Welcome, we are the Gagnon family and if you’ve stumbled on this page looking for sanity and normalcy in your own life, you’ve hit gold! We are a family of 8,that daily laughs, cries, argues over toys, while the identified adult figures attempt to maintain controlled chaos. This blog is my attempt to relay the realities of parenting, marriage and adoption while providing some levity. I began this blog when we started the pursuit of an adoption of a special needs child from Eastern Europe. Israel joined our family 18 months ago and it has been beautifully difficult. You can read about some of the journey here and here. We like to balance the difficulties with humor, which is easy to find in the craziness of a family of 8.
Six months ago, we looked around our dining room table and decided that we had room for one more. So with a leap of faith, we are returned to the same orphanage and brought home our ‘room for one more’ named Zorey. You can see her here and read all about her here.
My name is Stacey and I am an elementary school teacher turned RN, who daily is figuring out and becoming expert on Spina Bifida, Goldenhar Syndrome, hearing impairments, limb differences, Eosinophilic Disease, brain injury, and Teenage-itis. Basically all these big names do not slow our children down. They just keep us up to our necks in wheelchairs, feeding tubes, hearing aides, glasses, braces, catheters,.. And travelling to physicians, specialists, therapists, and IEPs. And in the midst of it all, my husband and I look around and see how the adoption of five children has crushed the dreams we had when we first met at the age of 19, and you can read about that here. I’m so grateful you stopped by and I hope you are encouraged and blessed by your visit, because it takes a village…and apparently I am raising one.
