I had long struggled with the idea of adoption as a second choice — pregnancy being the default setting and thus the first choice.
Why the struggle? After all, I had ended up in exactly the right place. I wouldn’t want my family to be any different than what it is.
But how to explain this [...]

A couple of Saturdays ago, I, PrincessDIE!, and my husband, Osama bin Skatin, took our children on a family date night. Where did we find good, clean fun?
At the Denver Roller Dolls matchup of the championship-defending Bad Apples and the challenging Green Barrettes. (Disclaimer: children are free, and the Denver Roller Dolls comped us two [...]

In January of 2003 I took a crash course on bi-polar disorder in children.
In a weekly email, our adoption agency told us and other waiting families about a situation. Normally it doesn’t happen this way. Normally, a couple waiting to adopt eagerly awaits The Call announcing they’d been chosen to parent a newborn.
But when [...]

CONTEST CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO WINNERS JANELLE HRUBY AND ELENA DAVIS-STENHOUSE!
My face hurts from smiling. I’ve just taken my kids to JungleQuest.
And watched them fly through the air with the greatest of ease. And swing and squeal and climb and conquer a rock wall and expand their boundaries.
It was a thrill — as the parent who [...]

My Dad once told me that we are all TABs: Temporarily Able-Bodied. Being young and invincible, I dismissed his statement as a middle-aged mope.
Years later, I finally see what he means.
In February of 2007, my sister’s husband complained of numbness in the hands and feet. He got on to WebMD and self-diagnosed before [...]

Before I tell you the following story, I’ll cut to the chase: Roger is OK. “Roger? Who’s Roger? Isn’t Lori’s husband named Rob?” you may be asking yourself. I’m going to confess. I’ve been using an alias for my husband’s name all this time, for purposes of protecting my children’s privacy. [...]

A mad-mom entry from two summers ago.
So the sane me is sitting at my kitchen table, keeping an eye on the kids in the backyard while I work at the laptop. I am making over an adoption profile for a couple who has been passed over by expectant parents several times over the last 7 [...]