Vanessa Lopez Rea WOTM August 2020

Our July Woman of the Month is a very good friend of mine we just had to spotlight- Vanessa Lopez Rea.

The dedication she has to her family, herself, and supporting other women in amazing.

Read below to learn more about Vanessa and what she has to share with us.

I would like to thank Liz for the opportunity she gave me to be featured as woman of the month. I honestly never imagined having such an honor.

I met Liz at a public library where we both used to take our kids for story time. We started talking and realized we had some things in common like graduating from the same university and having the same degree: teaching!

I knew I wanted to be an educator since I was a little girl, 5 years old to be exact. I remember playing with chalk and pretending to write math problems on the board (an old table my dad had at our rancho). I grew up in Mexico until I was 10 years old. Never in my life it crossed my mind I was going to end up in one of the biggest cities in another country.

I started school in the US in 6th grade and my life completely changed. Thanks to my family’s encouragement I was able to attend college and graduate with a bilingual teaching degree. I worked for 5 years until I became pregnant with my daughter Amalia.

Before Amalia I got pregnant with twin boys six years ago. Unfortunately I started dilating way too early and my babies were born at only 20 weeks. Since their lungs were not mature enough my babies did not make it. This was the worst experience I had been through but with God’s help, my husband, family and friends I was able to go back to work and go on with life.

Then I got pregnant again and again I started dilating just like I did with my baby boys and I ended up having a cerclage which is also known as a cervical stitch, or treatment for cervical weakness, when the cervix starts to shorten and open too early during a pregnancy causing either a late miscarriage or preterm birth.

Fortunately this was done in time and I was able to hold Amalia for 36 weeks. The same procedure was done for my two other babies.

I share this in case there is someone out there reading this that has gone through the same situation and does not know why. Thankfully an Obstetrician found the problem and offered hope for me to have babies. I Will forever be thankful to him and obviously to God for giving me the chance to be a mother.

If you are experiencing this I want to tell you not to give up. Have faith and keep praying because God has blessings in disguise.

After getting the cerclage, my husband and I decided it was better for me to stay home with my baby. Since then I have been a stay at home mom.

While at home I began searching for opportunities to work from home. I found a Chinese company called VIPKid where I teach ESL or English as a Second Language online to Chinese kids!

VIPKid has opened a new perspective to me. I started getting more and more curious about self-employment. After VIPKid other companies and opportunities have been coming up. I enjoy teaching when my kids are still asleep.

I also joined Liz’s Gifts by Lizzy Academy in order to learn to create teacher resources.

I love everything having to do with teaching and learning. I also love to homeschool my children as much as I can. God knew my kids were going to need me at home with them. We are also part of a church club where we learn about the Bible and nature.