The adoption journey for Baby Engen is about overcoming challenges

You found Wisconsin's local music authority. This is MagSync Radio. We are local music.

Tonight, uh, Alyssa and Tom Engen, December 26, 2024, 9-1-1 operator, Alyssa Engen,

answered an emergency call from a forensic wife at a live music venue whose husband had just

gone down while playing drums. It just sounds familiar. And, uh, and like that, Alyssa stepped

into the moment to bring the impossible situation under control and start saving a life.

That was mine. And now Alyssa and her husband, Tom, they want to save another life, a child's

life together. They're looking to adopt a child and process is daunting and both challenges,

both legally and financially and here in the studio to talk about their adoption journey,

goals and efforts is Alyssa and Tom Engen. Alyssa, Tom, welcome to MagSync Radio.

Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. You know, do you often get calls from live music venues?

Not as often as you would think. Yeah. Especially a situation like a cardiac arrest.

Most cardiac arrests happen at home, as you know. Yeah. So a lot of our clubs or bars or music venues,

it's people with other medical issues or intoxication. It is Wisconsin intoxication.

What is your secret to calming people down in emergency situations? It's like your superpower,

right? Kind of. Tom and I both know this, but we rely heavily on our training.

Here in Dane County, we are certified with the International Academy for Emergency Dispatch.

So any possible medical police fire incident that you can think of, we have specific questions

and instructions to give somebody. So we get to have our moment of adrenaline later

after we help whoever is calling. Do you have just like a giant flow chart?

Kind of. Thankfully with technology, we can have it all online. So it just clicks through to where

we're supposed to go. But yeah. And we really are trained for all kinds of crazy situations. We

have flow charts and instructions for everything from, you know, jellyfish stings to snake bites.

Roll over crashes. Jelly fish in the spider in the bathroom.

Oh, let's see. Tom and Alyssa hanging. Give us a little backstory on yourselves. I mean,

you two met at a work conference for 9-1-1 professionals. And eight months later, Alyssa,

wait, you proposed to Tom? I sure did. So we were on vacation in Jamaica. And I knew that I was

going to do this. But I waited until the last day, just in case it did not go as planned.

Didn't want to ruin the rest of that vacation. But yeah, we met at a work conference in the delves.

We worked for partner agencies. We now work together. But we met and we both just hit it off

and never stopped talking after that. It's funny. I looking back. I didn't really want to go to

this work conference. I tried a couple times to get out of it. My supervisor at the time encouraged

me to go because I was pretty new to the industry. And he thought it'd be a great way for me to

meet people. He was right in ways. I don't think either of us could have entered.

I don't know that many people come out of that conference getting married.

Wow. Well, that's an incredible story. How did you come to be perspective parents looking to

adopt? It kind of starts with me. I have had a long history of endometriosis, which causes severe

pelvic pain, as well as it's a disease that grows on anything it can. So I actually had a

hysterectomy in 2023 to help with disease management and pain control. But we both knew going into

our relationship that we wanted to be parents no matter what that looked like, which I'm very

thankful to have a partner that is willing to do that. But we both know that family isn't just

blood or genetics. And why adopt? I guess there's, you know, there's a couple of different things

right there. There's foster care. What are the options? So most are with foster care. The state

of Wisconsin is really great in that it tries very hard to get infants, especially infants and

how there's back to their parents, whether that be or a family member, whether that be rehabilitation.

And getting them to a point where that they can take care of their child, both mentally, physically

and financially, or finding a family member for them to go live with, which is amazing for our

state and for the children in this state. But it does mean that for infant and toddler fostering,

it's generally a short term or a long term placement. But it's not an adoption process.

Yeah, I know for us because we're looking to start a family that way, adoption just made more sense

for our circumstances. And then once you decide that you're going to adopt, how do you do that? Do

you have to choose some kind of agency? It's a lot of research. I know something that really

surprised me about the process is how few agencies actually serve this part of Wisconsin.

There really aren't many. One of the things with the adoption process is proximity can play a

big deal because you have to, one of the fees associated with adoption is like mileage. So you're

looking at agencies that are closer to you because it helps keep costs down. And yeah, you really

just start doing research looking for agencies. And again, there really aren't a ton that served

this part of Wisconsin, which was a big surprise for me. Wow. Yeah, we found ones that they only do

the pre-year post placement. There was one where they only service the counties that touch the

state of Minnesota. And then there was one where we were too young, even though we're in our mid-30s.

