Communicating through ASL

This has probably been a familiar scene at some point in your home ... your young toddler child is sitting in the middle of the floor throwing a temper tantrum. Tears are streaming down her face, her nose is running and her hair is matted to her face. She's kicking the floor and screaming ... and you have absolutely no idea why. You have tried everything to calm her down and nothing has worked. Age appropriate? Of course. Frustrating for both of you? Definitely. Sometimes there really is no reason for the tantrum ... but maybe sometimes there is?

I think it's safe to say that one of the biggest frustrations for toddler-aged kiddos is lack of communication. Or it's at least been one of the biggest frustrations for Brooklyn since she came home from China last June. I am convinced that since we brought her home at 13 months old, she's known exactly what she wanted and how she wanted it. But given the language barrier, her young age, and her un-repaired cleft lip and palate ... well, there wasn't much communicating happening from her side.

Enter our non-verbal saving grace, American Sign Language (ASL). We had used a few signs with our biological children when they were Brooklyn's age, but mostly because I thought it was cool and seemed like a good thing to do. We didn't actually depend on the signs for communication. But with Brooklyn, signs have pretty much become a way of life. I'm not just talking about the signs for "more" and "all done" ... I'm talking about complete non-verbal communication with ASL. Not full sentences mind you, but "toddler talk" using ASL. At 20 months old, our super-smarty-pants can sign over 40 words and the list keeps growing. She has a better vocabulary than my son did at her age. She can also understand just about everything we say, and thanks to ASL, she can respond appropriately using signs. And although we still have the typical toddler meltdowns, Brooklyn's non-verbal communication skills have drastically cut them down.


It's a long list, but to give you a clear picture of Brooklyn's non-verbal capabilities ... here are the words she can sign and understand: hi/bye, yes/no, milk, bedtime, play, all done, eat, more, help, blanket, bath, come, napkin/tissue, wash, sorry, book, thank you, shoes, socks, car, mommy, daddy, brother, sister, dog, hat, stop, music, clean, diaper, wait, yogurt, baby, scared, ball, up, down, hurt and hair ... there may be more but this is the running list I have. She can point to the body parts on her face and I also have another handful of signs that I am working on teaching her: I love you, coat, happy, train, brush teeth, kiss, want, dance, sit, stand, banana, friend, gentle, outside, cat, color, and TV. And there are countless more I'd like to learn but I try to only introduce a few at a time. She can pick up some immediately after showing her just one time, others take longer. Some signs are used for multiple words, a few are ones that are not actually ASL (just made up over time), and some are Brooklyn's toddler version of the sign. I'm happy to say that ASL has become a routine, necessary, easy part of our life.


Teaching Brooklyn ASL was not always easy though. In fact, the first sign I taught her, "milk," was probably the most difficult. I started signing a few important words when we were in China but didn't really begin trying to teach them to her until we had been home for a few days. Every time we had her milk out to drink, I'd hold it in front of her and sign "milk." I even amazingly got her to imitate me doing it a few times. I did this ... a lot. All the time. Once I knew that she could consistently do the sign AND that she understood what she was doing, I only gave her the milk when she signed for it. There were definitely temper tantrums during this transitional period and it was tough ... a battle of wills on more than one occasion. Two strong-willed ladies both wanting different things made for interesting days. But within 2 weeks of being home, she was comfortably signing "milk" and it was absolutely effortless for her.


I continued to sign other words with her while talking, but didn't intentionally teach them to her for a little while. I wanted to make sure we had "milk" down cold before I slowly started introducing others. When she started to use "milk" for everything, I knew it was time to learn more. It was slow-going at first and certainly an uphill battle on many occasions, but worth every ounce of work. Brooklyn learned a burst of signs in late November/early December when she was 18 months old - she was picking up multiple signs each week! We also noticed a drastic reduction in her temper tantrums around that time. I think that part of it was just being more comfortable with us, but I can also attribute her behavior change to language acquisition.


Using ASL has been really fun for our two biological children as well - they can interpret what Brooklyn is saying for other people who don't understand it and they even help teach her signs! My oldest daughter learns some ASL at school and she is always excited to teach us the new words she has learned. Brooklyn is still pretty non-verbal. She does not say any words, although she makes a few sounds that mimic words and she uses different tones extremely well. Sometimes I know what she wants just by the tone of her sound. She can say "ow" when something hurts and she makes an adorable "hu ha" sound when she wants me to sing to her. She can say "mamamama" but that's more mimicking a sound than an actual word. I expect that her verbal language will start developing when we begin speech therapy after her palate repair on February 21st. I really believe that all children could benefit from using ASL, whether they are speech-delayed or not. Research has even shown that verbal language acquisition is easier for children who know ASL!


