Jennifer and I became a family almost 9 years ago. Our story begins when I was young. I knew even my teen years that someday I would have a little girl named Jennifer. I wrote messages to her in my journals, and bought outfits for her over the years. I prepared my whole life to be married and have the perfect home to raise a family. After years of waiting and preparing, the marriage just didn’t happen (yet!!). However, I kept feeling stronger and stronger that I needed to get ready because I was going to be a mom. This was confusing to me because I wasn’t married and I knew that is what was supposed to come first. So after a year of constant impressions that I should be ready, I decided to look into adoption. I found Act of Love Adoption Agency after I looked at 7 other companies. All the other companies just didn’t feel right. I felt like because I was single, and that I had diabetes for many years, that I was not an acceptable for adoption. I was so discouraged. I decided to would give it one more try. I met at Act of Love Adoption Agency with Isaac, and by chance happened to meet Kathy on my first visit to the office. I instantly felt like I belonged. I appreciated their honesty about the challenges and blessings of adoption- of biracial and tri-racial children. I told them I wanted to give a home to a child, any child, and I knew a child was waiting for me somewhere. We discussed that most birth mothers want their baby to go to traditional families with a mother and a father, but anything was possible. So I did the paperwork and created a book about me. I prayed and prayed that I would know if this was the right thing to do. On a Thursday afternoon at 4pm, I turned in my paperwork to A Act of Love. I drove home leaving it in my Heavenly Fathers hands. I knew if it was meant to be, it would happen.
The following Monday I was in the ER with one of my parents for many hours. When I called my brother to update him on the situation, he asked how things were going with the adoption process. I told him I hadn’t heard anything yet and that with my luck the agency probably called while I was in the ER. How did I know? I got home right before midnight and there was a message to call Act of Love. I cried all night thinking I had lost my chance. In the morning I called the adoption agency and was told that a birth mom in South Carolina had requested that her little girl go to a single mother. She was sent my information and that afternoon I was told that she had chosen me to be her mother. I cried again. It hadn’t even been a week since I turned in my paperwork. She was just waiting for me to finish my part!
I held my little girl a few days later, and knew this was my Jennifer. She was everything I ever imagined her to be. I never envisioned me with a beautiful “brown” little girl, but I look at her now and can’t imagine any other child being mine. She is so much like me!!! She likes animals and gardening and is so creative. All my life I wanted a little girl that was cuddly. Jennifer is so cuddly that sometimes I have to ask her to give just one inch to breathe. I am so grateful that things happen the way they a supposed to, when you are doing what is right. I am so grateful for the support of family and friends, and hairstylists, that support me in raising her. I’m excited to help Jennifer explore our family heritage, but also her Southern, Jamaican, Korean, heritage. It will always be a part of her- and I want her to be proud of who she is. People often ask if I cried when I got her. I have to admit that it happened so quickly I was scared to death once that foster mother handed her over to me and her precious little life depended completely on me. It took me 45 minutes in the hotel parking lot to figure out how to use the car seat, but everything else came naturally. We have joked that I had to schedule time to hold her because so many people wanted to hold her and be a part of her life. I cherished the times we were alone and she could just look up at me and smile as I fed her. Jenifer was a binky baby- sometimes she had three binkies in her mouth at a time. My favorite memory was when I was rocking her to sleep and we had been looking at each other for quite a while. She looked at me as if she was thinking, and then slowly took her binky out of her mouth and then put it in my mouth. She took it back in a few seconds, but her message was loud and clear even though she couldn’t talk- she loved me. I have that binky in our memory box. I will never forget the love that was shared without words.
A Act of Love made this all possible. Meeting the people there, being encouraged by them, and them providing classes on adoption helped me immensely. If it were not for them I don’t know where I would be, or where Jennifer would be- and that scares me. I know that her birth mother provided the means for me to have a beautiful daughter that could never happen any other way and I thank my Heavenly Father every day for her sacrifice and love.
Thank you Kathy for all the work you put in to an adoption agency that helps make dreams and wishes come to life. I love sharing my story about A Act of Love and my experience there. It could not have gone better or smoother, and if I were a little younger I would do it all over again.
Thanks you for the miracle you brought to my life.

Happy Birthday Kathy!!!