In the end, they learned that love grows best with honesty and open doors, and that a child can bloom when all the hands that love him are welcomed to the table. The room felt too quiet for such a big moment. She and the baby’s birth mother held each other while his tiny body rested between their arms. They promised to send photos when they got home and to meet again at Christmas. The caseworker had warned them about the flood of feelings that might hit on the other side of that door. She was grateful for the warning. In the hallway, tears came hard, gratitude for being chosen and grief for how many lives had changed in five minutes.
She hoped that with all she had, she could be the kind of mother this little boy needed. She felt the wobble of not being ready yet in the same breath. Life had turned on a string of choices that led here, moving from North Carolina to Colorado, deciding to stay home, homeschooling their daughter, and saying yes to adoption. It all added to a hospital room and a perfect child in her arms. The two years around his placement were a whirl. Some parts of life rushed ahead while others paused. They waited for a baby, rescued a puppy, bought a home, and moved towns. They started new jobs. She began writing homeschool lessons. While she typed units about other countries with her daughter, she held her newborn son in a sling and patted him to sleep between paragraphs.
The idea grew into Little World Wanderers, a small project she and her daughter imagined when the girl was five. Her daughter loved learning about people far away and showed kindness beyond their street. At first, they wrote for themselves and a few friends. Then their son arrived through domestic infant adoption after a long process, and the purpose widened. As white adoptive parents, they chose to be intentional about his birth cultures and his connection to his heritage. That decision lit a fire. She wanted other families to have tools to learn about the world with respect and warmth. They built a website and shared country units that offered a starting place, stories, songs, crafts, recipes, and book lists. The goal was not to check a box, but to spark genuine curiosity and give families the joy of learning together. She believed that when children learn about other cultures with care, they grow more compassionate and better at belonging.
Open adoption was part of that same spirit. They promised to keep in touch with their son’s birth mother, and they have. They want him to know all the people who love him and to have answers about his story. The day they drove home from the hospital, she worried like any new mother about the hat slipping over his eyes, about whether he was breathing. Then she thought about his first mother and how hard it must have been to watch him leave with strangers.
That understanding cut down her fear of open adoption. She wanted his birth mom to know how he was, not from distance but from closeness. That awareness changed how she moved in the world. She and her daughter became ambassadors with a flower giving project. They grew dahlias and other blooms to give to expectant mothers considering adoption. She reached out to their former agency and offered bouquets for counseling days. Some mothers chose to parent. Some were still deciding. All were met with kindness. The flowers were a way to say someone sees you and cares, no matter the path you choose.
Their son’s second birthday showed how open adoption could look when fear does not win. The day before he turned two, he picked flowers from their garden to give to his birth mom. He hugged her and soaked up love from every side. She felt grateful they had made room for this connection. Adoption is now woven into almost everything their family does. It shapes the lessons they write, the flowers they grow, and the way they speak about heritage and belonging. When they started nearly five years ago, she could not have known how deep this would go. She calls it a privilege to be a family and to share what has helped them with others.
