The Journey That Shaped Us
Our path through illness, adoption, and advocacy shaped not only who we are as parents, but the heart behind everything we create.
How It Started
LUNA wasn’t born from a business plan. It came out of survival, heartbreak, and the grit to keep moving when life tried to stop me.
In my late twenties, I met William. Like so many women, I dreamed of the familiar story: fall in love, get married, have babies. Two months into our engagement, with bridesmaid picnic invites already planned, that dream unraveled. I was diagnosed with undiagnosed PCOS and endometrial cancer. Overnight, our engagement turned into survival mode. We fast-tracked our wedding, not out of convenience but so I could have health insurance as I faced surgeries and treatments.
Soon after, I had a full hysterectomy. By the grace of God, the cancer was self-contained. I’ve now been cancer-free for more than a decade, but the dream of having children the traditional way was gone.
About a year later, we began the homestudy process to foster. We thought we were ready. But walking into the foster system was like stepping into a machine built to grind families down. I watched decisions made with no heart, kids mislabeled, families torn apart, and I froze. Fear won. We stepped back.
God had other plans. He always does. Instead of fostering, we stepped into raising our nephews. Those years gave us clarity. They showed us what kind of parents we wanted to be and the kind of children we were meant to love.
Adopting Jack
In 2019, everything shifted. I started looking into foster adoption and felt a pull toward older boys, the ones who often get overlooked and labeled “hard to place.” I had this gut feeling to start asking adoption agencies a single question: “Is there ever a time when a child is already adoptable?”
One agency wrote back and introduced me to something called Second Chance Adoption. That’s when a child has already been adopted once, but their adoptive parents decide to relinquish their rights. It’s where our little family story begins.
Jack came into our lives in 2020. He was 10 years old, carrying more history in his eyes than any child should. We packed up his few belongings from Cayman House (place for troubled boys) and drove him home. That drive marked the start of a whole new life for him and for us.
Adoption wasn’t the storybook version people imagine. It was hard. Jack came with deep grief, trauma, and scars from being shuffled through a system that never really saw him. There were meltdowns that stretched for hours, nights I sat on the floor holding him tight until he could calm down, and countless moments when professionals told me he was “severe,” “stupid,” or “incapable.”
But none of that was true. Jack is brilliant. He’s endlessly curious, wildly creative, and an artist whose drawings will stop you in your tracks. He never belonged in a “severe” classroom where his peers were at a far lower cognitive level. He needed challenge, belief, and people who could see the fire inside him.
The Advocacy Battles
That’s where my fight began. I had to lawyer up. Twice. Two school districts tried to shove Jack into boxes that didn’t fit him, and twice I fought back and won.
One district forced him into a “severe” classroom where he was left standing around, isolated, and bored. Another ignored his triggers and trauma making him change clothes for PE against documented restrictions, letting him be bullied on the bus, and failing to tell me when he was threatened in class. Each time, I was told to accept it. Each time, I refused.
The weight of those battles was heavy, but it carved something unshakable in me: advocacy isn’t optional. It’s survival. It’s dignity. It’s making sure Jack and kids like him are not forgotten or mislabeled.
Why LUNA Exists
LUNA is the outgrowth of that story. It’s where advocacy meets creativity, where vintage treasures live alongside custom art, and where Jack’s own work is honored.
This is more than a shop. It’s a declaration that beauty grows out of the hardest ground. That a family can survive cancer, failed systems, courtroom fights, and sleepless nights and still create something good.
LUNA is our reminder that we get to write our own story. And now, by sharing it, we’re inviting you to be part of it.
