Tim Burri saw Clayton Dobson across the room, in a bar, 6 years ago, and asked him to play a round of pool. Tim says he knows "how cliché that sounds," but it worked. The two Kentucky locals married in June this year, and have their hands full with their beautiful adopted daughter, Kennedy, who turns 1 year old this year on September 12.
While many gay dads-to-be choose their path to fatherhood, adoption picked Tim and Clayton. They had just begun looking into the foster-adopt process when they found out an acquaintance was pregnant and was meeting with a lawyer to put her baby up for adoption. "We went out on a limb," said Tim. "Clayton asked if she would ever consider us to adopt, and she agreed. Within two weeks we had a beautiful newborn baby girl!"
Clayton with baby Kennedy
The besotted new dads named their baby girl Kennedy. "Our lives have changed forever!" shared Clayton.
The dads quickly went from a relatively carefree existence of just the two of them, to spending every minute they have loving and looking out for their little girl. "Before we just hopped in the car and spent an afternoon doing whatever," explained Tim. "Now, we hover over the diaper bag and verbally list off the litany of items we surely over pack to make sure we have planned for every situation, which, in truth, we know there could always be something."
Clayton (left) and Tim (right) with Kennedy
The dads have shared photos with Kennedy's birth mom when she's requested them, usually on special occasions, but unfortunately they have not heard from her in several months. They plan to keep sharing photos when the birth mom requests, and they also want to keep an open and an age appropriate dialogue with Kennedy about where she came from. "We plan on being open and honest about how much we wanted her and her mom loved us and her so much that she wanted us to have her," said Clayton.
After 7 years together, the dads were married on June 16th this year on a beautiful goat farm. Yes, you read that right. "We had a causal cocktail hour in the open air barn, boarded a hay ride to a venue on the property in the woods creekside," explained Clayton. The dads arranged for fishing poles and bait for the kids who attended to be down by the creek so they could fish and have fun after the ceremony. After the ceremony, they all boarded a hayride again for a trip back to the barn where they had a catered dinner, goat-side! "Yes, there were goats in attendance for the kids," said Tim, quickly adding, "Yeah right, more so for me to play with!" Besides the goats, the real guest of honor was Kennedy who got to watch her dads declare their eternal love for one another.
Although there wasn't much waiting time for the fathers after they began their journey to become dads, there was ample waiting time for it become official. The original date for Kennedy's adoption to be finalized had been set for December 2017, but in reality, it took almost a year. Tim believes that much of the hold up can be attributed to their Governor who had "reorganized" the Cabinet, and since then, things took a lot longer to be processed. "We had a fairly new judge with a new staff," explained Tim, "they were struggling with scheduling non-docket items; our attorney had to appear during motion hour to get them to schedule the adoption hearing date."
But finally, on July 9th, 2017, it became official: Clayton, Tim and Kennedy are a forever family of three.
For Kennedy's first birthday they plan on having a unicorn themed birthday party and invite everyone who has been a part of their journey. The dads also plan to have Kennedy's birth date tattooed on the insider of their upper arms.
"We have learned a lot about ourselves as dads," summarized Tim. "I was convinced I had no instincts at all and was going to mess up so badly that her head would inevitably fall off because I held her wrong. How things change and how natural instincts hop into overdrive. I've learned that dang, ya know what? We actually are good at this, we can do this, and we are going to LOVE it."
Follow Us on Instagram
