ENCOURAGE ADOPTING A LIFE
Our mission is to change the face of adoption. By change, we mean to honor and spotlight the courage of a birth mother to unselfishly love her baby enough to make a decision to give her baby a life that she can not presently provide.
Her first action as a mother is to determine what is best for her baby and to honestly reflect on her current circumstances to determine if she is prepared to raise a child.
There is no higher level of respect for a mother to love her child so much that she will put the baby’s needs above her own. Birth mothers are heros and we honor them.
OUR INITIATIVES
Speaking Engagements
Johnny Sirpilla is an impassioned speaker who provides a unique perspective on adoption and addresses the tough topics. Adoption is life changing in a beautiful way for all involved. Allow Johnny to challenge your organization.
Pregnancy Choices
Broadening the horizon for pregnant mothers and the choices they have. A program empowering choice when a woman finds themselves at a challenging fork in the road
Program Development
Committed to finding new ways to impact adoption, we are open minded to new programs and opportunities and look forward to bringing our vast experience in program development to the table.
A Bright Light During a Dark Time:
How Adoption Saved Us Johnny Sirpilla's personal experience of love, loss, and a wonderful second chance.
The decision to expand the focus of our lives beyond our young marriage and careers was an easy one for us. Our purpose in life was quite simply to parent and form a life around our children. Unexplained infertility quickly abrupted our plans to start a family and years of struggle followed. The emotional ride of facing the reality that children may not be a part of our future devastated us beyond belief. We’re fighters, faithful servants and continued to pursue every step necessary to make our dream of being parents become our own reality.
We were blessed with a pregnancy of triplets. As the many months progressed, the joy of becoming parents to multiples over shadowed the fear of the challenges ahead. On February 22, 1995, Nicholas, Mary and Peter Sirpilla made us a family. The love filled the delivery room as we saw our miracle babies but the life ahead that we dreamed of would not be. Each baby passed away due to prematurity and we entered into a darkness that we could never have envisioned. A miscarriage of twins followed later in the year and we realized that our family needed to be created in a different way. Our prayer turned from getting pregnant to being open for God to send us the children that we were meant to raise. This prayer changed our lives.
While holding Nicholas, Mary and Peter very close to our hearts, we were blessed with the gift of adoption through the birth of our son, Beau. Beau was the bright light during a dark time that truly saved our lives. The courage of his birth mother to seek a couple that would “provide for him the life that she couldn’t” filled our hearts and we transitioned our time from visiting the cemetery to holding our son in his nursery. Surprising and complicated pregnancies followed with the birth of our daughter, Bella, and our son, Stone, over the next two years and we found our house full of three children under the age of four.
Biology didn’t define our family… matter of fact, it is of little interest to us but the love that we witnessed with three children who only knew family by the ways theirs was created sustained us.
Our purpose at Encourage Adoption is to change the face of adoption and bring understanding to prospective birth mothers that there is a choice that can bring far greater satisfaction as a parent than she could ever have imagined. Her first decision as a mother is to determine what is best for her baby’s future. The selfless love and commitment to the best possible life for her baby is an act of maturity, kindness, and love like few other critical life decisions. No parenting decision is easy but when it is rooted in love for the baby and his or her future, our hearts as parents are in the right place. Parenting is a series of selfless decisions and the courage of a birthmother to instinctively know what is best for her baby shows wisdom beyond her years. Engaging dialogue through difficult times is what sets a life decision apart from regret. Doing something that is hard but truly right for someone else we love is a decision that we can grow to accept and take pride in the years ahead.