FROM ADOPTION TO FIRST BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION By: Naiia Lajoie Photos by: Wanderlost Stories - Jodie First birthdays are a momentous occasion not only for the baby, rapidly approaching toddlerhood, but also for the parents. This milestone is especially true for Charisse Neri and her husband, who endured a lot more than surviving the sleepless nights of the newborn phase as well as the worry of colds, fevers, and teething pain. The couple recently celebrated their daughter Celine’s first birthday, and it was just a day under a year prior that they held their adoptive child for the first time. Now married for 17 years, the couple naturally wanted to start a family. Their journey began years ago, trying everything to conceive, but to no avail. “Nothing is easy,” muses Charisse, “Having a child naturally wasn’t easy. Having a child through IVF wasn’t easy. All those other routes were not easy.” They had friends who had gone through the adoption process, and in 2020 decided “It was just the path that was destined for us.” Being home during the pandemic facilitated a home study; the process wherein a social worker conducts a home inspection and interviews potential adoptive parents. That too would prove not to be so easy. Charisse always knew she wanted to adopt, “but I needed my husband to be on board,” she explains. “Because obviously it takes two. It’s not just me. So I needed him to be 100% in this before we could begin the process.” There was a glimmer of a hope when the pair were selected in 2022, slated for an end-of-the-year adoption, chosen by a woman in the summer. However, the birth mother tragically miscarried right before the birth. And Charisse, tired of conducting home studies every grueling year...... Read more on Full Issue!