Special needs infant adoption

If you have a moment, check out the blog link, special needs infant adoption. Some children are difficult to find homes for because they are born with special needs. Sometimes those needs are due to drug or alcohol abuse of the birthmother. Sometimes it's a genetic disease and other times it might be a physical impairment. Sometimes the child has a birthparent with a mental illness. Brent and I were looking at adopting a special needs child from China or the United States. We (I) researched the effects of drugs and alcohol on a baby, different physical needs and the requirements for the needs and also the statistics of a child developing a mental illness when a parent already suffers from that mental illness. We found that there were many special needs that we would be able to physically, emotionally, and financially be able to work with.

One thing that really helped us was to look at our own health history. I have several family members that suffer from depression. One of my cousin's (just 22 yrs. old) died last week from the effects of his mental illness. I myself have struggled, in the past, with anxiety. Another cousin was born with fingers and toes missing or developed wrong. His father took drugs that might have been a factor in this. Brent's family has all sorts of ailments, some more serious than others.

There is a great deal of research out there for every special need under the sun. You can often find yahoogroups where parents will honestly tell you what it is like to raise a child with such and such special need. Alcohol is something that will likely affect a child for life, but many drugs will leave the system and the child is okay after they are gone. Some physical needs will last a child's life time, while others can be repaired and a child goes on without any or little lasting effects. It's a matter of soul searching, research and prayer. If you are looking for a baby or child to adopt, take a minute and consider special needs adoption. I have seen so many success stories, might one of those stories be yours?

A math idea

This school year, I've decided that it's in the best interest of three of my kids to be home schooled. Home schooling for me is to meet the needs of my kids that the school doesn't tend to meet. For Jacob it's because he needs to be away from sugar. Connor (a very bright child) is failing in nearly every subject. Just to let you know that Connor is not just bright in MY eyes, he had very high (compared to other kids in the state) test scores in nearly every area tested. So why is he failing school? Sometimes kids aren't taught the way they need to be in order to succeed. The year before last he was really discouraged from thinking for himself in his best subject, math. Connor was working out multiplication problems in his own way but not being acknowledged for how very creative and bright that kind of thinking is. Don't get me wrong, I think teachers are overwhelmed in the school system. I wish that teachers could teach out of the textbooks of their choosing and that they could use their own style of teaching. Sadly, they must teach to a test with the districts choice of curriculum.
So now for the idea. I used this with my kids and another family when we did home school a few years ago. I put a math problem on one card and the answer on another. I did this with several problems, laminated the cards and made a math game. The game was memory - matching the problem with the solution. It was a fun way to learn, in this case, multiplication. I ended up teaching a small group of kids some advanced math the next year and found lots of good ideas which I will post here and there. I was going to put it in my other web site, but I think I will be tearing that one down. I can barely contribute to one!

July 4th, Fireworks

Okay, so I'm posting out of order. Oh well. I never was very organized. I LOVE the 4th of July. I love celebrating the freedoms that so many have sacrificed for and that I can enjoy. This year I was a little bummed because we had to break tradition. Kellie had to be involved with a parade in our valley but not in our town. Brent and I split up so the other kids could ride their bikes in the parade at our park. We all had a good day and ended up at grandmas for a barbecue and later to catch the fireworks. Kenna wasn't thrilled with the noise.

I decided to try my hand at taking photos of fireworks. I think I got a few good ones.

Grand Camp

Grand Camp is a tradition that was started a few years ago. It's a lot of fun for grandkids and adults alike. We went to my parents house this past Wednesday to Saturday. We were originally going to Brownie Lake in the Uintah's but heard that this was the year of the mosquito. My parents made an obstacle course that was a riot. They had large boxes to climb through, a balance beam, ladder to rope swing, bricks to walk on, trampoline, frisbee through hula hoop and they had to make a basket. This turned out to be the favorite for my kids of all the activities. Friday night, the kids were timed on this course and then three of the kids were blindfolded and led (by voice) through the course. As usual, Kellie won the course when timed (she is VERY competitive). She also did really well being led blindfolded. We also went canoeing and fishing on Causey dam (Jacob caught the only fish), hiking up the North Fork waterfall (I shouldn't have done that), the older kids went boating with grandpa while the younger ones had a riot in the water at grandma's house.

Why am I doing this?