Before you ask, no - I am not fluent in ASL and I did not know it before I had children. In fact, I only knew a handful of signs before we brought Brooklyn home. I have learned from a book, videos and yes, I'll say it ... an iPhone app :-) The resource I have leaned on the most is a great book called Teach Your Tot to Sign by Stacy A. Thompson. I have yet to look up a sign that wasn't in the book. I also like the Baby Signing Time videos because they show multiple children doing the signs in their own ways. The iPhone/iPad app that we have is called Baby Sign and Learn - it has digital cartoon-like babies that show the signs. There are many, many more resources out there for parents, theses are just the ones that I am using.


Communication with little ones is always difficult, whether they are biological or adopted. Now that Brooklyn has been home for 8 months, the initial language barrier is not an issue anymore. But there are still times when Brooklyn is passionately signing a word and I have no idea what she's saying. I am so happy though, that she has the skills to be able to effectively communicate what she needs and wants. And if it's something we haven't signed yet, the information is only a book, video, or iPhone app away.

Lilah: ten weeks post surgery

 Lilah's mom, Paige, has chronicled her daughter's journey to repair her Tessier Cleft. We have shared Lilah's story here, as the treatment has progressed. Lilah's final surgery was to repair her eye, complete a bone graft for her cleft and make some soft tissue changes. To see Lilah's journey unfold, be sure to read the first post, second post, third post and fourth post. And you can read Lilah's adoption story here.

It has been ten weeks since Lilah's eye surgery.



She has healed very well and all the doctors are very happy with her outcome. We have to massage her scars 3x per day, but her surgeon said that if it was going to pull down more, it would have by now. Massaging helps reduce the build up of scar tissue and makes the scar less visible.



Lilah has handled everything without complaint of any kind.



Lilah has many more surgeries in her future.

Most of them will be when she is around the age of six or seven. They will take a bone graft from her skull and mold it to fit into the cleft in her face. They may also do some fat injections to build up the right cheek under her eye. They will also attempt to fix her right nostril, by taking cartilage from her ear and using that to make a new nostril, but right now that cartilage is too soft to use. The muscle above her lip (where she had a cleft lip- that was fixed while she was still in China) bulges quite a bit, especially when sucking or smiling and they will try to redo that as well.

Some of these surgeries may be done at the same time, but since the plans always seem to change, who knows...



This eye surgery made a huge change in her appearance. It will never be perfect. When she smiles, that eye does not squint like her other eye and the cheek does not move in the same way as the left cheek. The right eye will always be a few millimeters lower than the left eye and she will never have that beautiful Asian eyelid crease that her left eye has.



But we think she is beautiful.



Lilah's optometrist is always very happy with Lilah's vision improvements. She needs to continue to wear her patch for a couple of hours a day, but the good news is that she may no longer need glasses when she reaches the age of seven or eight years. By then her brain should be retrained into using her right eye. The vision won't be perfect in her right eye, but the impairment should be minor enough that she won't need glasses. When she is older, she could even just wear a contact in that eye.



As a reminder... here is her before picture.

 

 

SN: CHD and CL/CP

I see this label often on the shared list and advocacy sites.


It hits close to my heart to see it.


I don't think as I used to of the FEAR.


Of the what ifs.


Of genetic syndromes.


Of shorter lifespans.


Of lower intelligence.


Of open-heart surgery.


Of speech delays that may take years to overcome.


Of unanswered questions.


Instead I think of the JOY.

Of melting popsicles running down their arms as they savor every last sugary bite.

Of giggles and squeals as they play in the ocean waves and on sandy beaches.




Of running and swinging and sliding and jumping and running some more.





Of beautiful wide smiles that remind me of just how hard they fought to live when they had no one to fight for them.






Of a little girl fishing on the banks of a river with her princess pole.


Of a little boy creating a truck and camper out of LEGO bricks all by himself.



Of hugs and kisses coming at me from all sides and "pick ME up" because yes, they do both want to be "Momma's baby."

Of little girls dancing and twirling for their first ballet performance.



Of watching their delight in the seemingly simple art of blowing bubbles.


Of knowing that, while the art of blowing bubbles is anything but simple for cleft-affected children, they WILL blow that bubble out of that wand.




