Neil & Kristy

If you have read our letter, then you already know that we lost our first three children; Eli and Oliver in 2016, and Skylee in 2017. But the story of our family only starts there. While this will be a truncated version, we wanted to share at least a few of the miracles that got us to where we are today. A very short time after Skylee passed away, we began to feel strongly that we needed to prep for adoption. This caught us off guard because as we were still very much grieving from our loss. But the feeling persisted, and as we prayed about it we knew that this was God pushing us forward. We posted our first profile live on Adoption.com in February 2018. I was in the first year of my MBA program, with an out of state internship looming. We expected slow progress, but in March we were thrilled to match with a young and overwhelmed single mother pregnant with a second child due in October. We met with her regularly as the pregnancy progressed, and we felt confident in moving forward together. However, as we went to take our profile down, we again experienced that strong pressure from the Lord to leave it up. Kristy and I were both impressed that there might be another child out there intended to come to our family. We discussed it with the birth mother we had already matched with, and explained our feelings as well as what we had received through prayer. She was excited by the prospect of her child having a sibling, and gave us her blessing to proceed. The profile stayed up. I traveled to my internship for three months while Kristy remained home. We waited and wondered why we had felt to leave the profile up, when all seemed quiet. One day in May, I was deep in thought and meditation when some words were deeply imprinted on me: “He is coming”. That night we were contacted by the mother of a young girl pregnant with a son and due in August. We were blessed to be able to take both Carter and Bentley home from the hospital, and they have been the most incredible blessings in our lives. Still, we knew that our family wasn’t complete. After a move to Kentucky in November of 2021, we began to feel once more that it was time to start the process again. As we engaged in the process, we continued to experience many little set backs that pushed the completion date out farther and farther. In a moment of frustration, I expressed to a church leader that we were wanting to expand our family, felt like it was time, but also felt like we were getting blocked. Three days later, that church leader was called about a one-year-old child that needed to be placed in a home. He was asked if he knew of anyone, and because of our conversation he did. Daniel joined us at the end of March, 2023. One thing we have learned is that God has his own plans. We put in the effort and faith, He provides the miracles. With two five-year-olds, and 21-month-old who only recently joined our family, it surprised us both when we again started to feel that same prompting and pushing from the Lord to ready ourselves for adoption again. We don’t know what He has in store, but we are excited by the prospect of a larger family!

Obviously family is a big part of our lives. Not just because we are working to continue build our own, but because we love our parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews. The most common questions we’ve been asked are about our family. While there is obviously a lot more depth to our family than we can put into a post, we wanted to give a VERY general overview of what our extended families are like, and where Kristy and I fit into them. I (Neil) come from a family of six kids, and am the second youngest (number 5 of the six). I have two older brothers, two older sisters, and a younger sister making for an even three boy, three girl split. My family is spread far and wide, with siblings in Texas, Utah, North Carolina, parents in Wisconsin, and us in Kentucky. Between the six kids there are twenty-six grandchildren. While my family is spread out, we keep in contact through weekly update emails, phone calls, video calls, group chats, and visits between states. We try to make space in our schedules for significant family events (baptisms, graduations, etc.), and we also do a family reunion in different locations every three years where all get to spend a week together getting reacquainted. We’ve held these in Wyoming, Missouri, Colorado, Utah, and Kentucky, with the next one scheduled for 2024 in North Carolina. Kristy – always looking to find a way to one-up her husband – is the youngest in a family of seven. She has four older brothers and two older sisters. Much of her family are located in Utah, including her parents, though she does have a sister in Montana, and a brother in Arizona. Between the seven children there are twenty-five grandchildren. Kristy’s local Utah family holds weekly dinners, host movie nights, and attend various events often as a group. They also have reunions every other year to bring the whole family together. The next one planned will be at Lake Powell, and we are all thrilled to be spending days on/in the water. So there is a brief bit of insight into our roots, and our families. We would love to answer more questions about these amazing people, and hope to be able to bring more children into the fun, loving, and supportive clan.

While we love a lot about adoption.com, we feel like the contact form is a little intimidating. So, we wanted to share our email address and phone number here as well. The number is toll free for texts and calls. Please feel free to reach out to us!  neilandkristybasinger@gmail.com phone (calls or texts): (859) 428-8041  

In several sit-downs we have had with family, friends, and perspective birth-parents, one of the first questions we are always asked is about our feelings on open adoption. So, we thought this would be a great opportunity to make our first post, and share our feelings at the same time! We are in full support of open adoption. All three of our children have open relationships, and we manage each of them differently based off the interest and desires of the birth-parents. Our view of open adoption is that it means that the child gets to benefit from the love and support of an even larger family. While we can’t list out all of the things we ARE comfortable with in open adoption – because we take it on a case by case basis – we can share some of the things that we have done. First, we try to make sure that the birth-parents know that we support them in their lives, and in their big events. We’ve attended graduations and weddings. We have regular conversations about how they are doing, and offer our support, love, and advice when and where we can. Birthdays, holidays, and other special occasions where in person visits aren’t possible typically involve pictures and video calls. On birthdays and Christmas there are often gifts sent back and forth. I can’t stress enough how different each of these relationships are because we want to make sure that we are truly helping and supporting in the ways that each individual needs, and not in the way the is easiest for us. The spectrum of openness we might be comfortable with is large. What we don’t want to do, is push a difficult situation on the biological parents, as we know it can be an emotionally difficult thing to participate in various forms of open adoption. Essentially, we look forward to tailoring our definition of an open adoption to the situation and perspective birth parents as we get to know one another better! Thanks for reading, and we hope to hear from you! Sincerely, Kristy and Neil Basinger