Dear Mother Laura,

My parents divorced before I was 2 years old. By the time I was 6 years old, I already had had 3 different step moms. That number is now 5! I am the youngest of 3 kids and we all went through our own trials with our parents' love lives. I was angry and confused about the coming and going of different wives and step families. Along with the expectation we were supposed to get attached and love these people.

In my early teens, my mom used to have me listen to you. I always thought it was ironic that you were all about children first and my parents clearly were not! They thought I was the problem and you were going to be able to change me and my attitude. Well Mother Laura, you did! Just not in the way I'm sure they expected. I learned from listening to you, that there are mothers out there who DO put their kids first. I made a promise to myself I would be one of them.

Fast forward 20 years and the many epic mistakes I made along the way. But, you were always in the back of my head saying "Choose wisely - treat kindly." That is exactly what I did!! I chose a man who I would be proud to introduce to you. He is a man who understands the importance of a mother being at home raising the children. When I was pregnant with our son, our only child so far, we made all the necessary cut backs and downsized our life in preparation for me to be at home. People kept telling us we weren't going to be able to do it. "It's too expensive out there," they'd say. Our reply was, "We don't care about material possessions; we care about our family." So, at 6 days old when our son was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder (Prader-Willi Syndrome) we were able to be there for HIM the way HE needed. We weren't running around last minute trying to reorganize our lives. There weren't any egos in the way. There wasn't resentment about giving up what we wanted. People kept telling us we were handling it all so well. It is because prior to being parents we understood what it meant.

We were also able to turn to each other and say, "Our marriage still comes first. Without each other our son doesn't have a family."  He will be 2 next week and s thriving! Our marriage is stronger than ever!

I am so GRATEFUL to you for instilling in me the importance of what it takes to create the family I now have. You are the major reason I never settled for less. Thank you for all that you are and all that you do!

Your long lost daughter,

Corey