My perspective, by Joel

So I’ve wanted to write something here for a while to share some of my thoughts. We’ve wanted a child since soon after we were married. Ideally, I wanted to come home from Iraq on leave and go back to Iraq with a pregnant wife at home. That way, I thought, I could miss the hardship of having to deal with a pregnant wife and get home right before the baby arrived. :) Well my little plan didn’t happen.

When it became apparent that we weren’t going to have a baby I wasn’t too worried at first. My attitude was, we’ll get that blessing when the Lord is ready to give it to us and that’s that. We briefly chatted about the idea of adoption here or there but never seriously until more recently.

I had concerns about adopting and the idea didn’t really appeal to me initially. I had a vague notion that the baby wouldn’t feel like it was ours or something like that. I honestly didn’t give it a lot of thought until I overheard Lila talking about it with my cousin one evening. I was reading a book to her daughter, Siosi, while in another room she was telling Lila that it was time for us to adopt and to not put it off any longer. She was talking to Lila, but as I eavesdropped, the message was really sinking in on me. Suddenly I realized that I was excited to adopt and have our child. I realized that once we had the child, it would be as much ours as any one else’s baby is theirs. I realized that we would be sealed together and that our family would be every bit as real as any other.

I had a vision, like a dream but I was awake, where I pictured me, Lila, and a young baby in the temple being sealed together for time and eternity. I felt so happy as I watched that. It was like I was watching it happen from the eyes of someone else in the room. Then I pictured me, Lila, and our new baby standing in front of the temple posing as someone was taking our picture. I can still picture it now and I get excited whenever I think about it. That will be one of the happiest moments of my life when it happens.

Recently someone pointed something out to me that I’ve been thinking about. They pointed out that I seem to like babies more than most guys. I love holding our friends’ newborns and playing with their kids who are old enough to play with. I am so glad that I like babies and little kids so much. I guess I have a lot of fatherly love that I am ready to pour onto our own baby. I can’t wait to hold our little bundle of joy in my arms!

Today Lila and I were on a road trip and she had a new CD and book about adoption with adoption songs and stories. As we listened to the songs I could feel my eyes start to water and I could feel myself getting a little emotional. This is out of the ordinary as I am not one to cry very much. But as I listened to the beautiful words of some of those songs, I couldn’t help it. It made me so happy to think about the miracle we will soon have.

Somewhere out there, there is or there will be a young woman who loves her baby so much and knows she can’t currently give it the life it deserves. She is probably troubled and wants to do the best thing for her baby. She’ll make the difficult choice to give her precious baby to us and will be doing us a greater service than she can imagine. We will be so glad, and we will love her so much for the choice she’s made. For the rest of time and eternity we will be ever grateful for that gift. I am so glad that this possibility is out there for us. I am so grateful for my understanding of God’s great Plan of Salvation, whereby we will have the opportunity to be parents - in this life and the next - to beautiful children who can truly be our very own.