Hey All,
I am the owner of the winning photo. How did we win? Basically I sold myself to social media pleas for about 30 days to beg for votes, having some amazing friends who voted and shared the link with other friends like crazy, and a ridiculous commitment to make a fool of myself by posting a video of me in a dress singing "Let it Go" while dancing down the main street of my town if we won (the final video is being edited while I type).
I've been toying around with posting something here, and I've decided to go ahead and share a little more of our story, the story behind our picture and how it all connects with the DIS community and the podcast.
Our picture we entered is of our three kids at the Contemporary Resort in front of the Mickey topiary. As one of my friends aptly said, they are the story of of domestic adoption, international adoption, and then a biological "bonus" after presumed infertility.
Disney World has played a significant role in all three of their miracle stories. My wife and I dreamed of taking our kids to Disney for the first 7 years of marriage. We battled for 6 of those years with infertility and had no medical explanation as to why she was not getting pregnant.
Through a crazy set of circumstances, we were able to adopt our oldest daughter in just under a 2 month process. We brought her home at 2 days old. She made her first trip to Disney at 13 months, which was like a celebration. My wife and I were pretty much an emotional mess the whole time as we watched her light up while meeting the characters.
When we brought our son home from Uganda, Disney was the perfect way to celebrate the painful and emotional roller coaster of a 2 year process to bring him into our family. Actually, our oldest daughter (4 years old at the time) insisted that the adoption process would not be complete until we were all able to go to "Minnie's Castle" (the name she's given to Disney World).
While at Disney over Thanksgiving 2011 celebrating the homecoming of our son, my wife was acting weird. She was incredibly exhausted and just couldn't keep up with us in the parks. Then, one afternoon she told me out of the blue that she was craving pickles!?! We looked at each other, in the middle of Magic Kingdom, dumbfounded. After 11 years, we pretty much had resigned to the fact that God had a different than normal plan to assemble our family... but 24 hours later, the test confirmed it... she was pregnant and we found it out while at WDW! And we were going from 1 to 3 kids in under a year
The pic we entered is from our most recent trip as a family of 5 (so crazy... 3 KIDS!) As you can see, Disney has so much more meaning to us than just a vacation stop.
BUT, here's where the Podcast and the boards come in. After multiple trips as a couple, I had learned the rhythm of the parks with no kids. When kids entered the picture in 2007, I set off to researching. That's when I discovered the DISboards and the wealth of unfiltered honest information.
I also stumbled onto the podcast during that time and began listening, getting to know everyone. When we were finally able to travel to Uganda to bring our son home, the podcast became kind of an escape for me as we worked through the physical, emotional, and bureaucratic strains that come with international adoption.
I distinctly remember one night. It was our worst day there. The embassy informed us due to a paperwork glitch that our 2 week stay in Uganda had the potential to turn into a 2 month stay. Our son became very ill from the effects of malnutrition and poor living conditions that he had to go to the emergency room. I was spent, frustrated and exhausted. I decided to pop in my earbuds and go to a happy place. I could only smirk as I read the title to the episode I was about to listen to. "The Sick Show" was the one where everyone but Pete were out sick. He took to the airwaves by himself. This episode featured by all accounts what I would consider at the top THE GREATEST PETE RANTS in the history of rants (although his rant last week may have trumped it), concerning the coffee Disney resorts makes available.
It's really weird, but for some reason that rant was just what I needed. I found myself laughing so hard that I eventually started crying. It was almost like Pete's coffee-rage was able to take all the angst, exhaustion and frustration and suck it right out of my body. Fortunately, that fear of a 2-month stay did not happen, and we were able to travel home to the states inside the originally planned 2 week window.
As we worked through some significant stressers of navigating post-adoption effects on both our kids and us, I've found a lot of encouragement and inspiration from Corey and Julie and their journey with Ferris. Their ridiculously positive insight that is coated with sincere honesty on the struggles they some time face is something that puts my situation into perspective continually.
I could go on and on (I guess I kind of already have), but I'm just way overdue in expressing thanks to the DIS community and especially the podcast team (which I sent a very similar message to already) for providing a little escape on a weekly basis to hear some unfiltered and honest insights into the world of Disney. For some reason, it's become a little more than just a show to me.
I know there were A LOT of amazing photos and a Lot of other amazing stories connected to those photos. This is simply our story, and I share it with you all in hopes that it might be of encouragement to someone else out there.
