Notice

We have purposely left the names, Identities, and city of the birth family of Elli (the name we gave her, not her legal name) to respect their privacy. Please make sure to keep comments discrete and respectful. Although we have strong feelings about this situation; keep it clean.

Not that there have been any problems or anything.

Donation Options

I have had a few text messages asking where to donate. 

Donations can be sent to:

Wood Jenkins LLC

60 E South Temple # 500

Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Or we have an account set up at Wells Fargo under The Elli Fund

Foster care

So we are 5 months away from beginning our journey to foster care. If there is one major lesson we learned from Elli; its that Children deserve a good place to live when the circumstances aren't in their favor. We are so blessed to have had her in our lives if only for a short time. I know that everyone around us who got to meet her, felt a spirit. I know that Elli was sent to us to teach us love, patience, forgiveness, strength, and above all- the gospel. without Elli we would not have let our heavenly father in.

Great start

Thank you all for helping get our story out there. I am so grateful for all of the support we have. Please let your friends know about our blog. I hope to make this go viral!

Intro

So those who know Jeni and I, you understand the awful year and half that has been known as our lives.

If you are close to us, you hopefully know how much we appreciate the love a support from you; and thank you for helping us stand again.

I compare our current state/mood to a 5 year old. we walk fine, but we are still learning how to cope and deal.

We miss Elli so much everyday and pray that she is ok. I wish I knew.

Our published story begins...

On a warm fall day in 2009 we woke up early to get ready for what turned out to be the most beautiful/craziest/hellish 2 years of our lives. We were meeting a prospective birthmother.

My wife and I had battled infertility for going on 5 years and we were so burnt out of fertility doctors selling us empty dreams. The hope of being parents seemed so far away.

We found out about our beautiful princess shortly after her birth; and the family wanted a backup plan in case the birthmother relapsed back in to her 20 year battle with drug addiction. This being her 5^th child, we felt confident that she would make a good decision to simply give her daughter a better life and focus on herself for once.

We hung out with this family regularly for a few months and grew close with our “Elli”. The more we were around this family, the more we wanted to have an open adoption and have them be an extension of our family. We learned of all the history behind the birthmother, the years of cocaine, meth, and alcohol abuse; The domestic violence that constantly dominated her relationships with her spouses and children. She told us about cooking meth in front of her children, and getting caught selling drugs to officers. Her rap sheet was massive. And DCFS was not giving her any more chances; the only reason she was allowed to take Elli home from the hospital was because she convinced her sister to take legal guardianship. Elli was born with meth in her system (like molst of her siblings)and 2 months premature;  luckily she was mostly healthy. She told us at a park in Davis County that she wanted us to adopt Elli if she ever relapsed and felt that we would be good parents for her.

When Elli was 8 months old we got a phone call from the birthmothers sister (for privacy we will call her Jane) informing us that her sister relapsed and was incarcerated. She wanted some time to think about what she wanted to do with Elli. On Saint Patrick’s day of 2010 we were called to her house to “talk”, our hearts sank and we felt that everything was over. Defeated yet again.  “Jane” sat us down on the couch and told us that she has hurt so much for her sister, and for Elli; and she has had a really hard time decided her fate. She started to cry as she looked down at her niece and said “go pick up your daughter”. We all burst into tears and felt a huge weight removed from our shoulders as our family suddenly grew.

We had our home study, multiple meetings with our attorneys, and with the family. We wanted to keep Elli part of the birthmothers family and hung out with them regularly so they would still see and know their niece. We met her half sister, her uncles, aunts, etc. My wife and I couldn’t believe how we instantly  had a family. We couldn’t have been happier.

It was quickly replaced by a new weight when the birthmother decided to fight our petition for adoption. Thus began our year of hell. There were a few conversations between us and the birthmother. She told us that she never thought she would relapse back into drugs so she never thought she would lose her daughter.  She thought she would stand a chance at fighting us and DCFS if it came to it. Her family was supportive of us adopting Elli still and urged us to fight her. They were confident that her 20 year drug history and the fact that most of her 5 children were taken from her and her rights terminated.

We gave our attorneys the go ahead to do whatever they needed to keep Elli in a safe environment free from drugs and violence. The family was behind us for about 6 months of the fight, but then had a change of heart and decided to support their sister instead. We were sad to see that they wanted to bounce her around and confuse Elli even more. We were alone. We also found out that upon the birthmothers release from jail, she started using alcohol again and her violent streak started to rear its ugly head.

After 2 judges, and a year of fighting, our fate came down to April 15^th 2011. We had just finished 2 days of trials in the Davis County Court House. The judge dismissed the birthmothers history and ultimately decided to give the birthmother a 6^th chance at being a mom. After a year of having a daughter; we had an empty home again and a huge hole in our hearts. The family does not talk with us any longer and we have not seen her since April. We are only left with pictures and a $71,000 bill to remember our baby.

We are slowly picking up the pieces and healing from this awful situation and we are looking forward to involving ourselves in foster care next year to hopefully provide a safe landing for children in similar circumstances.