Where to start???

I am at a loss with where to start this journey. The story starts in the past, but what is happening right now is so exciting that I want to share that too! So, I am going to give a brief synopsis of the whole story now, then I can write about current things, filling in the past as time allows.

Jon and I met in 1994, when we were 19 and 16, in the area where we currently live. We had a wonderful summer romance, then I went back to Hong Kong, and he returned to AZ. This was before email was widely used and it was hard to stay in contact, so we drifted apart. We saw each other on and off over the next 4-5 years, decided it was time to get serious in the spring of 2001, and were married in June 2002.

Our first son, Brynn, was born on March 3, 2005. I went into labor with him 4 weeks early, and was put on strict bed rest. Brynn was a healthy weight, but was born 4 weeks early, and wasn't breathing. We were told that he might have to be on oxygen for up to a month, but he showed his determined personality early, breathing on his own within 24 hrs. It is hard to believe that this scrawny little peanut will be six in a few weeks!

My second pregnancy started out ok, but went south when I was only 5 weeks pregnant. Since this is the short version of the story, let me just say that I was on and off bed rest from that point, until Alex was born, 4 weeks early just like his big brother. Thankfully, Alex was breathing fine ... for a few short minutes. Alex had surgery when he was 36 hrs old, and ultimately passed away when he was 6 months old, due to complications from that surgery. Here are the first and last pictures of Alexander Lake Miller:









Months of pain, anguish and anger followed, and all those emotions still rear their ugly heads from time to time. However, Jon and I decided right away that we couldn't totally fall apart: Brynn still needed 2 functioning parents.

Six months after Alex passed away we began the process to adopt a baby boy from South Korea. Growing up in Hong Kong inspired me to adopt an Asian child, and I liked having two boys! We sent in our initial paperwork on September 12, 2008, and were told the process would take at least 18 months - I was totally fine with that, thinking that I needed to time to grieve for Alex more. Wasn't to be.

We started out number 19 on the list of families waiting for a boy referral, and accepted the referral for a little boy named Min Soo Choi only 4 1/2 months later:


Time seemed to slow down at that point, but it was only 5 1/2 months later that Jon and I flew to S. Korea to bring Iann Min Soo Miller home to CO. As you can see, we bonded from the very first moment that we met. Iann didn't cry when we left his foster mum behind, didn't fuss on the flights home, and only showed us any distress on the 5 hour drive home from Denver. He screamed for the whole, entire drive. I was worried that my dad would question what we had done, but he was very accepting of the screaming 10 month old in the back seat!

Again, skipping a large part of the story that I won't go into right now, we started to realize that Iann wasn't developing at a normal rate about 4 months after we brought him home. A year of me fighting to find an answer later, and hours upon hours of therapy, Iann has finally been diagnosed with Fragile X Syndrome and autism. The Fragile X Syndrome is directly inherited from his birth mum, and is the leading cause of intellectual disabilities in boys.

Ok, now that you are all caught up on the broad strokes of the last 4 years, I can start talking about the amazing steps forward Iann is making every day.