It was a surprising process to have to try to find an agency. Wow, that sounds pretty,

that sounds like a problem you wouldn't think that you might have in this process. What about like

options? Do you kind of like see what you're looking for? Or is it just like, you know, kind of

children become available and you have to go with it? Yeah, a little, a little column,

a little column B, really. I mean, you do have the opportunity to put kind of what you're looking

for, age range, you know, things like that. But you as a perspective adoptive parent, you're kind

of at the mercy of like what's available, right? I mean, when people come to you and they find you

in a birth mother is looking for a parent and they have plenty of shoes from your name is out there

and hopefully they choose you. Wow. Well, having a child in hospitals is not cheap. And I imagine

adopting a child is expensive as well. Talk about the cost of adoption and the challenges that

you have there. Yeah, so medical clear is one of those things. And like Tom said, depending on what

you're willing to take on as a perspective parent also matters. So one of the things they really

ask you is whether or not you're willing to take in an infant that might have medical problems,

might have some sort of substance use while they were in the womb, that kind of thing. So that

does also play a factor in how much it costs. Generally, we're looking at 40 to $60,000 in the US

and in the state of Wisconsin for adoption. And part of that money goes to the birth mother for her

birth expenses. We have in the state of Wisconsin, we there's an allowance for like maternity clothes

and that kind of thing because they're giving their child to us so they shouldn't have to pay for

that. I see. Because they're not keeping anything out of this. But we it's very expensive. And then

you have to also be able to afford to take care of the child afterwards, right? Yeah. Which is

in cheap. Yeah. Well, that's a whole nother thing, right? But it should find out about college.

That sounds more. That even sounds to me more expensive. It's surprisingly than having a child in

a hospital. Yeah. It definitely is, especially when you count insurance purposes,

depending on your insurance, your birth might be completely covered. But it's also a long process

in that here we have six months of supervised visits after placement. So the child technically

isn't ours fully for six months. Wow. Which relates to our parental leave. And that's a good

point. Yeah. Because I mean, this parental leave in terms of adoption varies wildly based on

your employer, right? A lot of places don't even offer it. We're blessed in that we do. But the

caveat is it doesn't kick in until the child is hours in air quotes. Which is that at that six

month point. Any parent you probably ever talked to and is listening and attest to that first six

months, you kind of got to be there. You know, it's jam. When are you sleeping? When are you sleeping?

Well, these are these are incredible challenges that I don't think that I knew about before this.

Tom and Lisa, you have started a GoFundMe campaign to help offset some of these costs. Tell us

about your fundraising goals and efforts. We're trying to raise as much as we can to help

with the process. Again, even just submitting our 50 page application, 50 pages worth of documentation,

fingerprinting, background checks, letters of recommendation, financial background checks,

all of the things that you could possibly think of. Top secret clearance. Yeah. Literally every

place you've ever lived since you were 18, which depending on the person could be a lot of places,

including your dorms. So it's an extensive process. And just submitting that is roughly about

$10,000. Wow, that's incredible. Well, you started a GoFundMe. So GoFundMe.com slash BabyNGAN.

And that's ENGN, right? What would you tell a couple who are starting out the adoption process

right now? You're not alone. It can be an incredibly isolating experience. I mean, the 50 page

document, the home study, social worse coming to your house, the huge expense. Just know there's

other people going through the process as well. And don't feel like you are alone even though it

can feel that way when you're going through it. I bet. Wow, that's incredible. And I would also say

to remember to prioritize your relationship and yourself too, because like we have said before,

to each other, it starts and it ends with us. So if we put our relationship aside and we don't

prioritize our personal growth as well, then by the time we have this child in our home,

we're failing already. And we need to be able to support each other and support this child

and support us growing this family and being there for all sorts of things that can happen.

Wow. Tom, Alyssa, thank you so much for coming in to share your story. It's really incredible.

And I learned a lot tonight. I'd like to remind everyone that if you want to help, you can go to

GoFundMe.com slash BabyNGEN, that's G-E-N-G-E-N. And join the GoFundMe and help these guys out.

Thank you so much for coming down tonight. Thank you for having us and for having us share

our story. Like, Tom, we're not the only ones going through this. So that's right. That's right.

You found Wisconsin's local music authority. This is MagSyncRadio. We are local music.