In January 2007 my husband and I started the process of adopting. Jim has 2 children from his first marriage, this child would be our first. We worked hard to get the initial process completed, home studies, background checks, finger printing, the process seemed daunting and endless but we knew the work would be well worth it. April 2007 we were activated with American Adoptions and our profile was being shown. Then in May the Thursday prior to Memorial day a Category A situation caught our attention. An african-american albino girl had been born in Louisiana. She was premature, mother was a teenager. The infant had been set up for a private adoption but when she was born albino the family decided not to adopt. As we read the information regarding this child I knew this child was meant to be ours. We emailed American Adoptions and waited to hear from you the following day. I received a phone call at work telling me another family that had been waiting longer had been matched with this child. I cannot tell you how upset we were by this. There had been this intense feeling that this was the child for us. On Tuesday, after Memorial Day, I was home sick from work with bronchitis and at 10:30 a.m. the phone rang. It was American Adoptions, the little girl we had inquired about was again available. The family had spent the weekend with her but after receiving the report by the Ophthalmologist that she would most likely never have vision better than 20/400 and would never be able to drive, they decided not to proceed. Were we still interested you asked. A decision needed to be made by 4 p.m., if no family could be found she would be released to care of DCF. I called my husband at work, he had just started a new job and was in training. Three phone calls later he answered and I explained everything what was going on. He said get more medical background and I will call you noon. I contacted American Adoptions and asked for as much medical information on the child as possible. 

I then spent the next 2 hours reading pages of notes, lab consults and conferring with my sister who is an RN. At noon I gave my husband the summary of what I had learned. He asked me what I wanted to do I said I wanted to adopt her, that in my heart I knew this was the child for us. So we decided to adopt her. We then started arranging time off from work, flights, hotels and buying preemie clothes, formula, bottles. By 5 p.m. the next day Jim, Jake and I were on our way. We got lost in Texas trying to find the hotel for the night and drove past the Dallas Cowboys stadium 5 times before finding our hotel at 1 a.m. Up the next day at 6 a.m. to drive to Shreveport for our noon meeting with the biological mom whom was a teen and her parents. We arrived early and stopped for lunch, during lunch the attornery for the family called us and said you do not need to come to the office, my heart sunk into my stomach. What do you mean, they changed their minds I asked. No, he said after reviewing our profile they decided to sign the papers without meeting you it will now be a closed adoption. So now we were to go to the hospital to meet our daughter after signing the papers.

We met Mike Theriot at the hospital and signed the papers then had to wait for the attorney that had been appointed for the child to arrive to hospital. One hour later we were finally on our way to the nursery to meet our daughter. We were all excited, nervous, wondering what would she would be like, how was she doing medically. We met the nursery staff, washed up and were led to a private room and they wheeled her in. She looked liked a tiny angle, with her wispy white hair. She was so delicate and tiny. Jim was amazed at her size, I went over and picked her up and started rocking her. She would not open her eyes much due to the brightness of the lights so we turned them off. We all took turns holding her and rocking her then we had to get her to eat. She had only been nursing for a few days, what a challenge, 1 hour later with lots of coaxing, tickling, talking and encouragement she had eaten 1 oz. Neylan and I had to stay in Louisiana for 2 weeks while the papers were completed for us to travel, Jim had to return to work and Jake returned home to his mom's to finish out his summer break with her. Neylan and I bonded, she loved being in the snuggly and that is where she stayed for the first 2 weeks, listening to my heart beat. Today she is 21 months old and is the joy of our lives. Neither one of us could imagine our life without her. Yes there are challenges she has Physical Therapy twice a week which means we are up at 5:30 a.m. to get to PT at 7 a.m. so that Mom can get to work on time. She has speech therapy once a week at the daycare and vision therapy once a week at the daycare. She has been wearing glasses since she was 3 months old and her vision has improved to 20/200. Her speech is now at a 2 year level and she is crawling, pulling up and walking holding on to furniture. She has completed us as a family.