Rosalie Love's Family

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the grant towards the adoption of our precious daughter. My husband and I have been married almost five years. We were a childless couple that specifically wanted to adopt a little one with Down syndrome. I am a special education teacher and my husband worked in a warehouse, but had experience with the special needs community through my classroom. We knew that in expanding our family, we wanted to adopt a little one with special needs because we had experience in the school and community setting, and we felt like we could provide a myriad of opportunities. When our daughter was born, my husband left his job so he could be a full time stay at home parent to ensure she gets all of the therapies and attention she needs to thrive. This grant has been such a blessing to us and our family while we transition to a one income family and become settled into everyday life with a newborn. She is six months old now, and she is the light of our lives. We are so incredibly happy and in love. We are grateful to this grant for helping make this process easier for us financially and emotionally by helping us feel supported by other people who also believe in the mission of special needs adoption.

Loving life with Rosalie in 2020

Life with Rosalie is amazing. We feel so blessed to have her in our lives, and she is such a joy. She's 20 months old now, and is just a bundle of energy. She is learning to walk, and any time she falls, she just bursts into laughter and wants to get up and go again and again. She can say things like: mama, dada, baba (for baby), momo (for more), a-na-na (for banana), and hi and bye. She can sign more, please, and all done. She recognizes more signs than she can do on her own. She loves the color purple. She loves to eat fruit, any kind of meat, and a lot of different vegetables. She loves music and loves to read. She has a huge collection of books and especially loves the touch and feel books. She receives physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy weekly. Her dad stays at home and takes her to her therapies and all of her doctor's appointments. We feel very blessed to have him be able to stay with her to ensure she gets the very best. She is a pretty well traveled baby. By the time she was 1 year old, she had been to six states: Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Colorado, and Wyoming. We haven't added any yet this year, but plan to this summer before she turns 2.

We have a super open relationship with her birth family. We talk to them at least weekly and always share videos, pics, and info. They threw her a first birthday party down in their hometown, and they will be up soon to see her. We will be back there again this summer.

July 2020

She just turned two years old in June, and just becomes sweeter, kinder, smarter, and more beautiful by the day. She is still working hard on talking and receives speech therapy weekly. While she has some sound approximations for basic words, her new favorite thing is to try to make animal noises. Her favorite is the monkey. We love when she starts to babble to herself or to us and just talk. We say she's telling us a story. She gets very animated and talks with her hands and arms. She has learned more signs, including: purple, green, more, eat, drink, more, please, all done, play, book, help, music, ball. She loves music and loves to dance. All of her favorite toys make music. She loves Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Old McDonald, and Skid-a-marink. In the car, though, she and her daddy like to dance to heavy metal music! She sometimes sings along! She is still receiving PT and OT weekly as well. She can walk and is learning to feed herself with a spoon. We call her pure magic, and make sure she knows that every single day. We believe in her and love her with every part of ourselves. She is just joy

June 20, 2021

Rosalie is growing like a weed and is the absolute center of our universe! She is in PT, OT, and speech several hours each week. She knows about 20 ASL signs and communicates her wants and needs pretty clearly. Since COVID started, mom began working from home and dad is a stay at home parent, so we have had some quality family time! We read, sing songs, play with our toys, and go for walks all of the time. We are going this weekend to visit our birth family and celebrate withe them!

Dec 2022

Joyful Christmas