It's time again to highlight a fellow blogger. The first time I "met" her was on an adoption newsboard. Then, I discovered she had a blog as well it didn't take me long to get hooked, in large part due to her blunt honesty. She's a fellow adoptive mom who hasn't had an easy journey to motherhood. After two failed matches and dealings with an unethical agency, she was finally matched with her son's birth parents independently. After getting over a few nail-biting hurdles, she's now due to finalize her son's adoption within the next couple of months and I couldn't be happier for her and her husband!

Without any further ado, my chosen Blog of the Week is Away To Me. I do hope you'll take the time to read her responses to my questions, and then go check out her blog today to see beautiful pictures of her precious son. Please leave her a comment, letting her know you've stopped by and that OW sent you! Thanks!

BOTW Q&A

Q: What inspired you to start blogging?

A: I started blogging because I was frustrated with our adoption wait and because I wanted to let other hopeful adoptive couples know that the feelings they were going through while waiting for their child were normal. I also wanted to be able to go back and read what my emotions were at different times of our journey. Getting advice from other bloggers turned out to be the reason I stayed blogging. I love comments because they truly make you feel like you are not alone and that as a community we can all help each other.

Q: What's the meaning behind your blog name?

A: Away To Me. Is a command given to a dog when competing in sheep herding (the sport I do). It tells the dog to go in a counter clockwise direction. I felt like our journey to becoming parents was kind of counter clockwise to most people.

Q: What are some of the major themes of your blog?

A: Mostly my blog is about our adoption journey. Now that we have our son it is about his adoption journey and the procedures we have to go through to finalize his adoption. I'm sure the nature of the blog will change as our lives change. This is my second blog. My first blog I had to take down because of our unethical adoption agency. I complained about them (not using their name) but using my own first name. Someone told them about my blog and then they started reading it and basically black-balled us. On January 1, 2006 I switched to my new blog location, went password protected and tried to regroup. I ended up taking off the password protection because I got sick of hiding from the agency and because they were not working in our best interest any way. I was going crazy trying to determine who was friend and who was foe when giving out the blog's password. I just gave up and thought who cares if that stupid adoption agency reads this.

Q: Do you have any "Real Life People" reading your blog?

A: I have one real life friend who reads my blog. I trust him with all my heart and because he and his wife have moved out of state he keeps up with our lives through our blog. I don't really need any other real life people to read my blog, they know what is going on in my life.

Q: What else would you like your readers to know about you, that they may not already?

A: I'm a terrible speller and without spell check I wouldn't blog. I'm a comment whore, the more comments the better because I like to hear what people are getting from my blog and I love the good advice I've received because of my blog!

I can't always blog about what I want until this adoption is finalized but once it is finalized I intend on singing like a canary. We should be finalized in 60 days or less.