Finding Lacy.

Our story begins more than just a few years ago. Really, our story begins as simply my story.

I have been fascinated with the idea of adoption since I was very young. Around the age of 10 I would lie in my bed at night attempting to find a way to convince my parents to adopt a child. But I could never find just the right angle.

Instead, I decided that when I was married, I would adopt.

Throughout my teens and young-adult years the idea of adoption continued to capture my heart and my mind. When I imagined my future, it always included a child born to another woman.

In 2002, I married Randy. Somewhere along the line I mentioned adoption. His response was, "do you still want to have any of your own?" Sure, why wouldn't I? What I didn't know at the time was that his family had once considered adopting a special needs child, and adoption had been in his heart as well.

I remember looking at adoption websites only a few months after we were married. I deeply believed that we would adopt a child, but I had no clue how it was going to happen. I even called a few agencies for paperwork, just to get the ball rolling. At that time, I began to pray for the child that would join our family. It was 2002.

Unfortunately, we were nowhere near ready for a child. Randy and I were both floundering in life, unable to finish anything we started and having no idea where we were headed. We could barely manage ourselves.

By 2003 I had managed to become a Realtor by day and continued to waitress at night. With my first home sale was underway, I was hopeful that we would begin to find our way in life, but that sale quickly became my worst nightmare. A fellow realtor offered to help me, and ended up stealing the sale from me. Only three months into my new career and I hated sales, I hated real estate, I NEEDED to figure out something better for my life.

While "working" the phones (aka wasting time on the Internet at the front desk) one Sunday morning at the real estate office, I found a career called Respiratory Therapy, and it looked pretty interesting!

I re-enrolled myself back into college for the last time (I had been to a few colleges by this point)... and after a few weeks Randy talked about joining me.

Together we enrolled in all of the same classes (only had to buy one book). Slowly we began to finish the many prerequisites. Anatomy, Physiology, Microbiology, Chemistry... class by class we discovered that we could become more than what we believed we were.

Times were tough. One semester we had car trouble and we had to drop out of our classes so we could work more shifts to get us back on track. Many times we were discouraged, but we pressed forward convinced that respiratory therapy was going to change our lives.

By 2005 I was enrolled in the respiratory program at a local college. Randy would start the year after. Part of the program involved clinical hours. As a student, we were required to work at a hospital twice a week for two years before we could become licensed.

One such clinical rotation was at a local children's sub acute facility. It was a live-in hospital for kids on ventilators. Obviously I did my best to avoid that place like the plague! Who in their right minds wants to see a bunch of kids on ventilators?

By the end of my second year, I had successfully avoided the children's facility. On my second-to-last rotation our clinical director made the decision to swap my position with another student's position. I would spend the next eight weeks working at the children's sub acute facility. Obviously I fought that decision with all I had. My clinical director wouldn't budge. I was stuck.

The facility was everything I expected it to be. Depressing. Only one of the 52 kids was able to communicate effectively. Most of them just drooled and contorted themselves in unrecognizable positions.

Towards the end of my rotation, that one child passed right by me as I walked to my car. She was a two year old little girl with pig-tails sticking straight up off the top of her head that bounced as she walked. She was wearing shoes that were obvious hand-me-downs. They were scuffed, and two sizes too big. Her pants were boys denim shorts that barely stayed on, and her top was an old pajama top that rolled up above her tummy because it was a size too small. But she chatted with her nurse as she bounced right past me.

I had to know who she was. She looked so... so... NORMAL? Why was that kid here?

I began to ask around, and I discovered all of the dirty details of this two-year-old's past. To sum it up, she did not have a mother who would ever be able to care for her, and she needed a home.

Time to ask Randy if she can come home...

Here is a copy of the picture in her file.

Taken with my cell phone.

This is all I had to show Randy.