A place to begin our story

Hello readers and welcome to our family blog. This is something I have wanted to do for several years. I just recruited a little help from my 14 year old son, Casey Jay, to begin. So I want to open with a big thank you to him for encouraging his Mom. Hopefully, you will enjoy our journey to our new child we anticipate adopting from Russia this year. Our little girl is six years old and she will be the ninth child in our family. Her name will be Katie Aunna. She is waiting for us in an orphanage in a city bordering the Arctic Circle. It is our dream and prayer to have her home by this summer.

To give you a little history about our family, we were married in a beautiful Catholic Church, August 18, 1973. Duane and I were first time bride and groom. We were two young adults very much in love. The Vietnam War was coming to a close and the world seemed to be going a little crazy during those times. But, they were ever so sweet to us. I actually met Duane at the military base here in our home town where he had been stationed. During that very first year of our marriage we desired to have children. Unfortunately, I did not conceive and so we began to discuss the idea of adopting a child.

Because Duane and I were very young we wanted a newborn baby. We first attempted to adopt privately. It was a huge disappointment to say the least. However, we persisted to search, as we knew God had a plan for us. There was an employee of Duane's company who had a niece living in California. She had become pregnant and wanted a young couple who shared her Catholic beliefs to adopt her baby. I was very insecure after the first failed adoption attempt. Then again, what did we have to lose by trying? So we accepted the offer and much to our surprise and joy our first child came into our life during 1977.

What a beautiful little girl she was!!! We named her Kisty Elaine. I held her in my arms at only a few hours old. Two days later we took her home from the hospital and presently she has blessed us with two beautiful grandchildren. Further, she named her first daughter after me! We call her Little Trisha and she is a delight to my life. That is Little Trish in the third photo above....Isn't she a doll?!?!?! Next, Kisty gave birth to another healthy little girl, DeeDee Marie, who is full of zest for life. She is the darling little girl in the second photo above. So my first blog pictures are of our first family of children and our precious grandchildren...what a typical Grandmother I am...ha ha.

Going back in time a little....like thirty four years ago....Kisty was the only grandchild to my parents at that time. Duane's family lived (and still do) in Kansas with Dorthy and Toto. There had not been a baby in our family since my younger sister, who was a teenager, at this point in time. Needless to say, my family spoiled Kisty rotten and I adored her. She was the prissy little girlie-girl of my dreams. Actually, she is still very special to me as my first born child and oldest daughter. I love to brag on my children....those grown and not so grown up. Forgive me if I do it too much!!!

In 1980, after Kisty was almost three years old, we wanted to add another child to our family. This time we decided to use an adoption agency in Albuquerque. We live in a small rural town in New Mexico and so we qualified for an in-state domestic adoption with this agency. Amazingly, we applied for an adoption of a newborn baby boy and received his referral exactly one year from that date. I adore my father and named our first son after him and my most handsome husband. We named our son Weldon Duane and he was darling. He was placed into my arms at the age of five days old.

I will never forget the drive back to our home from Albuquerque with him. We were all dressed in beautiful clothes for the day we picked up our son. Kisty had on at least three can-cans (with tiny bells) under a sky blue velvet dress with cream lace trim. Duane had a black three piece suite with cream silk shirt and blue matching tie. I had a slim line blue velvet mini skirt with a cream silk blouse. Little Weldon was dressed in a velvet blue newborn jumper with a little cream shirt. I had custom ordered these clothes from a family clothing store over in Lubbock, Texas months before we got our referral. I was just so sure it was coming soon and we had to look sharp;-).

We had driven to Albuquerque the night before we were to pick Weldon up from the agency. Duane, Kisty, and I had a nice dinner out with my mom and dad who accompanied us to Albuquerque. Following dinner we all went to our hotel rooms to rest before we changed our family of one child into two. One thing which I find very annoying about my husband....he can sleep no matter what. Me, on the other hand, must have all things in perfect order to sleep. Kisty stayed in the room with her grandparents. Duane took his shower, jumped into bed, and began sleeping like a log.

NOT ME!!!! Oh no....I got my shower, cozy into my PJ's, and paced the hotel room. I watched a few hours of TV, listened to radio, read a book, posted into Weldon's baby book, paced the room, tried to conjure up visions of what this new baby looked like. The bottom line, I might have slept three or four hours tops, that night. When the sun finally came up I was dressed in my finest and ready to go!!! I got Duane's clothes from the closet and took Kisty's next door to my parents hotel room. There I dressed her and fixed her hair beautifully. My goodness, I can still see that image in my mind....she looked like a little princess with tiny flowers and cream ribbon in her curly hair. My parents were also beautifully dressed...we made a fine looking family that day.

We all loaded up in my parents vehicle and drove over to the agency. The agency director and our social worker were waiting for us and took us into a tiny office. We sat there for a few moments before the door opened and a baby wrapped in a blanket entered the room in the arms of the director. She said to me; "and here is your baby son!" and laid him in my arms. That thrill of getting the baby put into your arms is so indescribably wonderful. It is the most elating feeling ever imaginable. The soft sweet pride in my heart almost took my breath away. My husband's chest was swelled with fatherly pride and my parents smiled at the new baby sweetly. Kisty was just jumping up and down and saying "it's my baby boy brother...it's my turn to hold him Mommy...it's my turn". So I sat her in a chair and carefully allowed her to hold him. SWEET MEMORIES!!!!!

I changed his clothes and put his matching outfit on him. All the while everyone awed at him and our family. We signed a million documents and then packed up to return to home. On the way we realized that we had not had anything to eat that morning. Kisty was getting very fussy and I thought I might pass out from lack of sleep, no food, and lots of emotional excitement. So, we pulled over at a little Mom and Pop type breakfast cafe. We strolled in looking like a million bucks wanting fried bacon and eggs...ha ha.

I had Weldon snuggled down in a carrier car seat and Kisty in tow with my free hand. We sat down at a booth. I put Weldon in his carrier into the seat of the booth. He was fully covered as it was January and a bit cold. We all placed our order as the waitress admired us and smiled so sweetly at us. She was a middle age lady who showed special interest in wanting to see this baby under the covers. There was a man and woman sitting in the booth behind us. When the waitress brought our breakfast to us, little Weldon began to squirm and fuss, with that unmistakable tiny newborn baby cry. I uncovered this beautiful little baby and began to feed him his bottle.

He was having some difficulty being comfortable with it and so I stood up with him swaddled in my arms. I was standing between our booth and the booth next to ours. The lady who was sitting there had been, nonstop staring and smiling. She asked me; "Is this your baby?" to which I proudly replied; "Why, yes, he's my baby." The lady looked a bit puzzled and said; "How old is he? He seems very young." I replied; "He is five days old today...isn't he darling?!?!"

The tiny cafe had gotten very quiet and their attention was focused on our conversation and my newborn baby. The lady stood up and surveyed us openly and shook her head. Then she said "My, My, My, if I looked like you, honey, with a newborn baby....and five days after giving birth....why, I'd have at least one dozen. In fact, I'm gonna give you a blessing to have a huge family!" I smiled proudly and turned quite red. Little did she know....that was secretly what I wanted to do. So I feel she blessed me and I now have eight beautiful children and we are hoping for God to bless us with one more.

I have found a picture of our little family, around the one year mark, after this day I so fondly recall. It is a family picture of Duane, myself, Kisty at age 4 years, and Weldon at 14 months old. What a sweet little family. We were on top of the world with our two beautiful children and life was so good. God had blessed us abundantly, and to tell you the truth, we were very content. Duane felt our family was complete back in 1982. Little did he know what God and I were actually planning. I will continue on the Yellow Brick Road with the next post.