About me

Hi!

I'm Katie.

I'm a 23 year old college graduate (degree in public health with a minor in Spanish), currently working as a childcare provider, no kids of my own just yet... well, except for the furry one I adopted nine weeks ago...

I've always loved children and I come from a family which has raised me to believe that special needs children are just as valuable as any child.  I discovered Reece's Rainbow after seeing this photo of Katie Musser coming home from the hospital shortly after last Thanksgiving.  This photo:

It was in a post, on a message board, titled "10 pound 9 year old from Bulgaria".  For days I hadn't clicked that post, figuring it was another one of those outlandish not-a-shred-of-truth stories, or that the child simply had some sort of growth disorder like all those kids on TLC.  But the post kept coming up, coming up, coming up, until finally I clicked it and saw this photo, saw that Katie's diagnosis was down syndrome... and that her disability had not caused her to, at almost ten years old, fit in a Britax infant seat.  I clicked the link to her Mama's blog, www.theblessingofverity.com, and I learned that the reason for Katie's size was malnutrition... she had been criminally underfed, mistreated and indeed starved... for nine years!  

It was exactly nine days between seeing that picture (and saying to myself 'Wow, that's awesome, what an awesome thing to do.  I'm definitely going to adopt, I just can't do an international adoption like that... no, I'll adopt from foster care.  Like I was already planning to do.') and starting my first blog... my first post attesting that yes, I would, too, someday, seek to adopt a child like Katie... a special needs child from an overseas orphanage where he or she wasn't being treated well.  Those nine days, God hammered on my heart... 'Hey.  You.  I'm talking to you.  Yeah, you.  You're supposed to do this.  Go on.  Take up the cause.'  And in doing so, He also brought me back from a six year crisis of faith and a very dark place in my life.  In that ten pound nine year old girl, I found hope for the future.  Oh, and look at her now...

Since then, a good portion of my time has been taken up by praying for, supporting, fundraising for, and reading blogs of adopting families.  Almost a year now.  And a tumultuous year at that, but through everything, I had a goal to keep me going:  Help these kids.  This blog is simply the next chapter in both my journey of advocacy, and my own personal journey to adopt... someday.  

I've met some amazing people.  Adoptive families in my own community.  I've held their sweet children.  I've been to my first Buddy Walk for Down Syndrome Awareness.  It's a road that, now that I've set out on, I'll never be able to turn away from.  

For now, the authorities still say I'm too young to adopt myself, and I doubt they'd take kindly to my living in my mother's basement either!  So advocacy and support it is for now!  Please stay tuned to meet some truly amazing and wonderful people.