Wheels Up!

**Wow! 60% reached. It really does add up quickly. Thanks to everyone who has shared this story today even if you can't contribute, spreading the word helps just as much.

**AWESOME!! It's only 11AM and we got her up to 50% thank you all so much. Every little bit helps. Would be amazing to get her all the way there by the end of the day :) What a gift. dollars and cents add up fast when everyone acts in force.

I wanted to put some light on a friend in this space today that needs a bit of HELP, in the hopes that maybe a few more people that are in the position to do good things during this season of giving would find this story and be compelled. It's also here for friends that have lost touch or moved far away that might not know what our pal Corinne has been up to in the last year.

I have to also point out, that Corinne is not just a dear friend to this family, but she is also Cole's boss. She owns the salon that Cole is employed, so I figured if I were able to help her, then Cole will totally get special treatment at work :) I'm kidding. Geez.

But she is, she is Cole's boss, she is our dear friend, and she has done so many good things for us, for our family, she has given us the time to figure out so many things. She actually pulled money together when Cole and I were struggling financially and paid for our Doula, who helped bring Tessa Tangerine into this world. Corinne did not pressure Cole to hurry up and get back from maternity leave after Tessa was born, she did not pressure Cole to hurry up and come back to work when she took a leave so that I could work on a video project, she has always kept her spot waiting for her at the salon. She is supportive of our schedules, and of The Littlest Buddie's special needs and his extraordinary amount of doctors appointments and therapy, she has always been the best kind of teacher to Cole, and if all that wasn't enough-- this is the lady that found our dog Wendy, tied to a stop sign with a note that read: 'found dog' and she gave her a home, and made sure that she found her a good place to go. Luckily that place was our home after Cole fell in love her.

So this is the deal. Corinne has been going through the adoption process for over a year now. Her determination to love and raise a child, her want to be a mother had grown so much that she started down the road to adoption and found herself suddenly in love with a little boy who lived in Ethiopia who had been abandoned by his family. She was sent just a couple pictures of him, lying on his back, just one month old, waiting for his life to get started in an orphanage. He had no idea how lucky he was yet that Corinne was going to be his new Mama.

Corinne, flew to Ethiopia to meet him, and to go through the court process of legally adopting him, which she has done. She is his mother, he is her son. She has shared her journey and all the sights and sounds and experiences at the orphanage over at her Tumblr Wheels-Up!. If you scroll down to the bottom you can start at the beginning and see how quickly the two of them discovered they needed one another.

Here are a couple screen shots of her Tumblr.

So I will let you discover the rest of her story on your own, I encourage you to read on over at her space.

Here is my plea for her case...

In most cases the adoptive parents fly over to Ethiopia, they meet their babies, they go through court, they go home, and then they wait for months at a time for the green light to finally go back and pick up their child. The window they gave Corinne was 3-6 months, even hinted at longer. After Corinne met her son, and saw that for his first 8 months he had not done much more beyond lie on his back with a bottle, and had never seen the light of day, she couldn't justify leaving him for these vital developmental months. Her trip kept extending longer, and her thoughts kept drifting to staying until she could take him home. She started working with him, doing therapy with him, getting him sitting up, and eating, taking him on outings, and breaking the habit of laying down with a bottle which was giving him nasty ear infections. The more she stayed, the stronger he became. The more she loved him, the more he loved her. She was instantly his mother.

So she made her decision to stay and live in Ethiopia and keep her boy happy and healthy during the grueling waiting period to bring him back home.

First she had to return to America for a few weeks to get things in order at the salon, and rent out her home, and make sure that her family at the salon was okay and that they understood why she had to go back. It's a good thing she did come home when she did, because she fell ill with a scary virus and ended up losing her hearing in one ear and has been recovering and getting her strength back.

Corinne works hard for her salon, and has a busy packed schedule each week filled with clients, beyond her regular stylist schedule she puts in her hours just running the business and making sure her stylists get healthy doses of continued education. Regardless to say, that her going away for this long impacts her business. She is lucky to have understanding clients and a supportive staff, and it is the least I can do to try and help her by spreading the word. She has reluctantly asked for financial assistance, mainly so that this trip impacts the salon as little as possible. Her being gone obviously makes it so that the salon does not make as much money. It's a scary decision to make right now, but she has made the right one, go and keep her boy thriving.

Here is THE LINK to her Chipin page, and I have also placed her CHIPIN in my sidebar. Please consider reading on and maybe throwing a little her way if you have found yourself in the position to do so this year. Thanks a bunch for reading this far if you have, and if you are able to donate, thank you.

Corinne is getting set to leave soon, and you can follow her story over at Wheels-Up! as she returns to Ethiopia, to Addis Ababa, to the orphanage, to her son.

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