Adoption Interview Project: Meet Sarah

Last year I participated for the first time in the Adoption Bloggers Interview Project. It was one of my favorite Adoption related . Getting to know another blogger is an amazing experience. This year I decided to participate again, although I knew my hectic schedule would make it much more difficult this time around. I hope I have still done a good job of representing my partner this year, but I guess you all will be the judge of that... I was paired with a hopeful adoptive mom named Sarah from The Adoption Project. I am actually thrilled to be paired with a HAP since this is one of the few perspectives I dont hear much from. I know sometimes the before can be rough, but Sarah and her husband seem to be taking all of this in stride. I am so happy to be paired with someone who has such a positive outlook on life. Her blog is a little newer but I look forward to continuing to read about her adventures and her adoption story. Now on to the interview:

1. If you could say something to your child's birthparents, what would you want them to know?

 

  This is not something Eric and I have discussed yet, because it is so personal and we still in the very early stages of trying to pull together enough funds for our adoption. That being said, I know that when we do sit down and write our Dear Birth Parent letter it will include all our hopes and dreams of becoming a family and the things that we look forward to doing together. It will express our love for each other and what that means for their child. It will include how important it is for us to include them, the birth parents, as a being a permanent part of our family too.

2. Do you have a name picked out for your child(ren)?

 We do have an always growing list of names we like, but we are not going to choose one until we are matched with a birth mother and can share that with them. After 5 years of trying to conceive naturally this is definitely a topic that we have talked and joked about a lot though. I think that we use it as a way to stay positive and focus on the dream we share of being parents. The current running name is that we like Olivia Rae. However, our last name is Clevenger, which would make the child's initials ORC and if you are into fantasy of any kind you know what an Orc is. Eric thinks it is awesome because he is into fantasy/sci-fi and I am not so much. To make it worse for me Olivia also means Elf Army, Eric once again thinks this is great.

3. Describe yourself in 5 words or less.

  Creative, Passionate, Curious, Generous, Happy

4. What kind of parent do you think you will be? (Fun, strict, nervous, embarrassing, adventurous?)
 

  All of the above! I think being a parent involves knowing when the right moment to be each of those is. I think that is the best way to create lasting family memories. I know personally that when I look back on my childhood my parents were, and still are, all of those things too.

5. What is the best part about your relationship with your husband?

  I don't know if I can narrow it down to one thing. I love taking road trips, we go to Chicago, Northern Indiana and Dayton, Ohio several times a year, because we always have amazing conversations. After over 10 years of being together, it amazes me that we can still find so much to talk about on a 4 hour drive. This is something that I am slightly embarrassed to admit, but I love the little silly moment we share together. We will often do something odd, like just Charlie Brown dance for no reason, and just look at each other and realize how silly we are.

6. Where is your favorite place to travel? Is there somewhere you haven't been that you would love to go?

 That is a surprisingly hard one for me to answer because I am a traveler to my very core. A little piece of my heart is in NYC, I have been twice and cannot wait to go back, there is a special kind of magic about the city that I cannot get enough of. I feel the same way about Chicago. We lived in the burbs of Chicago for 2 years and every time we visit it feels like going home. For relaxation, we love to go to Dale Hollow Lake, which is on the Kentucky/Tennessee boarder. I also love love love London, England. One of the places we most want to go to is Rome because of the incredible history, we have talked about going for our 10th wedding anniversary. Both of our families took vacations almost every summer growing up and it is definitely something that Eric and I would like to continue with our children.

7. If you could have any kind of animal as a pet what would you choose?

  Funny you should ask because I am about to embark on a new pet adventure. At our house we have all the animals we can handle, two 8 almost 9 year old cats and a very rambunctious 6 month old puppy. I do some free lance sewing for a women who has chickens and ducks, two of which are mine but they live at her house. Within the next year her family will be getting goats and I will get to "adopt" one of them. I was pushing for sheep, but it should be interesting to bottle feed baby goats.

8. What is the most important thing you want your readers to know about you and your husband?

 

That we passionately believe that one day we will have a family. Before we even tried to conceive naturally we had talked about wanting to adopt children as well. Now after 5 years trying we are actually more excited that all of our children will be adopted. We really want to adopt trans-racially because we love the idea of having a family where everyone is looks different and has their own unique heritage that we can explore and celebrate together. For someone who loves history as much as I do, knowing your own families history and that of your ethnicity is important.



I want to thank Sarah for being so understanding about how busy I have been. I also wish her and her family (present and future) happiness and luck in all things.