I'm so excited to meet you! I'm MaryAnne — my husband and I have one beautiful daughter, whom we adopted through a private agency.

Before I was a mom, I was a teacher — mostly middle school, where my sarcasm and goofy nature thrived. I have a Master's degree in Elementary Education, a Bachelor's in Human Development and Family Studies, and nearly a decade of teaching experience. Teaching gave me a real education in managing behavior, setting boundaries, and helping kids build confidence — skills that turned out to matter just as much at home as they did in the classroom.

I knew from a young age that I wanted to be a mom. I just didn't know how hard that road could be. We tried to get pregnant for seven years, on and off — fertility specialists, two rounds of IUI, a lot of hope and a lot of disappointment. After the final negative test and a lot of tears, I decided to skip IVF and pursue adoption instead. I didn't want to take another negative test, and I didn't want to keep investing more money for another devastating result.

Adoption is not an easy journey — it's part of why this space exists. Going through the process, I found myself wishing there had been more people to talk to, more resources for what came after the paperwork was done. Because I've always had a passion for teaching and helping people learn, I wanted to become that resource for others — not just on the adoption process itself, which I've now navigated across multiple states, but on what it actually looks like to parent afterward, as an adoptive mom building an ongoing relationship with birth family.

That same drive to help extends beyond adoption. I'm a certified life coach with training in Love and Logic, and I bring my own real, lived experience parenting a child with ADHD and anxiety to everything I write and coach on. I don't believe in one-size-fits-all parenting advice — I believe in real strategies, adapted to fit your kid and your family, from someone who's actually in it too.

Because community matters so much — in adoption and in parenting alike — I'd love for you to reach out, share your experience, ask questions, or just say hello.