Aurora's Future Fund: An Adoptive Mom's Mission

Since I was very young, I dreamed of having a family. I thought I would marry, give birth, and raise children in a traditional family unit. It surprised me to discover that creating a family in this way was not as simple as I expected it to be. I have learned that finding the best partner with whom to raise a family is a rare blessing that remains something I hope to attain.

In the meantime, I have cared for children for over 20 years as a Theatre Arts educator. I have been very fulfilled guiding my students in engaging their creativity, developing communication skills, and building confidence; however, my dream to develop the special relationship as a parent to my own child has never faltered.

I spent about five years as a foster parent. My goal was to actively offer love and caring support to children and their families that might help to break cycles of deprivation and abuse for the child, while offering parents who struggled to do so for themselves or their children opportunities to focus on their own recovery and healing.

While I had hoped with the support of the state and federal agencies to foster to adopt, I discovered that this is not the goal of the state, but rather, in Texas, the goal is always to reunite the family.

I’m honored to say that I have been a foster mom to three children, who have all been reunited with siblings or grandparents. I feel so humbled to have been even a small part of those success stories, but I still wanted to be able to help a child to grow and develop into adulthood through sharing my love and life experience.

When I realized that fostering to adopt was not going to be the best route to parenthood for me, I decided to adopt privately, and I knew this would take doing some research, a lot of planning, and humbly asking for help in as many ways as I could.

I have spent seven years planning, preparing, and practicing to be a mom. I have persevered through losses and false starts by always looking toward the future and just having faith that all of that planning would allow me to be ready when the time was right.

Well, what is the saying? “God laughs while we make plans.” God laughed and smiled and sent me Aurora Yvette Handy. She was born on December 4th, 2024, and her birth mother made the selfless and brave decision to choose me to be Aurora’s mom.

I’m thrilled and feel so blessed that I was so ready for her, but after seven years of waiting, it was still a bit of a shock that it had actually happened and that it was so fast.

I still find myself looking toward the future, now with Aurora finally in the picture.

I am blessed to have so many members of my family and so many friends who want to offer clothing and supplies and shower Aurora with gifts and love in all of the loving traditional ways we welcome the tiny new members of our community. However, since she did not join our community in the traditional way, I’d like to ask my friends and loved ones to help me build for her future.

The fees for adopting a child are comparable to those I might have saved for her college fund or for any future endeavors she will wish to undertake that will require some support from Mom. So, since I have already prepared for the support she needs right now, I am asking for your help to support her future.

Many thanks and much love from me and Aurora.