Of seeing the label "SN: CHD and CL/CP" and knowing what might be for the ones who still wait.

I Can't Be Her Voice

As much as I'd like to put a protective cocoon around her and be her voice among other things, I can't.

Let me preface this entry with two things: my heart is in my throat these days as we wait for our final piece of paperwork to travel to China for our sons, and our daughter, who is 4 1/2, has severe expressive speech delay. Though she can talk and does very much here at home and is even trying more and more out of our happy home, no one can understand her except for a handful of people.

That is so hard for me to accept right now. Sometimes it is easier; right now, it is really tearing my heart out. I watch her struggle and it tears me up inside.

Yesterday at the pool, she was so excited when some other little girls came. They are both about 6 months older than her, but they are really sweet little girls and played with her last summer. They know "she can't talk like us" as they put it. They know she had something wrong in her mouth.

But yesterday, they sort of distanced themselves from her after awhile. And yet, she DID NOT GIVE UP. I wished so badly for her that she would just give up. But she kept trying to engage them with this toy or that toy she had brought, with doing this little jumping move or that. It was not enough this year. They are all getting older. I get that.

But my heart still aches for her. As she gets older, I know this is going to just be harder and harder. When you can't communicate your wishes or answer little people's questions, they assume you either can't hear or you don't want to talk to them. Oh bless her heart!

Yesterday I bit my tongue more than once as I wanted to scream, "She WANTS to play with you."

"Yes, she likes the color pink!"

"Yes, she has a name, and she IS SAYING IT. You just can't understand her."

At one point, she came over and was looking rather sad. You see, she has been working SO HARD on pronouncing her name. And she is doing a marvelous job. It sounds so clear to me and to others in our family. Even her ST was impressed. But the little girls: they couldn't understand her and told her as much. It hurt her feelings. They didn't mean it that way; they were not being unkind. They really tried to and their moms did step in and remind them of her name.

But.
But.

I can't be her voice for her for forever. She will be five years old in October. When I hear two-year-olds speak so clearly compared to her, it breaks my heart.

No one told me how hard the special need of not having a voice (or at least one that is understandable) would be. No one.

I do not wish to discourage anyone from considering adopting a child with a speech delay whether it be from cleft lip and palate or something else. I just want to prepare you and encourage you to prepare your heart for the hurt it will feel for your child as they struggle. But you see, it is her struggle to take on. She has to face this, and she is with more strength than I can even muster most days.

A year ago, the Prez and I swore we'd never take on the special need of cleft lip and palate again. Not because of the countless surgeries through adulthood. Not because of the way a child's face looks. Not because of the rude stares and questions. No, not any of that. Only because we cannot imagine watching another of our children be cast aside because she refuses to speak knowing they won't understand anyway or watching her fall apart in tears on the floor because WE can't understand a string of sentences she has just said and she KNOWS what she was saying.

We can understand most of what she says, but she often uses three words or less because when she strings together several sentences, we get lost. And she gets mad. At us.

It is much harder than I imagined. But would we do it all over again?

Well, you know what they say. Never say never. I guess God had different plans, because we are doing it all over again.

Our younger son waiting in China was also born with heart disease and cleft lip and palate. As far as we know, his palate has not been repaired. He will be five years old next week. We know he'll struggle and have to fight for every sound, every vowel, every consonant, every syllable, every word, every sentence. Most likely for years. And we'll be there fighting alongside him. And no doubt so will his little sister.

*Edited to Add: After reading Debby's comment below (THANK YOU Debby!), I need to clarify. I don't always stand to the side and let her be her own voice with no help from me. I definitely find a balance. As her Momma, I can definitely tell when she needs and wants my help and when she doesn't. My little girl is determined with a capital D! So anyway, I realized after Debby's great comment with great points that I needed to clarify. It is definitely a balancing act. I in no way want to communicate with this post that we should never interfere, which could definitely be a detriment to their feelings of self-worth and self-confidence. But the truth is, our DD will probably always have a speech impediment and I need to help her learn how to overcome that and help build her confidence in her own abilities even if others tell her otherwise. I need to encourage her to talk and to keep on trying even when it would be much easier to just give up. Hope this clarifies my post and again, thank you Debby for your excellent follow-up comment.*

my son

Today's post is a guest post, written by Amy who is in China now adopting her son, Xinran :)

In just a few short weeks, 19 days to be exact, a 4 year old little boy with dark brown hair and black eyes will stand in front of me. He will call me Mama. I will call him my son. Our lives will be forever changed. Just as it is when any child enters into a family, biologically or through adoption. Your heart grows and you can never go back to the “before”. You now know a secret love shared by mothers around the world.

