Happy New Year!

Hope you had a great Holiday Season! Just wanted to share with you my End of the Year cards and some photos of all my surrogacy kiddos.

Here's Natasha and Anjali

Here's Gideon and Harper

Here's Baby Alexander

Friends of the Engel Family Fund

My heart still aches for the victims of last weeks tragedy. When something like this happens, sometimes you feel a connection to the events. For me, it is because I'm a mother and more specifically, my youngest, Sawyer is six years old too. As the news spread and days went by, I found myself amazed at how small the world is . . . and how few degrees separate us all.

It has come to my attention that one of my blog followers and friend who also had her own journey trying to become a Gestational Surrogate (with Growing Generations) was not only the best friend (since childhood) of Shannon Engel but "J" was also her daughter's God Mother. On December 14th, 2012, Olivia Rose Engel lost her life in tragic the events at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.

There is a Facebook page I wanted to share with you, The Friends of the Engel Family Fund

This page is a wonderful place to celebrate Olivia and help her family make it through this devastating time. Whether it is offering comfort or support, you are welcome there. On that page or directly through THIS LINK, you can donate money to a fund they set up to help the family cover Olivia's final expenses, as well as allow the family to take the time to grieve and love each other. They report that, 100% of all donations will go straight to the family to help them in their darkest hour.

I leave you with a description of Olivia from her page.

Olivia Rose Engel was a precocious and completely endearing six-year old. She loved school, and was very good at math and reading. She was creative and loved craft projects and art class, and loved participating in as many sports and activities as she could- from tennis to swimming, ballet to soccer, and Daisy Girl Scouts to musical theater and her church’s CCD program, nothing was off limits for little girl who loved pink and purple and her stuffed lamb. Olivia loved taking a spin on the lake and sound on her dad and grandpa’s Whaler. She was a patient and great big sister to three-year old Brayden, lead Grace each evening at the dinner table, and was a six-year old with a lot to look forward to, according to her dad Brian. Olivia was smart, bubbly, and unbelievably entertaining. Her physical loss will be felt every day by those who loved her most, but her sparkly spirit will live on.

Unimaginable Loss

My heart aches for the the lives lost Sandy Hook School. As much as I'd love to write a blog about various aspects of this tragedy and the publics reaction, I am not sure I can muster up enough energy. So instead, I will just share some of my own Facebook posts from the last few days, starting from the most recent.

Again, these statements come from a mother, a teacher, a free-thinker . . .

"One of the reasons I love Facebook and blogging is that if something were to ever happen to me, my children (and their children) could look back on it and see exactly who I was. My thoughts, my hopes, my dreams, who I loved, what was important to me, my sailor mouth, all of it. And above all else, they would see that I loved them dearly, tried to fix the world before they grew up and wanted to share their beauty and silliness with anyone who would listen/read. I see my Facebook account and all my blogs as a window into my soul and I would want them to have full access. (Which reminds me, Erin, I will need to give you my password so you can change my privacy settings for when the kids get older :)"

"It is difficult to see the faces and stories of the lives lost. I can't imagine the pain that is losing a child. As much as I don't want to sit here bawling at the TV, as a mother I feel the need to look at these precious photos and let their parents know that I saw them. That even though they are now gone, I know they were here, were loved, and existed. “There is no foot too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world.”

"Did you know that the children killed on Friday were from different religions and backgrounds? Jewish, Christian, Catholic, etc. So wondering again, whose God, whose Religion, whose ideas, whose traditions are you talking about bringing to schools? I am assuming your own."

"It is times like these where I feel the need to remind people of the EXTREMELY LOW statistics of free thinkers/atheists in jail. People always want to blame the lack of God for tragedies like this. Not sure if it is because it is too hard for them to ponder "why did my God allow this" or the other alternative they don't want to think about. Sometimes bad people do things to good people. Plain and simple."

"Seeing the images of parents being reunited with their children is just too much. My heart aches for those that lost their babies today. It makes me wonder what their last words were to them. I hope it was how much they loved them. *TEARS*"

"I can't even imagine."