Birmingham
Birmingham has been home to me since the second grade. My parents, Midwesterners from Illinois, moved my sister and me to the suburbs just outside of Birmingham during the summer of 1993. Birmingham summers are magical. I grew up on a street with a lot of kids. We played outside until dinner time, riding bikes, swimming, and collecting bugs and then reunited after dinner for catching lightning bugs and flashlight tag. This August will be 26 years spent living in and around our Magic City. It has been a place of magic for me. All of my biggest highs (and lows) have happened here. To Birmingham I owe meeting life-long friends, experiencing my first hangover and heartbreak, falling in love with and marrying the man of my dreams, struggling to get pregnant, finding my calling, growing a family, and buying our first home. Outside of my personal connections, I love the spirit of hospitality here, the love for people, and the good food.
Moms
I am mom to three kiddos ages 6, 3 and 1. Becoming a mother was something I denied wanting for a long time. Partly because I have a little bit of a rebellious nature and loved to defy the expectation of motherhood after marriage and partly because behind that response was hiding a great fear of infertility. Being a child of adoption, my mother’s story of infertility and her resulting grief had a great impact on me. My fears became actualized when we tried for two years to conceive without any luck, and then magically, after “giving up,” I became pregnant with our oldest, and the rest is history. I love being a mom and laugh at the younger version of myself who was so stubborn. Being a mom has been the hardest thing I have ever done. I have never been more aware of my own brokenness and incompetence but also my own strength and capacity to love. Albeit hard and exhausting, it is a gift.
Blog
I am new to the blog world and am excited to take on this endeavor. I am passionate about parenting and realize more than ever how important it is to have other moms alongside of you. My view of motherhood has been greatly impacted by my professional journey. I have been trained on trauma sensitive, attachment based parenting and spend a lot of my time preparing families for raising adopted children. I walk with families through the adoption process and get to play a role in the forming of the most beautiful, unique families. Observing the special bonds formed between adoptive and biological family members is amazing. Being an adoptee, it has spoken volumes to my heart, watching adoptive families extend love and grace to women considering adoption for their children. Being a parent, watching a mother bring her child into the world and courageously place them in someone else’s arms has broken me in the best way. These experiences, without a doubt, shape my view on being a mother and I am so thankful for them.
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