Schmitz Family Intro

Hi!  We’re the Schmitz Family.  For the tens of readers that may read this blog, you already know that.  But if by chance you’re a curious soul that was fortunate enough to stumble upon this blog, then allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Laurel.  My husband’s name is Sam.  Our son is Bram.  (Rhyming names were not intentional.)  We live in a small northwest suburb of Chicago – Island Lake.  It’s a fairly quiet suburb, not much happening.  We like it that way. 

Sam and I both work at Ball Horticultural Company, the largest North American breeder and distributor of bedding plants.  The second largest company globally.  Ever heard of Wave Petunias?  That’s us.  Black Velvet and Phantom Petunias?  Also us.  Gryphon Begonia?  Again, us.  We are fortunate to work at the corporate office in West Chicago where there is an eight-acre display garden to peruse whenever we feel so inclined.  Sam, however, does a lot less perusing and ambling, and much more scrutinizing.  He’s the Supervisor of Grounds, in charge of the gardens and the other remaining 43 acres of property and their general upkeep.  I work for one of Ball Hort’s companies, PanAmerican Seed, as an inventory planner.  The very condensed version of what I do is make sure that seed is packaged and available for our loyal customers. 

Sam and I met at the University of Illinois, where we both hold degrees in Ornamental Horticulture.  Sam’s emphasis was in plant pathology, mine was landscape design.  Sam also holds a Master’s degree in Turf Management.  We both had somewhat similar paths out of college where we worked for separate landscape contracting companies before eventually finding our way to Ball.

We have a wide array of interests and hobbies, which as a family include fishing, canoeing and camping.  When Sam isn’t playing Oblivion, or Dragon Age or whatever other computer games he happens to find captivating, he immerses himself in the pursuit of knowledge.  His nickname is Dr. Science.  If ever you have a question about anything, Sam is your go-to guy.  He also enjoys volleyball, whereas I tend to avoid it like the plague.  I’m not a fan of having my forearms bashed and slapped by a volleyball hurtling at my face every two minutes.  On the other hand, I’m a voracious reader and prefer to crochet, knit, tie flies for fly fishing, and make jewelry.  Bram is a very inquisitive young lad, and takes after his dad regarding personality.  They regularly scout the yard, overturning anything that can be overturned, looking for insects, salamanders and snakes.  His most favorite pastime, however, is wrestling with his dad. 

But telling you about our work and our hobbies isn’t what prompted me to start this blog.  Our story is a simple one and not unique by any means.  In fact, it’s shared by thousands of other couples and families around the world – blasted infertility.  Bram is proof that we overcame it once, but not without help from the wonderful people at FCI.  We always knew we wanted to have at least two kids, but Sam wanted to take the science aspect out of the mix for our second child, since we went that route already.  Enter adoption.

We’ve had our hearts and minds open to adoption for a long time, even before Bram was born.  But it’s been sitting on the backburner for some time now, and I really want to get the ball rolling.  The problem we face, like so many people wanting to adopt, are the staggering costs of wanting to bring a child home and love him or her unconditionally, like a child deserves.  There are so many children in the world that need loving families and a place to call home, but for many deserving couples and children, that dream never comes true.

Sam and I have decided that we’d like to adopt a child from Colombia.  Originally we had settled on China, simply for the fact that that was the easiest way to ensure we’d get a little girl.  But apparently everyone else has had that same idea, as the wait is now over 5 years.  We didn’t want to wait that long.  We briefly considered Ethiopia as that had the shortest wait of about two years.  But I felt myself being drawn toward Colombia.  The wait time is about four years, and I feel I can live with that.  During that time we can continue to gather monies to put toward bringing our child home.  For those that may be wondering how much it costs to adopt internationally, it can range from $23,000 to $27,000.  Some countries, even higher.  And yes, we've looked into domestic adoption, and that costs just as much.

Since making this decision to finally go through with adopting, after several years of just talking about it, I’m giddy with anticipation.  I’ve prayed to God for the strength, wisdom and support to see us through what I’m sure will be a roller coaster of emotions these next few years.  I’m confident He will see us through any obstacles that will come our way.

My hope for this blog is to share our story along the way, and if you feel moved to help support our endeavor, we welcome donations in ANY amount.  You can visit our fundraising page at www.gofundme.com/schmitzfamily.

We'll keep you posted and thanks for reading!