Our journey to Xin began 7 years ago when my husband and I felt God calling us to adopt. We had 2 healthy biological children, a boy and a girl. We were in our late thirties and life was “smooth sailing”. We prayed about it for 2 years until finally we got the courage to step out of our comfort zone and proceed with adoption. We were very clear about what we wanted on our application - female, less than 12 months, healthy. As I was checking over our completed home study one day, a phrase caught my eye and brought me quickly to the phone to call our social worker. “What was this?” I asked “It states we will accept a child with minor/correctable issues! We said healthy!” She assured me that the wording in the home study had to be such that if the child had an illness or minor “issue” when we signed the papers they could not deny us the child. Basically it was for our protection. I double checked this point with our agency. Now I know you are probably thinking - how far out of your comfort zone is a healthy, cute, baby girl? Well, at the time it was. July 22, 2007 our daughter Jaida entered into my heart in Nanchang, China. Amazing! Incredible! Joyful! I could go on but you get the point.

We weren’t home 3 months when the familiar tug at my heart began. I said nothing, thinking this was just an after-adoption high. The tug grew stronger and in a different direction. I pushed it aside. God did not let up! I finally told my husband one night, “I feel God is asking us to adopt again.” As if this was not enough to knock him off his feet, I continued, “I think he wants us to adopt through the Waiting Child Program.” Thus the discussing and praying began. This time it only took us a few months to take the leap of faith and go further out of our comfort zone. We jumped in and it felt good! We filled out our application, praying carefully about what we would include on it. Our parameters were much wider this time as we knew God had another “perfect” child planned for our family. About 2 months into the paper chase God showed us our child, a little boy, born February 1st 2006 with a hole in his heart and a cleft lip and palate. The file was reviewed and medical documents discussed. We accepted his referral and waited for all the approvals to come in.



Now we are just a few weeks away from holding this precious child in our arms. I am prepared for the transition to be difficult. He is 4 and we are taking him away from everything he has ever known. I am quite honestly, scared. The language barrier will be huge, as will the speech issues that go along with a cleft child. These things we know. The things unknown…] they scare me more. Hearing… will he have issues with that? Some cleft children do. His heart… is it ok or will he need more surgery? Then there is the possibility of a particular syndrome that can be associated with these 2 birth defects. That scares me the most. I REALLY liked my comfort zone! It was so cozy and easy there! Can I go back to it? Oh, no! That’s right, my heart…. it has already fallen in love with this child and it will grow even more when he is actually in my arms! Not only will my heart grow, but I will grow. My husband will grow. Our children will grow.

I am looking forward to parenting this “special” child God has picked out just for us. It may not be easy, and at times, it may be down- right hard. But he is my son. And, God is good and He is faithful and He will equip when He calls. If you are sitting in your “comfy chair” but feeling a tug towards Waiting Children please consider it. It is ok to be afraid. But please, don’t let fear stop you from experiencing that wonderful joy of loving a child. Your heart is waiting to be filled as is the heart of a child!

Virtual Twins (Artificial Twinning)

Six months after we came home from China with our first daughter (Gwen), someone on our Agency's message board announced their 2nd referral: A cute baby with a beaming smile and a very minor cleft palate. A few days later, they updated to say that they'd refused the referral because she was only 2 weeks younger than their first daughter.

I called our agency to find out more about Special Needs adoptions and got a referral right on the spot when they offered us this same little girl. Now we had our own questions about adopting a toddler who was just 5 weeks younger than our (newly adopted) Gwenny. We spent the weekend searching our heart and the internet about the merits and perils of virtual twinning (aka artificial twinning) and we got plenty of advice. More than we could actually process! But, in the end, we weighed the pros and cons and ultimately decided that having virtual twins wasn't that much different than having actual twins. We understood that all children require a leap of faith so we took the leap and called our agency back and accepted her. Six months later, she was home with us.

You can see pics from Maddy's adoption <here>. That was summer of 2006 and here's a picture from just a week ago (that's Gwen "helping" Maddy clap her hands). This is the only life they know and even though we remember what life was like before our "twins", they can't remember a time that they weren't sisters.

Obviously we can't imagine making a different choice and wouldn't ever wish to go back and do things differently. But that doesn't mean we've not learned a thing or two.

