When my husband and I began preparing to adopt a daughter, I began typing up an overview of my recent bloodline, and that of my husband, some events from our lives, and some lessons we and our ancestors had learned over the years. And I included a section at the end for our future daughter to write in anything she knew about her family of origin and then memorable experiences from her first year with us, her new family.

This project surprised me as it kept growing. Now it includes most or all of the most essential lessons in life to help my future child know how to get through the many confusing challenges life tends to throw at us, and it has become a primer for how to teach someone to think critically and form their own opinion. I continued writing it far beyond its original purpose largely so it will be there for my future child even if something should happen to me and she's still in need of some advice.

This project has also become about encouraging girls to fight for a life they'll love, no matter the odds, and teaching girls not to repeat the mistakes of women who've come before them or the vicious women in workplaces and elsewhere who try to tear other women down instead of all of us females building each other up, just as I want my future (adopted) daughter to believe in herself enough to do.

Among other things, this book explores the many challenges I had to fight through to get to my current life, including growing up in poverty, lack of early education, an abusive mother, several women in work situations who fought to keep me from success, and a beloved boyfriend's ex-wife who would stop at nothing to cause us problems. But, as I always prove, where there's a will, there's a way. And where there's true love for something-an art you're passionate about, a pursuit like local and international travel, or a man who is the love of your life-there's a way.

Thinking of adopting?

There is a blank, downloadable, fully editable Word document "Family Tree Story" booklet for your own family (or teachers trying to include all of their students in a family tree activity) available on my TpayT."