Artist and painter Michelle Armas joins Julia on Stork'd to discuss her unbelievable journey to adopt her daughter. Michelle shares a little about her experience with discomfort, pain, and medical gaslighting due to endometriosis. After very uncomfortable fertility treatments, Michelle and her husband follow their hearts (and an original vision Michelle had of herself with a daughter) to begin the adoption process. Surprisingly (fate? Luck?) Michelle and her husband have an unbelievable adoption process. Where most prospective parents can wait months or even years to be approved and matched with a child, for Michelle it only took 4 days.    Julia and Michelle discuss the idea that love is expansive and that adoption is one way of expressing that love. They discuss the complicated but open relationship Michelle has with her daughter’s birth mother and they discuss how love, and family inform the energetics and aesthetics of Michelle’s stunning (and highly coveted) art. They discuss creating your family as a rebellious act that requires radical self love to believe you deserve the family of your dreams. Listen to these and other interesting concepts in this episode of Stork’d.     IN THIS EPISODE:    [02:24] Michelle introduces herself and what motivates her. She describes her family circle  [04:15] What Michelle’s fertility experience looked like and the trauma caused by the medical community  [08:13] Her husband's thoughts about a world family - “if there's a child who needs a home and you have a home to offer and you have love in your heart to give a child, then that's, you know, a match made in heaven.”  [10:29] Michelle shares her unusual 4-day adoption journey and the emotional meeting with the birth mom  [18:04] What is the relationship between Michelle and the birth mom, Alba? What is the relationship between her daughter and her birth mother?  [23:17] Michelle talks about the boundaries she has set for her daughter and the values she hopes her daughter will have as as she grows up  [28:34] Michelle reflects on how reading articles about adoption in Self magazine as a teenager first inspired her to consider adoption  [33:19]Julia and Michelle discuss how it’s hard to say “everything worked out” because with adoption, everything has a little twinge of pain: the joy of adoption comes with the pain of relinquishing a child  [37:41] Michelle explains her meaning of family, and how capturing the essence of family and motherhood informs and shapes her art  [42:05] Michelle teaches art classes and shares how she loves to do commissions    KEY TAKEAWAYS:    The world would be a better place if parents were open to adoption.  Adoptive and birth parents can have various contact schedules set up during adoption. In some ways, it’s like negotiating after a divorce.     RESOURCE LINKS:    Stork'd - Facebook     Stork'd - Instagram     Stork'd- YouTube     Michelle Armas - Website    Michelle Armas Art - Facebook    https://www.instagram.com/michellearmas007/    BIOGRAPHY:  Michelle Armas is an abstractionist painter working mostly on canvas and linen with acrylics, oils, and pastels. She has a graduate degree in Graphic Design from the Portfolio Center in Atlanta. After school, she was thrilled to land her dream job at Landor in New York. After a short time, though, she realized she needed more spontaneous creativity in my life, so she began creating intricate oil paintings in the evenings and weekends. Soon those paintings started to sell and gain attention, and once she moved back to Atlanta, she began to work full-time as an artist.