The backstory....

A lifetime spent as a ward of the court....

At 14 months old I was taken at gunpoint from my biological mother.
I was severely neglected & abused, filthy, emaciated and covered with ciggarette burns.

My great great grandparents (aged 57 & 63) were awarded guardianship.  During a course of 13 years the courts would never allow them to legally adopt due to thier advanced age.  Raised on a farm with 6 acres and a creek it was a seemingly perfect childhood.  I grew up in a christian home, and private school. I was happy.  I was spoiled mercilessly.  I was molested from as far back as I have memory, until I was around 10, by a 'family friend'.

An example of how spoiled... I rode the pony ride...did not want to get off...2 hours later on that same pony...'daddy' bought me the pony.  All of my material childhood desires were granted.  As funny as some of the stories are, I look back and smile because I know they loved me.  However, they did me a disservice for my future.

At the age of 14, I lost both of my grand parents within 6 months of one another.

From 14 years of age until 18, I had 6 placements.

The first had two bio children.  I believe I was brought in to merely care for them.  The oldest a girl 2 years younger than I would do things deliberatly and lie that it was me so that I would be punished.  This lasted 3 months.

Placement 2 was kincare.  By this time due to grief and loss issues it was too late.  I belive if this placement would have had the knowledge and tools available today they would have been able to control me and help me heal.  Placement lasted 2 years.

3rd placement with bio parent/step parent...and the nightmare continued.  A bio mother whose abuse was violently physical and cruelly mental.  A step father whose abuse was chronic and severely sexual.  This placement lasted 10 months.

4th placement with emergency foster care lasted 6 weeks.

5th placement put me back with previous kincare provider.  Lasted 3 months.

6th placement put me with a NREFM (non related extended family member) which lasted for 3 months.

During those tumultuous years I raged within, turning against everyone and everything.  At 14 I began useing methamphetamine.  This was my drug of choice for the next 17 years.  I spent those 17 years in a spiral of self hatred, self abuse, many violent relationships, and the eventual felony conviction. I was killing myself slowly...and I knew it.  I even welcomed the idea of death. Yet there was always a small part of me that enjoyed life and perhaps my curiosity of what would happen next that kept me from actual suicide.

After my drug conviction I realized that it was time to make a change.  I could no longer continue this way.  I knew within a year I would be dead or in prison for good. 

The first change was to walk away from a abusive relationship with the clothes on my back.  I never looked back.  I had 14 days clean at that moment and I began to feel my own internal strength. 

The second change was to overcome my addiction.  This was a challenge, but I am a very strong willed person...I am a fighter ready to take on challenge.

It is 11 years later.  I have survived & overcome.  I have 11 years clean.  I am a psychology major, and I instruct workshops on R.A.D.  I work as an assistant in the local/regional foster/kincare education programs.  In 2009 I married the man of my dreams.

In all of this though, even as a child, I knew that I never wanted to birth my own children.  As a child I knew that I wanted to adopt the children that nobody else wanted.  Now as an adult, I am finally able to realize that dream... Thus our journey to adopt from foster care begins...