with us for a short time, or not at all. That was difficult. At 6
months I went into labor and Kate was born. She lived for 1 hour and 45 mins.
We held her and loved her. All the children, even Maren, feels she is their
sister and they miss her and who she may have been in our family. It was a very
bittersweet experience, but we still felt blessed and comforted.
We also have a dog,
Brodie. He's a goofball.
I've always felt, even
as a teen and in college, that I would like to adopt. I just thought that it
would be part of my future. I knew people who had adopted and had been adopted.
I was very touched by stories on the subject. My husband and I talked about it
on occasion as something that might be part of our future family.
When I just had my two oldest kids, I was talking to a friend and the subject
must have come up. I confided in her my desire to one day adopt. I was
surprised at her quick reprimand. She told me that I should leave adoption to
those couples who are unable to have children. I would be taking their
opportunity. This friend was quite a bit older than me and I looked up to her a
lot. Sadly, I let her words affect me and I put adoption to the back of my
mind. I would hate to take someone's opportunity to have a child. But I'd never
viewed it that way. Though I understood that people longed to have children,
and that adoption was a way to fill that longing, I always considered that
adoption was for the child. Adoption was not to gain something to
fill a lack, but it was an offering to give a child what you did not lack: a
home, a family, love, hope, a future. Lots of love.
For the last year or so,
watching my kids grow and get ready to leave, I started thinking about my
adoption idea again. My cousin, Jessica, who had 3 kids of her own, adopted a
China baby. I would read her blog and tear up. Then she adopted another China
baby, a special needs this time. And my interest was renewed. But Maren was
growing up, and I asked myself did I want to start over with a baby? We are
young (even for grandparents), but there had been a lonely age gap between
Jacob and Maren. I didn't want to have another large gap between kids again.
And their were many times Maren wished she had a sister around, or that she'd
been a twin, or that Jacob wasn't so old. And then my cousin adopted a 10 year
old boy, again from China. Then she started advocating for other China babies.
And then she posted the picture of a ten year old girl and I cried. Because I
knew if I could bring her home we could give her a family and a place and love.
That maybe we already had her place waiting for her.
So, I don't know at this
point if any of this counts for anything. Maybe she's already been placed, and
that would be wonderful. But honestly, if we have a chance, we would like to
know all we can about possibly bringing Sarah home. I've attached a few photos
of our family.
Thanks so much. I
appreciate your time and the work you do,
Krista Jensen
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