Deal Breakers. Everyone has them, but they vary from person to person. They also vary from relationship to relationship. These are some of the difficult topics we think are important for expectant parents to know about us:
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Toilet Paper: I know it sounds silly, but this is one people get VERY passionate about, and we wanted to start on a less serious note. We are over the roll kinda people. If you come to our home, they will all be over and should remain over.
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Vaccines: Now, to rip the band-aid off, yes, we plan to vaccinate. We believe it helps keep deadly diseases away from our modern world. We are both vaccinated and have received covid vaccines. If there are specific concerns that a parent is worried about, we are willing to discuss it and consult a doctor for further information. We truly want what is best for our children, and through our research we believe vaccines are a safe effective way to provide this.
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Religion: We are christian, specifically part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe God speaks to man today and we are all His children. To us this means we love and try to care for all people as best we can, and we want to provide a loving home for all who enter our lives. We do not require Expectant Parents to be the same religion as us, we hope they respect our beliefs as we raise baby, and we’ll respect theirs.
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Communication/Openness: Communication is very important to us. We cannot fix problems we don’t know about. If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to us, so we can either fix it or explain why we’re doing something the way we’re doing it.
This also relates to the fact that we want an open or semi-open adoption. We want baby to have access to medical history, answers to questions, their native culture, and relationships with their birth family. While what this level of openness will depend on the child as they grow up, and expectant parents, we hope this will be video calls/texts/emails once in a while and, if possible, in person visits. We believe open adoption is just more love for baby.
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Diet: For Chelsey’s health, we eat plant-based/vegan. This means we do not have dairy or meat within our home. We do not expect everyone else to live as we do, but we want expectant parents to be aware, because for some this is a big deal. We are trying to live healthy lives, as well as treat Chelsey’s migraines. Of course we will make sure all dietary needs are met with regular checkups and proper meal planning. If there arises a need we have no issue supplementing baby’s diet as necessary.
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Social Media: We will try to respect your privacy and we hope expectant parents will respect ours. We do not want our children’s faces all over the internet. Yes we are posting about our lives to get the word out about adopting, but we are generally private people. Adoption scammers have opened our eyes to the horrors of pictures of children being posted on the internet and used by the wrong people. This means we will share pictures with expectant parents (and other family/friends), but we do not want those pictures posted on a public profile for the world to see. We can discuss this further with expectant parents to determine safe ways to share pictures with family.
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Parenting: We plan, dependent on the child, to use a combination of Gentle Parenting, Montessori, and Love&Logic. We believe when you show a child respect, they rise to the occasion. A child should not be belittled and embarrassed. It should be stated, however, that consequences are still part of these parenting styles.
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Politics: Another big one we have heard a lot of difficulties with. We have both been raised Republican, however we lean fairly central. We don’t believe one political party holds all the ideals that we stand for perfectly, so we vote for who we think can represent us best.