The Spencer Family: An Introduction

The Spencer Family


Roger (38) and Michelle (37)

Kennedy (4), Jackson (8), and Madison (3)

    Our family began in August 2010.  Roger and I had known each other for a whopping 5 months before we decided to tie the knot.  We were both going to school and working full time.  We wasted no time trying to start our family.  Roger went to school for robotics and electrical technology and Michelle was studying Deaf Culture and Music Education.   During the first few years of their marriage, Roger worked in jobs involving electronics and computer programming while I worked with children with special needs.
    After 5 years of trying to grow our family through IVF, IUI's, and every other way available to us, we dipped our toe into the amazing world of adoption.  We were contacted by Jackson's birth family in March 2015 and three weeks later, he was here!  He was perfect in every way and we formed a bond with our new family.  After 4 years, we wanted to adopt again.  Jackson's birth Aunt knew of a friend from high school who was looking to place for adoption which is how we got in contact with our two girls.  Kennedy was Born in January of 2019.  Then when Kennedy was 6 months old we got news of a surprise sister that would be due the following May!  Thus formed our little family.  
    We keep in close contact with our birth families.  We feel strongly about having a relationship with those that have a positive and supportive role in our children's lives.  Since both families live relatively close to us (1 hr and 30 min drive away), we try to get together for birthday's, holidays, and special events.  
    I am often asked about having an open adoption and what that is like for us.  For us, it has been an amazing experience.  I like to compare it to having in-laws.  My husband's family is my own, but they are not blood.  Sure there can be bad relationships between in-laws...I've never experienced that.  We've had amazing relationships with each other's families (who all live within 2 hours of us).  It has been the same with our birth families.  They are the family of our kids, thus they are our family too.  There can never be too much love and support for a child, no matter where it comes from.  Not only that, but there is no one in the world that will love my kids more than the birth families.  Especially from the birth moms.  If I take a picture of some stupid thing my kid is doing, no one else is going to think it is as cute as I do more than their birth mom.  Not to mention grandparents.  No one, NO ONE, can have too many grand parents.  We have 5 involved grandma's, 2 grandpas, 1 pop pop that will always be remembered,  and a great grandma.  That is not to mention our birth aunts, uncles and cousins!  We would love to continue with having open relationships with our future birth families.
    Since our family has grown, we have both gotten our degrees and got ourselves some grown up jobs!  Roger currently is working for a tech company as a data integration developer and I am mostly a stay at home mom for the most part.  I do teach local kids music lessons in piano, cello, violin and viola.  We are active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Jackson is involved with Kenpo, Swimming, and Gymnastics.  The girls love to do online preschool, preschool playgroups, swimming, and Gymnastics.  We keep busy but find it very important to have down time every day to play and spend time together.  We aren't perfect, but our home is filled with love.




 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas in the Spencer home

Image
 So many families have so many different Christmas traditions.  I remember growing up, I always went to the Nutcracker with one or both of my parents.  It always made me feel so special to have that one night where I was the star.  I always dressed up in a Christmas dress and did my hair cute.   When Roger was growing up, he had special traditions as well such as an advent candle, getting a special ornament to put on the tree each year, and getting gifts from the 'Christmas Elf' before Christmas.  His family also put a lot of their focus on baking and cooking the best Christmas foods you can imagine.  I'm always in aw when I go to family functions on his side of the family to see the most amazing pies, baked goods, and savory dinners.   As we have started our own family, we wanted to make our own traditions that were special to just us.  It also changes year to year.  When we started our family, we were determined to have a liv...
Read more

My Open adoption journey

Image
  How adoptive parents decide to do an open adoption is a personal one.  Each situation is different as well as each relationship.  When you choose an open adoption, you are essentially choosing to have a relationship with a new family.  When I started our adoption journey, I was a scared new mother.  We did years of fertility treatments and 3 rounds of IVF until we eventually had to come to the conclusion that building a family by our own means just wasn't going to happen.  Closing that chapter and opening a new book was a difficult transition.  I feel that it changed me for the better though.   When we eventually got Jackson, I was still scared.  I was scared someone would come take him from me.  Perhaps it was too many true crime shows and podcasts that I listened to (still do) or my insecurity.  But we started off with meeting at my parent's house (which was in the middle of our locations) and meeting in public.  We ha...
Read more

Messages from our Birth Families

Image
  A letter from the Birth mother of the girls Michelle and Roger came into my life very suddenly and unexpectedly but we bonded right away. I was pregnant with my firstborn; I was scared and I had no idea what was involved in the adoption world. But they were kind, and patient and encouraged us to meet with other couples instead of just making a decision right away. Aside from all of the sweet and common things to say about an adoptive couple, like how loving and supportive they are (which is 10000% true) Michelle and Roger are ridiculously loud and funny, open minded and genuine! As is Jackson! Life isn’t perfect, it isn’t for anyone. The transparency they give me makes me feel secure in my decision. I placed my second daughter without question just a little while later because I knew in my heart that’s where she was meant to be.  Knowing what’s going on not only in my girls’ lives, but in theirs as well makes me feel like they care more about well-being and comfort over a fa...
Read more