View Family Summary - A Family For Every Child

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Alyssa and Alexis
Oregon

Basic Info

Alyssa

Age: 28
Sex: Female
Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian
Religion: Christian

Alexis

Age: 23
Sex: Female
Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian
Religion: Christian

Child Preferences

Age: Infant to 9 years old
Sex: Either
Max Number of Children: 2
Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian, African American, Asian, Native American, Hispanic, Pacific Islander

Special Needs the Family is Open To: Mild Physical/Medical Disability, Animal Allergies, Asthma, Drug Allergies, Environmental Allergies, Food Allergies, Defiant, Difficulty in Attaching, Lying, Fetal Alcohol Effected, Low Birth Weight or Premature, Prenatal Drug Exposure, Physically Disabled-Mild, Hearing Impaired, Speech Delays - Mild, Speech Delays - Moderate, Vision Impaired, Academically behind due to poor attendance, Cognitive Delay - Mild, Has Behavior Problems in School, Mild Learning Disabilities, Moderate Learning Disabilities, Speech or Language Impairment, One/Both Parents Diagnosed with Depression, One/Both Parents Have Alcohol Addiction, One/Both Parents Have Drug Addiction, Exposed to Domestic Violence, Multiple Placements, ADHD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Requires Counseling/Therapy, Willing to Maintain Contact via Mail with Bio Family, Willing to Maintain Contact with Past Foster Parents, Willing to Maintain Contact with Bio Grandparents & Other Relatives, Willing to Maintain Contact with Bio Siblings, Child Identifies as LGBT, Sexually Abused in the Past

Environment

State: Oregon
Neighborhood: Country/Rural
Residency:
Years Together: 2
Children in the Home: 0
Pet(s): Dog(s), cat(s), farm animal(s)

Work

Alyssa

Occupation: Patrol Officer

Alexis

Occupation: Dispatch

Adoption Agency

Agency: A Family For Every Child
Worker: Malia Ladd
Worker: malia@afamilyforeverychild.org
City: Eugene
State: Oregon
Zip: 97402

Family Description

Our household consists of two adoptive moms-to-be and a some furbabies!

Preference Description

We are looking to adopting a child between the age of infant to 9 YO, of any ethnicity/gender. Willing to accept minor or moderate/medically correctable conditions. Only unacceptable behavior being cruelty towards animals and/or acting out sexually.

The Doty-Hayes Family Profile

We would like to adopt a child, birth to age nine, male or female of any race or ethnicity. We are open-minded when it comes to different cultures and beliefs. We will consider children from any background. Also, we are willing to consider contact with birth families that benefit the child. We understand that every child is different and plan to include professionals in establishing contact with the birth family to ensure that it is in the best interest of the child.

Introduction

We spend our summers taking advantage of outdoor activities. We like to go paddleboarding, hiking, relax at the lake with a book and camping-all with the company of our furbabies. We especially love to have outdoor movie nights around a fire, and enjoy taking walks in the community. In the winter we enjoy board games, reading, crafting, and cozying-up around the fire inside, for movie nights. We take advantage of any day we can in the fall and winter to get our dogs out for a walk.

Home and Community

We own a four-bedroom, one bathroom home on a third of an acre in the heart of Sweet Home, Oregon. We have a large, fenced backyard with a separate fenced area for raising chickens! There are ample opportunities to get out of the house as a family and experience new things together in Sweet Home. Our home is within walking distance of the many community events held in their community such as The Harvest Fair, movies in the park, the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony, farmers markets, local concerts,etc. We can also easily walk to the downtown area and the seven parks/family walking. The Foster Lake Recreation area is only four miles away.

Parenting Experience

We have a great deal of experience with children. We both were very involved in helping to raise our nine (each) younger brothers and sisters. Alyssa has been volunteering for several years as a basketball, soccer, and softball coach for youth programs. Alexis has been a special education assistant in Newberg Public Schools where she supported the education of three autistic children. She also developed the "Thrive" program for individuals with disabilities in her community. She was also a nanny for three years to a five-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl. Much of our work in the community for the Corvallis Police Department involves children either caught in the middle of an unsafe situation, or children calling 9-1-1 for help. We feel we have a special gift talking with children that are in unsafe situations because of our own childhood experiences. Foremost we want our child to live a happy childhood in a safe, supportive and stable home. We feel that our strengths as parents will be our patience, and we hope the communication skills we have learned on the job and in life will benefit us as parents as well. We know we have much to learn and believe it will be a learning process to effectively support and communicate with our child.

Support

We have a solid team of friends and family to support us as parents to include Alyssa's mother, Alexis's grandmother and our best friends Ivey, CheyAnn, and Max, to name just a few, who we can count on for support and advice. Our work in the community through the Corvallis Police Department also brings us into constant contact with local services. We also work closely with the Chaplains in the community who support first responders and are an invaluable source of community and regional support personnel and programs. Our work life has been an excellent model for us seeing a community coming together to support those in times of crisis. We can see first-handedly how effective a team approach can be for those in need and we know that will be true for us as we expand our family. We are proactively gathering our team of family and friends and community professionals to help us give the very best life to a child in need. Besides the family and friends already mentioned, we can turn to Psychiatrist Josh Sizemore at the Center for Developing Hope in Corvallis, Oregon, for family mental health support, the Sweet Home Family Medicine Clinic for their health needs, and Willamette Dental for our family dental needs.

Motivation to Adopt

Once a child is placed in our home we will have three months of parental leave which we will take together to help with the child's transition and to bond as a family. When the parental leave ends Alyssa will work the day shift and Alexis will work the swing shift so one of us will always be available to be home with the child. We will both have the same days off so there will still be time for each other, and to do activities as a family. We also plan to find enrichment activities for our child such as library story time, play dates, and pre-school when the child is ready if they are not school-age. We want to make sure our child has age appropriate opportunities to socialize with other children but do not plan on using extended childcare. Our hope for adoption stems from our longing to be parents. As a same sex couple, we do have options, but we both feel very committed to adoption. We are firm believers in "everything happens for a reason" and know that the right children will join our family at the right time. We feel this is the right time to expand our family because our relationship is secure, we have good jobs, own our home, and our hearts are ready and open to start a family together. We are devoted, as a couple to making this happen.