Featured Family
The Blahnik Family
Jennie’s adoption was a surprise to us. We truly believed that the right child would find us, but we were still surprised with how quickly it all fell into place when it did. I taught in Kellogg, MN. In February, a young girl came to our school. She was 7 months pregnant. She had just been moved to a foster home and moved to a new school. We got along well and I enjoyed having her in class. She was so frightened of what was happening with her body and never talked about hopes and dreams for the baby like the other teen moms I had worked with. The baby was born in April. The baby was tiny, but other than being deaf, seemed fairly healthy. To everyone’s surprise, she had placed the baby for adoption. A while later, the mom told me she was going to meet the adoptive parents (the baby was staying with some cousins). I told her how proud I was of her and I couldn’t wait to hear about the meeting. This was on a Friday; the baby was exactly 2 weeks old. The following Tuesday, I was on the phone with the mom’s social worker on a separate issue and I told her that if she was placing any children for adoption, we were waiting for a placement. She suddenly got very quiet and said she would call me back. Five minutes later we were offered Jennie. Things had fallen though with the other family. I talked to the mom; I had the rare adoptive mom experience to hold the birth mom of my child, while she grieved the loss of her child. We were told on Thursday (2 days later) that we could pick Jennie up on Friday, she would be exactly 3 weeks old. On Friday, we met with the mom, her mom, her cousins (who had care of the baby up to this point), mom’s social worker, and our adoption social worker. Jennie was at another foster home in town. The meeting was difficult as, again, we watched the heartbreak of this poor young girl – she truly loved her child. After the meeting, the social worker walked us to our car – we were to follow her to the foster home. So, we showed up at the foster home, were handed a bundle of baby on the porch, put her in a car seat and left. It felt a little like stealing. We drove to a park just out of town so that we could stop and look at our new baby. She was beautiful. The following Tuesday, she received her first set of hearing aides. One year later, she received a cochlear implant and heard her name for the first time. Her birth mom is doing great; she graduated for high school and is currently attending college; her career goal is to be a missionary. We have contact with her several times a year and take great pride in successes.