Okay, so uploading this photo is not like me. Not only do I usually not post photos of myself, but this one... Anyway, this is most likely the last time I will be pregnant and I had to have some kind of proof.

Heart broken

Yes, my heart is breaking some for my 5 year old tonight. She was crying last night and would not tell me why but I had my suspicions. She confirmed them today. Mailaya let me know that she wished she didn't have brown skin and that she was born in America so she could have been a tiny baby when we adopted her.

Just to back track a bit. My intention was to go back to Samoa and adopt another child. I even had thoughts of a sibling group. Mailaya's siblings were available soon after we returned home from Samoa. It was quite expensive to adopt from there, mostly travel costs and we didn't feel right about adopting them. Anyhow, Samoan adoption closed and so of course, that door was closed. Since then, we have tried for several transracial adoption situations and none have worked out. We had gotten pretty involved with two of them but I became pregnant both times. The last one in particular didn't seem right to go ahead with. She was 7 years old and she was being disrupted from her adoptive family. I didn't feel that I could be fair to both a baby and this little girl. I NEVER wanted her to be the only child with beautiful brown skin. It is hard enough to fit in sometimes. She has always seemed so resilient though.

Anyway, now we are at the point of having 6 kids, a small home, and really no way to do an adoption right now. 6 kids feels pretty overwhelming already. Mailaya told me that she just wants to look like her sisters. Honestly, I wish I looked like her. She is so very beautiful. I fell in love with her deep, dark eyes the moment we met her. I know she will be okay, but my heart does hurt a little tonight!

Trials

This post comes after reading a blog entry of a friend of mine. I linked the title to her blog in case you want to read her excellent words.

My dh and I were married in Dec. of 1990. We both loved and hoped for children right away. I didn't want to wait because of my family history (both sides) of endometriosis and problems I was already having. Brent and I went quickly from hoping to feeling devastated as each month took us further and further from our dream. I experienced hopelessness, depression, anxiety, and feelings of "what have I done to deserve this fate?" Often, I would get down on my knees and ask my Heavenly Father for His help. He always answered my prayers with feelings of peace. At one point, I felt most despair when an unmarried cousin of mine got pregnant. Then, my sister was pregnant, a honeymoon baby. It hurt so much. My mom reassured me over and over that we would have a child, it would be okay. She introduced to me to a woman in the ward (we had recently moved back to my home ward) that had adopted two children. Anyway, this lady spoke with me about her experience with adoption. I already loved her little boy, he was in my Sunbeam class. Adoption was not a new concept for me. I had been having experiences since I was young that made me feel very open to the idea. Heavenly Father had prepared me well.

It didn't take much convincing to get my dh on board with this adoption idea. Adoption was not a piece of cake. New anxious feelings came about. Paperwork needed ot be done, classes to take, a social worker to interview and evaluate us. One of the most difficult things for me was an autobiographical questionairre. It seemed so unfair, how many couples or even singles had kids without one single question asked about their qualifications to raise a child? 9 months and 11 days passed from the time we handed in our initial paperwork to LDSFS and the time we were placed with our first beautiful child, a daughter. We adopted 3 more children after that.

Something very unexpected happened after all of that. I became pregnant. I had NO idea I was pregnant. It took several tests and a confirmation from the Dr. before I believed it. A beautiful girl came from that pregnancy and I'm now pregnant with another.

I write all of this because I get a lot of folks saying that dh and I had it the "easy way" through adoption. I have heard others say how the Lord blessed us with pregnancy because we were willing to adopt. Like my adopted children are some sort of charity cases and my bio kids are more special in some way. I can assure you that adoption is not an easy path. To watch a birthparents heart break so that mine can rejoice, to feel the pain of infertility, the anxiety of "will I be good enough for someone to choose me?" There are so many emotions. I also want to share that my adopted children are no less special or loved just because they didn't come from my body. I often feel an extra obligation to them because of the gift they are to me and the pain and sacrifice their birthparents felt to give them a life they didn't feel they could give. All children are a gift, it doesn't matter how they came about.

I wish to thank my Heavenly Father for the trial and blessing of adoption. I have learned more from infertility and adoption than anything else in my life. A new kind of compassion for others. The knowledge that my Father in Heaven knows ME, personally. Another knowledge that dh and I can get though anything together, we almost didn't.