Our Story

Our Story: Mark and I met in 2001, talking online at first and then we met. We bought our first house together four months later. We got engaged in 2002 and married in 2003. In 2005, we took the training and became licensed to be foster parents. We also started seeing a doctor for fertility issues. In 2005, we had our first foster son and found out we were pregnant. On January 4, 2006, we had our son Daniel, who was born too early to survive. We continued fostering in MN until 2007. In the Fall of 2007, we moved to WI. We took a break from foster care. In October 18, 2010, we found out that I was pregnant for the third time at the age of 42. When we went for a ultrasound, we found out that I was losing the baby and had many tumors in my bladder. I started chemo, ended in 2011 and in March of 2011, I had my bladder and uterus surgically removed. I had a fake bladder built inside of me (an Indiana Pouch) and now I catheterize through a stoma in my tummy. We became foster parents again in 2012 and had two long-term placements, both of whom went home to family eventually. In 2014, we decided we wanted to give the thought of having our own child one last try. We contacted an adoption agency, had our home study completed on October 23. Met an awesome adoption placement agency online called "Special Angels Adoption - Advocates for Special Needs" On Friday, November 14, we were matched with our baby girl Teresa Katherine (Tess). Tess has a lot of special medical needs, but nothing we don't handle gladly. She is the love of our lives and will finally become our FOREVER daughter at the end of May. What's YOUR story? http://www.postcrescent.com/story/life/2015/01/04/life-fragile-baby-adoptive-parents/21201719/