Adoption group helps bless Oklahomans with families

Mindy Johnson sank into depression when she and her husband learned they wouldn’t be able to have children.

"I mourned the loss of a child I would never carry,” she said.

Johnson and her husband, Shawn, had been married for 11 years and tried to conceive until doctors discovered pregnancy was impossible. The Oklahoma City couple briefly considered fertility treatments but changed their minds when a friend told them about the Gladney Center for Adoption, an adoption agency based in Fort Worth, Texas

Nine months later, they adopted Lauren.

"I wanted to be a mom so bad,” Johnson said of the organization. "They gave me a gift that nobody else could give me.”

The Oklahoma Gladney Family Association is hosting a fundraiser lunch Friday in conjunction with National Adoption Month.

Oklahoma has a strong connection to the Gladney Center, said Nonya Jordan, vice president of development and special events for the group. About 275 families in Oklahoma include children adopted through Gladney, she said.

Gladney family associations, like the one in Oklahoma, help parents and children who’ve gone through the adoption process connect with others. The fundraisers, she said, help programs and services for adopted children and their families.

Johnson said the Oklahoma association is like an extended family for her, her husband and their busy 20-month-old daughter.

What unites them all, she said, is the strong sense of family.

"I couldn’t love my daughter more,” she said, "no matter where she came from.”