Mikki Shepard’s Path to Adoption: Defying Odds, Busting Myths

Join adoptive mother and resilient author Mikki Shepard as she dispels adoption myths, overcomes obstacles, and celebrates the power of love in creating a family on this empowering episode of Live Love Engage. Show Notes | Transcript "When we adopted, nobody talked about it back then. It was just something and boy, did we find out fast that how many people were adopted that we knew or had adopted, and they just never talked about it." - Mikki Shepard Mikki Shepard is a loving mother who has dedicated her life to the adoption journey. As a US Air Force veteran, she has had a diverse and successful career in various fields, including real estate, marketing, and speaking. Mikki and her husband had always known that adoption would be a part of their family's story, but they never could have predicted the twists and turns that would lead them to their greatest joy. From struggling to have a child of their own, to a chance conversation with a friend, to the call that would change their lives forever, Mikki's journey to motherhood is a testament to the power of love and the beauty of unconventional families. Since then, she has used her voice as an author with her book, In a Heartbeat: The Miracle of a Family That Was Meant To Be, and as a radio show and podcast host of Adoption as a Choice to inspire and support others on their adoption journey. In this episode, you will be able to: Witness how adoption and love create profound connections and change lives. Find novel strategies to make the adoption process financially feasible. Debunk unfounded myths and misconceptions about adopting children. Understand how transparency and openness contribute to a healthy adoptive family dynamic. Get inspired by Mikki Shepard's unique podcast that encourages adoption as a fulfilling choice. Related Live. Love. Engage. episodes you may enjoy: Why Grandparents are Essential in the Modern Family with Gramps Jeffrey Spiritual Parenting with Randy Rolfe Creating Meaningful Relationships: Gavin Frye’s Guide to Intimacy Resources: Connect with Mikki here Listen to Mikki's Adoption podcast here Join the Soulful Women's Network here Send me a message here ☕ Support the podcast here ❤ Love this episode? Leave us a review and rating here Connect with Gloria: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 - Gloria Grace Rand You're listening to the Live Love Engage podcast on today's show, exploring some myths about adoption. Stay tuned. I am Gloria Grace Rand, founder of The Love Method and author of the number one Amazon bestseller, Live Love Engage How to Stop Doubting Yourself and Start Being Yourself. In this podcast, we share practical advice from a spiritual perspective on how to live fully, love deeply, and engage authentically so you can create a life and business with more impact, influence and income. Welcome to Live. Love. Engage. 00:00:45 Namaste. I am so glad to be joining you on this lovely day that I'm recording it, and I've got a lovely guest on the show today who I am looking forward to having a discussion with, and I'm going to tell you all about her and so that you can get to know why I'm excited to have her on. Her name is Mikki Shepard and she is a US Air Force veteran and her career has also included things like speaking, real estate and marketing. But why she's really here today is to talk about her book. She is the author of In a Heartbeat - the Miracle of a Family That Was Meant To Be and is a true story spanning several generations of families born out of love. And she also now hosts Adoption as a Choice radio show and podcast. So I want to now officially welcome you, Mikki, to live, love, engage. 00:01:43 - Mikki Shepard Thank you. I'm glad to be here, excited to be able to share the story. 00:01:47 - Gloria Grace Rand Yeah, well, the podcast is about living fully, loving deeply and engaging authentically. And when we connected it was like, oh yeah, that fits right in. I mean, even though I gear this towards women entrepreneurs, but women entrepreneurs also tend to be part of families or raising families. I said, yeah, let's have you on to talk about this. So I thought we'd start off by having you share a little bit about what your journey, but in particular what prompted you to write your book. 00:02:19 - Mikki Shepard Thank you. It was a couple of things. For many years I wanted to write a book about how it didn't take biology to create a family. And that was because of my dad. My dad was wonderful, but he didn't come into our lives until I was twelve. And being a twelve-year-old, I wasn't thrilled to have him there. But he worked at it and he was determined to win me over. And I always tell people that life used to be simpler than we all know now. I mean, back then, after he did win me over, I actually wrote to the Board of Education in New York to tell them I wanted to change my name to Shepard