Taren Rucker isn’t sad, although some people might claim she has reason to be.

Rucker placed her baby boy for adoption and, two years later, says she’s never regretted the decision. It helps that she’s able to see him on occasion. It also helps knowing he’s being raised by parents who love him and are able to provide for his needs.

“I know I am a good mom and did the best thing for him,” Rucker said.

The Twin Falls woman placed her baby, Jaxson, through an adoption program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The program, LDSFamily Services, helps birth parents who wish to place their baby and adoptive couples seeking a child.

Birth moms do not have to be members of the LDS church to seek help through the service, but adoptive couples do. The church aims to place babies into homes that are emotionally secure, financially stable, and religiously active.

The decision

Rucker, 22, grew up a member of the LDS church but was not actively involved when she became pregnant at age 18. She gave birth to a girl, Jordyn, whom she kept. When she found out at age 19 that she was pregnant a second time, she had every intention of keeping that baby as well. But, unmarried, she decided otherwise about seven months into the pregnancy.

She visited with her bishop, who, once he found out Rucker was a single mom on welfare, asked if she had ever considered adoption. She told him no.

Things began to change that night when she had a fitful sleep.

“I saw what my daughter was missing out on,” she said, noting the birth father lived in Boise and they didn’t plan on marrying. “I knew I didn’t want to put another child through the whole back-and-forth thing (between mom and dad), going from home to home.”

She decided to visit LDSFamily Services.

Finding a couple

One of the things the LDS church is known for is family values. The church doesn’t tell single birth moms what to do, but offers counsel for those who wish to place their babies in a good, financially-stable home with two parents.

“It’s absolutely their decision on what they want to do,” said Sheila Hunter, a caseworker at the Twin Falls office. “It’s a decision they have to feel comfortable with for the rest of their lives.”

Birth parents are encouraged to seek their own spiritual confirmation, through prayer, on what they should do — “whether to keep, place or marry,” Hunter said.

Family Services also helps adoptive couples, providing them with a caseworker to guide them through the process of qualifying and waiting for a child. Ultimately, it is the birth mother who chooses into which family her baby will be placed.

To qualify, adoptive couples must receive a background check and submit financial statements, health assessments, a bishop’s recommendation letter and a cover letter and photos. The task can seem daunting, but it’s for a good cause. Because of the church’s belief in uniting families for eternity through temple ordinances, adoptive couples also must hold current temple recommends.

The waiting is the hard part, Hunter said. Some couples wait years before a birth mother chooses them.

Family Services offices are scattered across the country, with four offices in Idaho: Boise, Idaho Falls, Pocatello and Twin Falls. About 600 birth moms are signed up nationwide, Hunter said, with 2,400 couples seeking to adopt a child — including 24 couples in the Magic Valley. Adoptive couples range in age from their 20s to early 40s. Locally, the agency has helped place three babies since July.

Rucker wanted to place her baby with a couple in their late 30s — a husband and wife who had been married for a while, she said. When she visited Family Services she was shown portfolios of area couples seeking adoption. She perused the adoption website, Itsaboutlove.org, and found a couple who seemed to speak to her through their cover letter.

“I felt like they were writing to me,” she said, noting she had received her own spiritual confirmation on where to place her baby.

It was the first time a prayer was answered so strongly, she said.

Coping

Rucker knew what she needed to do for Jaxson, but family members didn’t.

“Some people didn’t understand how I could do that — have one child and place the second,” she said. “It was really hard on my family.”

It was especially difficult for her father, who wanted her to keep his grandson. But after sharing with him her feelings and confirmation experience, she said he knew she did the right thing.

Jaxson’s birth father, who still lives in Boise, also struggled with the decision once he witnessed the birth. But he accepted it and, with Rucker, legally signed away his parental rights.

Rucker said she feels for other birth parents who struggle with their own decision.

“I have a baby to come home to, to hold and take care of,” Rucker said of her daughter, Jordyn. “I’ve heard about some birth moms lying in bed for days after they’ve placed.

“Was it hard to place? No. It was sad. But is it hard to be a single mom every day? Yes.”

She can only imagine how difficult it’d be if she had to raise two children by herself.

The only regret she has is that Jordyn doesn’t have what Jaxson now has — a mom and dad at home and siblings.

New family

Mark and Melissa Collard of Blackfoot already had four children — each of them adopted — but they felt they weren’t yet done with their family, that more children were supposed to come to their home.

Like Rucker, the Collards had made their decision a matter of prayer. They again visited Family Services. (The church has since changed its policy, allowing only two infant adoptions per couple.)

Two types of adoptions are offered through Family Services: open and closed.

With closed adoptions, there is little or no contact between the birth parents and adoptive couple after the baby is placed. Contact is allowed with open adoptions, and it’s up to the birth parents and couple how open they prefer to have their relationship — contact through letters and photos, phone calls or personal visits.

Rucker and the Collards have an open adoption, and since Jaxson’s placement Rucker has visited Jaxson and even spent time in his home.

“I like to see how the whole family is doing, not just Jaxson,” Rucker said, noting that she and Melissa sometimes get together as friends without the kids. The Collards were even in the hospital room when Jaxson was born. Mark cut the umbilical cord.

The Collards, who said they appreciate all of the birth moms who’ve given them their family, said they could have went through a private adoption agency but like how Family Services provides counseling to birth moms.

Melissa said the open adoption they have with Jaxson is a good fit for her family, but says an open adoption might not be in the best interest of other families.

“We don’t keep secrets from any of the children,” she said. “I think it takes away the questioning of where do they come from and why? But it depends on the people involved.”

Interestingly, she said, Jaxson looks like a member of the family.

“Adoption is an interesting thing,” Melissa said. “They (the children) fit in where they’re supposed to go. ... They love and fight all the same like any other siblings. Some of them look like biological siblings.”

Jaxson even resembles an uncle, though he has some of Rucker’s characteristics.

“He bugs his eyes like I did when I was little,” Rucker said.

‘He’ll call me Taren’

Rucker says it’d be difficult for her if one day the Collard family moved out of state. They have a special place in her heart — as she does in theirs — especially the dark-haired little boy named Jaxson. But she’s at peace because she knows she did the best thing for him.

“I can’t relate to other birth moms,” she said. “I don’t cry about it or beat myself up. It didn’t take me long to realize that being a birth parent doesn’t mean you have to be sad or give up your life.”

Rucker today is active in church and plans to attend the College of Southern Idaho. She currently volunteers at LDSFamily Services, where she supports other birth moms seeking to place their babies into well-balanced homes. She also speaks to area youth at church devotionals, encouraging them to listen to their parents and church leaders and stay morally clean. Someday she’d like to find Mr. Right, marry and have a big family.

She’s happy knowing that Jaxson also has a future. As he grows, his parents will teach him about adoption and how his birth mother placed him with another family so he could live a better life. And they’ll teach him how much he has blessed their lives.

“He’ll definitely know who I am,” Rucker said. “He’ll know that I gave birth to him, but he’ll call me Taren.”

Andrew Weeks may be reached at 735-3233 or aweeks@magicvalley.com.