"After ageing out of the foster care system at 18 without having ever been adopted, there was no question that foster care would be a part of my story into adulthood too. We started fostering years ago after convincing my family the importance to support birth families. Learning to love others but letting them go when the time is right was not an easy lesson the first few times and I saw the pain of my stepchildren as we said our goodbyes, but they always learned to love our babies' birth families and found ways to help encourage them to keep fighting, because we wanted to change lives by supporting reunification.
Adoption was never the goal, but it found its way in our hearts with our baby girl who came to us fresh from the hospital with no family to follow through with. How do you support someone if they don't want to be found? So we prayed, and continue to pray that one day she will choose to be known. Adoption is a beautiful story in so many instances, and it is for us too, but in our journey we struggle balancing the happiness with the sadness that exists in the missing pieces of our baby's story. We love her wholeheartedly and she is everything we've ever dreamed of, but we also love her mother even though we have never met her, and hope one day we can sit together and share a love for our daughter with peace in our hearts. We have forever been changed and blessed by adoption and are grateful for the beautiful chaos this road brings."