I was sitting at home one day when the phone rang. I picked it up and I heard my friend Heidi on the other end whom proceeded to tell me about a fifteen year old girl whom came into her office at work and was attempting to have an abortion. The girl was however was to far along for the medical procedure to take place. In having conversation with the young girl Heidi provided her with many other options in regards to her unborn child, one of them being adoption. As Heidi proceeded to talk the girl interrupted her and asked, who adopts children? Heidi proceeded to tell her that there are a lot of great people out in the world whom want children but hadn’t had any or were unable to have them. The girl asked her if she knew anybody and Heidi replied “yes” and that’s when my journey began.
I listened to Heidi and what she had to say and was left with the question of a life time, am I interested? At the time I was thirty six, had a decent career for the Department of Corrections, was recently divorced. I had not given having children much thought as a newly divorced woman but after some thought said “yes” I am interested. From that point on I met with the young lady and her family. Attended doctors appointments, saw many sonograms and found out she or shall I say I was going to have a little girl on November 17th. The paper work had been started and was in process for the adoption but I still had one thing to do in order to bring the child home from the hospital. Under California law I had to have my home foster care licensed until the adoption could be final in court. With this being said I had to attend many classes with the County and get my home prepared. During this process I met many social workers who helped me and with this I formed relationships.

During this long process many of my family members were elated that we were going to have a baby in the family, one of the main people being my mother. My mother had been knitting baby blankets made of pink and yellow, until one day she had a dream. She came to me and asked me if I was sure the baby was a girl because she kept having dreams of baby blue which stood for little boys. I showed her the sonogram and that was the end of it. On October 20th approximately one month before the baby was born I got a call from the young girls mother whom proceeded to tell me that her daughter had changed her mind. I have to say my heart sunk to my chest but I couldn’t have given my child up either. After a long talk with the mother it was over in a blink of an eye. Until the next day when inevitabley my phone rang again but this time on the other end it was one of the social workers from the county named Ingrid. She informed me that she had heard of what happened with the adoption and asked me if I was interested in a little boy. I being hurt of course said no but after a few days of thought of remembered what my mother had said to me previously about her dreams of a little boy and that was all of the answer I needed. Three days later I went and picked up my new son, Braedyn. The journey to fight for Braedyn was long and hard as the parents were drug addicts and with every “parental right” in the world they were given many opportunities to get it together to get him back. All together between the mom and dad they already had seven kids in the foster system. The fight for my son to be adopted took eight months. Braedyn was the love of my life, everyone’s life to be exact. My life changed so