Our Precious Olivia

Hello!,
My name is Kelsey I am newly married to my husband Cameron we have been married for over six months and dated for two years on our wedding day.

I met Cameron at Auto Zone because my friend’s car broke down and he was the one helping us at the store I knew it was love at first sight! He was so nervous around me and knocking stuff off the shelf all over the place he asked for my number and from then we dated and the rest is history. We met in June and that November I started acutane( a drug for severe acne and if you become pregnant can be deadly to your unborn child). The dermatologist I had put me on antibiotics to get me ready for the acutane right little did in know or was told that antibiotics weaken your birth control and before you go onto acutane they make you take a blood drawn pregnancy test which came out negative, a month later I was not having my period and thought it would be best to take a pregnancy test just to make sure. That’s when me and my boyfriend Cameron (now husband) found out I was pregnant we were so scared but still told my mom, who took me into my dermatologist to talk about what to do now that I was pregnant. He told me right off the bat that there was a 98% chance that she would have serious retardation or mutation or die before I gave birth to her and that my only choice was abortion. This really upset me because I am so against abortion, so my mom and I went into the abortion clinic to talk to them about abortion and my options. We ended up bawling coming out of the clinic and knew we had to get more opinions. That’s when we went to my family doctor who then told us that the chance of her having problems was much lower around 20% and that we should get an ultrasound to see if she was developing

OK. When me, my husband and parents saw her on the monitor with her little legs kicking and heart beating we knew abortion was not an option. That is when my mom took me and Cameron to LDS Family Services where I met Lani my social worker and one of the most kind and generous people I will ever know. She did not pressure me into making any decisions I did not want to. That is when Cameron and I choose adoption for our daughter. How we found our adoptive parents was really crazy. Me and my husband went through profiles and kept coming back to this couple that just looked so cute but we didn't want to make any decisions on them and they were definitely our favorite. Later that week my mom (who works for the foster care foundation as the area representative) met with a couple that she seemed to recognized that wanted to become possible foster parents she then found out that they were the ones that me and Cameron had decided we liked the best, but she could not say anything because the fact that we had not made up our minds yet. That night my mom called me all exited and told me what happened that is when we knew we needed to stop looking because heavenly father guided us to the most amazing couple we could have ever dreamed of Brady and Deborah.

We met once before we went out to dinner at good wood and had our caseworker Lani come in with a basket of baby girl stuff that my mom and I had gone out to get for her and told them that we choose them to adopt our child it was so amazing seeing them so shocked and so happy it was an amazing moment. For the remaining months of my pregnancy we always invited them to ultrasounds to see how she was looking and for possible signs of brain problems she may have. We became best friends and I feel like Deborah is like a sister and Brady is the cool brother I never had and is a great influence on Cameron. Last June 12th Cameron purposed to me while I was 7 months pregnant it was such an amazing moment. I remember going to meet with different doctors to talk about how my daughter looked and them telling me how horrible I was for even having intercourse while on acutane and how it just made me so mad at myself as well as them for not getting the whole story.

I was due on September 3 but went into labor on the 18th of august when my water broke I can remember crying so hard because I felt that I gotten my precious time taken away from me because after she was born she would be with another family and not with me 24/7 like she had for the past 8 and 1/2 months. My labor lasted 12 hours from 10 pm to 10 am and what was funny was when I was born on august 13th my mom was watching the price is right at 10 am right before I started pushing I was watching the price is right as well. Even though that has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. While I was in labor I had the adoptive parents in the room as well as my mom and Cameron. I was really scared because the doctors told me she was going to have many problems as well as the doctors and nurses they told me as soon as she was born they would be taking her to get evaluated and have an MRI to check her brain for brain damage. It ended up that she was a beautiful 6 lb. 8 oz. 27 in. baby girl named Olivia Kelsey (chosen by the adoptive parents) who had no problems but they wanted to keep her in the NICU to watch her just in case
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It was amazing to see Brady and Deborah
hold her and feed her they were so exited but scared to be parents. I remember not sleeping the whole time I was at the hospital because I did not want to miss any alone time I could get with Olivia.

My favorite time though was at night when everyone was asleep and I laid in bed holding her shocked at just how beautiful she was.

I believe on the 23rd we were ready to be released and that was the time that we needed to sign the parental relinquishment papers. This was the hardest part of the whole adoption the way those papers were worded made me feel like I was a horrible mother and that I could not provide for my child so I was giving her up for adoption. We had Olivia in the room with us and we were bawling we knew this was the end of being her parents and now being her birth parents. Brady and Deborah’s families were so kind and told us how much they loved us for being so selfless to give them a baby and how grateful they were. When we got home it really hit us like a ton of bricks she was gone and was no longer our baby who we cared for nine months. We laid in bed and just cried did not talk just cried, then we fell asleep for a whole 24 hours. The first month I did not even come out of my house I was so devisted besides going to see how she was which was about every two weeks sometimes more. It was nothing Brady and Deborah did they were amazing and were always making sure we were happy and taken care of. I was so numbed and blamed myself when I found out that Olivia was having eye problems because of the acutane. One of her eyes is lazy and she can’t focus or see very well. Another thing they noticed was the shape of her head which was not due to the acutane but due to the fact that she would lie in one spot in my belly became flat in some spots and made her head odd shaped. One thing that helped me so much were the post placement groups and therapy. It took a whole year to feel somewhat normal again but still to this day I am getting over the whole situation. But continue to grow.



This June me and Cameron got married and Brady was Cameron’s Groomsmen and Deborah was my Matron of Honor and of course Olivia was my flower girl it was truly the best day of my life
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Because of the adoption I choose to go into working as a social worker in adoption to help girls like me through these tough but amazing situations, and Cameron know owns his own rock chip company and is doing very well. We still see Brady, Deborah, and Olivia every month or so and we talk often, she is now 15 months old still having some developmental problems but her eye is better and she is rolling and starting to try and crawl. Without adoption Olivia would not have the early intervention therapist come in and help her with her development, she would not be sealed in the temple, she would not have parents who could provide all her needs. This adoption I would not change for a thing it has brought me closer to heavenly father, my husband, and provided me with a whole new side of our family, of course a beautiful little girl who I cannot live without, and I would not be in college. Adoption is truly about love!