In the last blog post, I mentioned that Jake received a special email through his ancestry DNA profile, and it was an email from Jan! Jan is Jake's biological mother, and it has been such a sweet expansion of family and love in our lives! Before getting to the story of it all, I just have to say how much we love Jan. She is so special. kind, and sweet. She is wonderful and we are so excited to have her in our lives.
Jake's profile linked him up with Jan as a maternal/child relationship with a very high probability. He didn't see this link up until seeing Jan's email. He got it early on a Monday morning, and I had already left for work so Jake called his dad, Walt, to get some advice on how to proceed. Walt and Vonnie already knew the results of Jake's test concerning his ethnicity and background, and was the first Jake told about the connection with Jan! Jake told Walt about the email, and Walt gave him the advice, "it's not all about you." He then spoke with Jake and they discussed that since being adopted, Jake has always had two parents to care for him, and that even though he (Jake) may have thought about it (being adopted) throughout his life, Jan has likely thought about Jake every single day for the past 31 years. Jake felt such peace after talking to Walt, but wanted to call Vonnie, too. Jake has always been good at heeding other's feelings, and he didn't want anyone to have hurt feelings, so he proceeded slowly. . . and that means that he responded within the day, not the hour. . . in new and exciting situations time seems to take on an entirely different norm. So even though his response was still quick, it felt like hours and hours!
At some point, Jake called me at work to tell me about Jan, and my response was just laughter!!!! I thought it was so exciting, but quickly realized Jake wanted me to be thoughtful about this all, so I tried to calm down, but as soon as I hung up, I started laughing again. Before we knew anything about Jan, I just felt so good about it all and it made me so happy and joyful!
When I got home from work, Jake was home and we both just stared at each other with out jaws dropped, in a "how has this happened!?!?!" way! I read the email he received and we went over possible responses until Jake was content! Jan, if you're reading this, Jake read and reread, typed and retyped every response to you. It's very unlike him, and I enjoyed that.
After several more email exchanges, phone calls were made, and a trip here was planned for Jan!
She came over Easter/General Conference weekend and it was such a joy. Going to sleep the night before she came was worse than Christmas Eve. When the hour came that we were expecting you, we both just walked back and forth in the house, trying to not look out the window while completely staring out the window. When your car pulled up, I laughed again, and Jake didn't know where to go and again, time did that thing where it completely changes.
25 years later (but really maybe 3 minutes later) Jan was inside, hugging me, hugging and kissing our girls, and hugging Jake, and we just knew our lives were going to be impacted for the better for having Jan in our lives.
We had a dinner and I can't remember if it was that day or the next, but Walt and Vonnie came and met Jan, and it was just a big parental love fest with lots of tears (on our parts, I think everyone else could keep it together. . . Jake and I are too sensitive to not cry. . .) and love and healing and peace!!
IT WAS MAGNIFICENT!
It was just joyful. We took Jan to the Easter Pageant, to the park for a kids egg hunt, and Jake took Jan to Korean food.
That is one of the best weekends we've ever experienced, and we're excited to visit Jan's turf!
Jan forever!!!
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| first picture together, and already Jan embraced our crazy. . . aka Emily. |
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| looking through Jake's mission stuff |
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| Jan and Korean food |
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| WE JUST LOVE YOU SO MUCH! |
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| Easter Pageant |
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| 💗💗💗💗💗 |
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| Jan, Jake, Vonnie, and Walt. Jake hit a jackpot with all these parents. |
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