and they did it. It wouldn't happen today, but it was my Father's day gift to him. And then fast forward along the way. My grandmother had lost her husband, my grandfather that became a grandfather. He had lost his wife, but they were brothers, so the two of them decided they would get married. That way all the cousins became brothers and sisters. So this whole thing's been going on in my life, whether I thought about it or not. My mother was always taking in foster children. She actually brought in one person who was Ched Holmes. He was my brother, but he came into our lives at a very young age. He was twelve when he came into our lives, and he just never left. And before you knew it, I came home on a visit, and I'm asking my mother, who is this boy running around the house? And she said, oh, I forgot to tell you, that's your new brother. How'd you do that? I was gone for a few months, and you hatched a 13-year-old, because now he was 13. So it was always there. But the story hadn't happened yet, I hadn't written it. And so let's fast forward. I left the Air Force, lived in Colorado Springs, married my current husband, we've been married almost 40 years in 2023, and we wanted to have a baby, and it just wasn't happening. But I was very involved in real estate, and so what I always tell people, because I think they well, they get a kick out of it, but it's a true story. My son was literally a real estate referral. We had done everything to try to have a baby, including a very nice trip to Hawaii that didn't produce a baby, but we had a good time. But I'll go back a little bit for you. So because I was so involved in real estate, I was president of the Board of Realtors and Governor Women's Council of Realtors, blah, blah, blah, blah, a lot of stuff, but it meant I went to a lot of meetings. So one year I was in San Antonio, and a friend of mine who had lived in Utah, but she was now living in San Antonio, where the meetings were. And she said, you know, San Antonio has changed a lot since you were in the Air Force. We don't have any meetings for the next couple of hours. Why don't we take the trolley car ride so you could see how the town has changed? I said okay. So we got on the trolley car and we're going around the town, they're pointing out sights. And we got off the trolley car, and she came over to me and she said, have you and Tom ever thought about adopting? I said, what brought that on? And she said, Mikki, every baby we've passed for the last hour and a half, your head is like olive oil just looking at the baby. And so I said, We've talked about it. And she said, well, let me ask you another question, would you, if you could? And I said in a heartbeat and that conversation took place in February 1988, and that was the end of it for me. I mean, we just continued on with our lives. And then two years later, April 4, 1990, I was at another meeting in Denver, and my husband called me in my room, and he said, Why are you in your room? You're never in your room at meetings. And my feet hurt, and I just thought I'd come in here for a little bit and sit down. Why are you calling me if you know I'm not here? No cell phone. So I'm going to let audience realize whether you call somebody then. And he said, we just got the strangest call. He said, Who's Carol Thompson? And I said, she's my women's council friend, the one that lived in Utah. She now lives in Texas. And he said, well, she has a friend who has a friend who decided this morning she wants to place her baby for adoption and wants to know if we want him. 00:06:41 - Gloria Grace Rand Wow. 00:06:42 - Mikki Shepard What? And I said what did you say? He said, I'm sure we do. I'll have my wife call you. And I did. And I called, talked to the friend of the friend who explained to me that Carol had told her about us for years, and that if there ever was a situation to keep us in mind and My God. And she says, So I'll let you talk to her. I didn't know what to do. And I did. And she was not a baby herself. She was 31, and she had a daughter who had MS. She was in a very bad relationship. It was not his baby, and she just knew. She said, I planned an abortion, and then I started bleeding, and I thought I lost the baby. And it's very typical, in people in unplanned pregnancies, not a big support system around them. Sometimes they don't go to doctors. And she said and then she realized she was definitely pregnant and decided that this was it. She said, But I went to this service this morning, and they told me they want to put the baby in a foster home for six months, and I don't want to do that. I want him to start out his life with you from day one. So I said, okay, stay calm. I don't know how, but we will make it all work. And since I was there on real estate business, our board attorney was there. And he had told me years before that, if you guys ever do think about doing that, call me. I don't do adoptions,...