Here's what we've learned:

• We thought it would be cool to have twins.
  Wrong. It's interesting but it's not cool. It's not even, especially, fun.
  
• It's annoying when people ask if they're twins because it either requires that we lie (and say they are twins) or explain that they're adopted and not biologically related. That's more information than we're comfortable sharing with strangers but we don't like to lie so we're stuck. The other option is to say "No, they're not twins" and walk away before they can ask the obvious follow-up question.
  
• Even though it's fun to dress them alike, it makes the twin question come up even more so we don't usually do that. At age two, they were the same height and weight but now they're five years old and Gwen is 25 pounds heavier and four inches taller than Maddy. But people still ask if they're twins -- and it's still annoying.
  
• Every child deserves to be the baby of the family but Maddy never got that and I feel bad about it. I think she'd have been happier if her "big" sister was at least one or two years older instead of just 36 days older. I think I would have cut her more slack too. This isn't a minor point -- it's HUGE.
• Bonding with Maddy was harder because she was the same age as our Gwen. Love isn't something that happens immediately so there was a gap because I already loved my other kids. I was, understandably, very protective of them and that interfered with bonding because Maddy was frequently mean to her "twin" (biting, hitting, etc). Oh boy -- we had LOTS of that! I found that many of my maternal instincts were working overtime against eachother for the first six months that we were together. When I wasn't actively angry at Maddy, I was consumed with guilt over ever having been mad at her in the first place.
  
• For better or worse, I find that I'm constantly comparing the girls. My expectations of what one "should" be able to do is based on what the other is doing. Whether it's coloring inside the lines or knowing her ABC's or reading words or riding a bike or being dry all night - the skill comparisons and expectations are there so I have to constantly struggle to not send signals that I'm disappointed when one can't do what the other is doing. They each have wonderful strengths that are uniquely their own. But they also have shortcomings that are amplified because their sibling is a living breathing walking measuring stick of what a kid that age can do. Even though I'm very aware of this "comparing the kids" trap, I fall into it often.
  
• It's really convenient to have the kids in the same grade at the same school and in the same age league for sports (even if they're not in the same class or on the same team). It's soooo nice not to have to run all over the place to get a kid to school (or home) at different times.
  
• I don't think I'll ever put my virtual twins in the same class or on the same sports team and their teachers and coaches will thank me for that.
  
• It's fun that they are the same age because it's easier for them to share interests and play together. Although they fight pretty constantly at home, they get along better when we're away on vacation and that makes it really fun to go places with them. This is in sharp contrast to our son, Michael, who was an "only child" for almost all of his childhood and was bored to death on family vacations.
  
• All the stuff we thought they'd share, they don't. They don't wear the same size clothes or shoes or want to share a room and they have polar opposite personalities and interests. Even so, if we buy one of them a toy, we'd better buy the other one the same toy or they'll fight over it until our ears bleed and we weep for mercy.
  
• When we buy two identical toys, they usually show no interest in them at all. I think the battle over the toy is half of the fun? Hmm... well I guess that makes them more like SIBLINGS than twins, huh!

1 out of 1361

One thousand three hundred and sixty-one days ago, we saw our our daughter, Madeline, for the very first time. She was a grainy image on a fax we'd received from our agency and we were only seeing her photo this early because she was "special need". Five months earlier, we'd adopted a NSN baby girl from China and learned through our travel mates about China's SN program. At that moment, two things happened:

1. We realized that everything we assumed we knew about SN kids was wrong.


2. We knew our next child would come from our agency's SN list.

I know that sounds painfully simple and it really was. When I called our agency five months after bringing our first daughter home, they told me about the child who would be our 2nd daughter. The rest, as they say, is history.

I realize procedures and time lines are different today but I'm pretty sure one thing isn't: The kids.

Our daughter is a normal child. She not physically or emotionally perfect but neither are we (or any of our other so-called "non special needs" kids). In the last 1361 days, there has only been one day that her special needs were the dominant driving force in our life and that was the day we had her cleft palate repaired.

Here's a synopsis of that day:

I've had lots of trouble coming up with my first post here because I just don't think about my kids in terms in their SN's.

Only one of our kids is "technically" SN but all of our kids could be. Our bio son had a undescended testicle until age 5 and that's a common SN in China. He also had febrile seizures until age 3 and that's another SN. But he's 21 and totally healthy now.

I was a 3 pound preemie and I had (and still have) a small red birthmark (an hemangioma) on my head under all my hair. Either of those issues would have landed me on a SN list.

Gwen, our technically NSN child, has severe food aversions and still won't eat anything that doesn't completely dissolve in her mouth. Not a day goes by that I don't have to make a special accommodation for her or worry about her food "issues".

In contrast, we don't even think about Maddy's SN it at all. I'm not even sure if it's okay to say that because there are some SN's that are much more serious or difficult to casually overlook and I'd never want to say anything that minimizes the significance of what day-to-day life is like in any of those richly blessed families. Our situation is merely different in that it's not really different at all. We just don't notice that we have a SN child until it's time to write a story for this site or until we realize that our LID for Maddy was 5/25/06 and we'd still be YEARS away from her referral were it not for the fact that she had that totally insignificant little fissure in the roof of her mouth. Something we weren't even sure we needed to fix but easily fixed in just one day.

One day out of 1361.

(The rest of our story is unfolding, day by day, on our family blog: Double Happiness)

His Pleading Eyes.....

I had poured through a "billion" special needs kids faces, all of them drawing an “ooohh” or an “awwww”….but then I saw his face….and I gasped. (It seems that whenever I gasp I know God is up to something big.) Really.


I remember staring at him and studying the expression on his sweet little face, trying to see into his eyes….and realizing that they were pleading with me, all the way from across the ocean….whispering…...“Could you overlook my handicaps and just love me?” I started to sob. He no longer was just one of a million faces, he was begging me. I know he was. He needed me. And I needed him just as much!



That was June 2006. I was 47 years old. My husband was 51. We had six children (3 adopted – one of whom is also special needs). This little guy had Arthrogryposis. We didn’t know anyone who had Arthrogryposis. We had never even heard of it! Yet, when we looked at his picture all we knew was that his only true special need was he needed a mommy and daddy and lots of brothers and sisters.



We overnighted the paperwork and so began the journey to bring our Isaiah Samuel home. We had no clue, but due to some serious complications, it would take 14 looooong months (Aug. 07) to finally have Isaiah safely in our arms. (Isaiah's story is told here.)



Now having Isaiah home, we understand, first hand, a lot more about Arthrogryposis. And to us, Isaiah is a true-life hero. He maneuvers about, compensating for his handicap but never once complaining.


Remarkably, since bringing Isaiah home I have become close friends with another mom who also adopted a son (the same age as Isaiah) with Arthrogryposis. This mom and I were commenting the other day, “Isn’t it funny? We personally know so many families who birthed healthy kids, yet these “healthy” kids are the whiniest, most complaining kids, seldom happy, often miserable and even downright ornery? But here are our sons, struggling with their hands and legs to just hold simple items or tediously trying to walk and they are constantly smiling, giggling, never complaining? What is up with that?”


Could it be that the struggles are making better people out of our little ones? Could it be that Arthrogryposis is making all of our family more tender? More compassionate to the needs of those around us? More aware of the struggles that others have? I’d like to think so. Our kids, even those younger than Isaiah, are constantly watching out for their precious brother. His siblings all love him to pieces. He is the kid with the ready smile. He is a total snugglebug too!! We could not bear to think of life without our Isaiah. He is a precious treasure, his worth far greater than all the gems in the world! We wouldn't trade him for any birth son or son we could have without Arthrogryposis!!!


Since Isaiah came home we have brought two toddlers (Elijah and Elizabeth) home from Uganda (December 08). One was known to have a very serious special need, although there is no sign of it since coming home.


We are currently waiting for our Travel Assignment for another little one with Special Needs. We have named her Jubilee Promise. She has cleft lip/cleft palate, deformed ears, Estropia and a few other very complicated things. But, again, the only real need we see is that she needs a forever family. She has waited far too long for us and we cannot wait to have her in our arms.


In a couple of weeks I will turn 51 (ugh) and my hubby is 54. Our peers are empty-nesters yet we are loving having a home filled with (at the moment) a 2, 3, 5, 10, 14, and 16 year old and soon Jubilee who is almost 8. Our cup overflows with joy! Our hearts thank Almighty God for giving us the privilege of having a boatload of kids who not only needed us – but we desperately needed them!




Do you think you're too old? (Join our "Should Be Empty-Nesters But Would Rather Bring Home Kids Who Need Forever Families Club") Does Special Needs sound scary? (Ask those who have been there/done that!)


My husband, Dw, and I are convinced that life just couldn't get any sweeter with our sweet little bunch - we think it's so sweet we're going to keep doing it until someone says, "You're too old, go home!"