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Look What Love Can Do

Andrew and I started out wanting to adopt a healthy child from China. We initially didn’t consider the waiting children. But then the wait for a healthy child began to lengthen…and lengthen…and it’s still getting longer. We are both special education teachers, so we have a heart for (and experience with) special kids. We decided we were pretty well equipped to venture into the waiting child arena.

We filled out the waiting child application, and began looking at all the sweet faces of the waiting children on Great Wall’s list. We originally listed a few minor needs we would feel comfortable with, but as we waited and looked over the lists of children, we began to see kids with greater needs who needed families, too.

It’s an interesting and difficult process to see all the little faces of kids who need families and decide which one you want to request to be your son or daughter. Who gets picked? In our case, I feel like God played a big part in leading us to our girls. In 2009, I saw a picture of our first daughter. She was nine months old and had lively little eyes that just somehow called to me. We began to research her special need – a form of spina bifida. Potentially not a minor, correctable need, like we were comfortable with. From the meager (yet accurate) information we received from China we could not determine if she would ever walk or have other needs relating to spina bifida. We did know she would require surgery once we brought her home.

We deliberated, prayed, consulted experts at a major hospital in our city and, despite the unknowns, decided this little girl should be our daughter. Whatever her degree of special need, she would face it no matter who her parents were (or whether or not she had parents at all). Those sparkling eyes just beckoned me to take a chance on her. And we did.

We brought Lily home in 2010, when she was 18 months old. She is an amazing little girl, and fit right into our family from the start. She had surgery when she was two, and amazingly has no current symptoms of her spina bifida. Right now we’re enjoying every day with her and watching for any new symptoms as her spine grows.

In 2011, we brought home a sister for Lily. Our first waiting child adoption had gone so smoothly, we were open to doing it again. This time, we checked more boxes on our waiting child application. We knew we would be open to some things beyond just minor, correctable needs. We began the looking process again, and found our second daughter.

This time, the need was even less specific than our first adoption had been. The label was a gross motor developmental delay, but in the updated paperwork we received, it showed no areas in which she was delayed. Again, we decided to take a chance on this second little girl who had captured our hearts. We really had no idea what her special need would mean, but we knew we wanted to make her our daughter.

Lily traveled to China with us when we adopted Mei Li. I pictured the two little girls (13 months apart in age) being best buddies, entertaining each other on the long flights we had, and in general, getting along fabulously. (Well, a mother can hope, right?) In reality, the girls got along alright, but were not best buddies that entertained each other. Lily was a bit jealous of the new attention-stealer in her life, and Mei Li was a two-year-old who had just been displaced from all things familiar. We enjoyed China, had more than a few toddler tantrums from our newest family member, and made it home as a family of four.

The girls have definitely bonded, and hate to be away from each other for very long. But there’s a lot of sibling rivalry that goes on as well. We haven’t seen any gross motor developmental delay with Mei Li, but we have seen some behaviors that are almost certainly related to her first two years of life being lived in an institutional setting. Her frustration tolerance is very low, she seems to have multiple sensory issues, and her speech is significantly delayed. These are issues we did not see with Lily.

But we’ve seen a ton of growth over the two years since we’ve adopted Mei Li. She is maturing and losing some of the behaviors we used to see. She may have meltdowns at the drop of a hat, but she also has the brightest, most infectious smile I’ve ever seen. She’s a total joy to have in our family.

We now have three children – Lily and Mei Li from China, and Isaac, our biological surprise. I can’t imagine not having these three in my life, and would recommend the waiting child route to anyone interested in adopting a child. Any way you choose to build your family has unknowns and scary parts. In the end, children are children, and they all need parents to love them. Sometimes the biggest blessings come when you choose to step outside your comfort zone and take a chance on the unknown.

Look What Love Can Do

I did not know in the summer of 2006 when the desire to be a mom again crept into my heart that it would lead me to adopt a child with a heart condition.

My desire to be a mom again had been growing, but my husband and I had already decided together that we would be a family of three. But the ache in my heart just couldn’t be quieted. I kept it quiet and I prayed. Not long after the stirrings began in my heart, our daughter, who was about three years old, began asking for a sister. Each time she asked, I responded with “Well, you pray about that, okay?” I wanted to scream and jump for joy when she asked each time, but instead, I stayed quiet and I pointed her to pray.

Fast forward to a little over a year later in the fall of 2007 and Chloe, our four year old, has stepped up her asks for a sister and I continued pointing her to pray. Then one day, she asks when my husband is around. If I remember correctly, I froze in place and tried to not let my face give away what was in my heart. But my face couldn’t hide my desire and we began having conversations and praying together…and in late November we jumped in to our second adoption journey!

We began the paperwork chase for adopting a healthy baby girl, between 6 months to 18 months. I very much wanted as young as possible baby. Our paperwork got sent to China in June of 2008 and the wait began. We knew going into this adoption that our waiting time was going to be longer. Adoptions had slowed down considerably with the increase in families wanting to adopt from China and with the Beijing Olympics coming. And so we waited.

As we waited, and waited patiently, we lived our lives. Chloe began kindergarten and as a family we made a decision to go on a mission trip to serve orphans in the country of Myanmar. It was an amazing time and the children in the orphanage grew in our hearts.  We followed that mission trip with Wayne and I each returning on our own in the following two Decembers. When Wayne returned from his trip, Wayne’s heart had changed. His heart had seen the children with special needs and those that were older that needed a family. He began talking to me about our considering adopting an older child or a child that had minor special needs. This could not have surprised me more! Wayne had not ever been open to this! We began to talk and pray about it, contacted GWCA, and began researching the Waiting Child program. Our own conversations, and talking with GWCA led us to decide to apply for the Waiting Child program while still staying in the healthy child program.

Our process involved looking at the waiting child lists, but after a few months, and after talking with GWCA, they sent the file of a little three-year-old girl named Yang Dong Shuang for our review. We looked over her paperwork thoroughly and also sent the file to a doctor specializing in reviewing children’s files with special needs. The doctor we used was so great and encouraging and was himself an adoptive father. He gave an authentic and realistic perspective with wise counsel from a medical and adoptive parent standpoint. After a time of thinking and praying, we decided to pursue adopting her!

In our daughter’s case, she had a minor correctable heart condition that had been repaired in China already. I’ve often thought about how her heart condition brought her to us. Her heart plus our hearts equaled forever family!

We traveled to China in May of 2012. When we arrived at the Civil Affairs Bureau, Haddie was hesitant and kept her distance and resisted coming to us. Her caregivers encouraged her and coaxed her, but she kept drawing back. We continued to try to get close, playing, giving her gifts, blowing bubbles and even a bit of bribing with some candy! She was determined to not come to us! Finally, the nannies just placed her in my arms. She protested, cried, wailed, and tried to get out of my arms. We said a few Chinese phrases (which mostly seemed to escape me) and tried to comfort her, but nothing worked. Comfort did not come for her. I know she was so frightened and she eventually fell asleep in my arms, worn out from the emotion of it all. I had prepared my heart for a tough time for gotcha day. I’m honestly glad that I did. I think because of that heart prep for me, I was able to focus on comforting and easing Haddie’s trauma. Haddie needed to grieve and for that reason I had to let go of my needs for the immediate bonding and connection so I could meet her needs with care, love, and comfort.

Fast forward to the present and we have been home with our daughter for a year and a half!

That year and a half brought lots of adjustments, learning, tears, laughs, but mostly love. It was tough, really tough at times, but love won and continues to win each day.

What love did for us is bring bonding and connection and completeness to our family.  In the months leading up to adopting Haddie, the number four became such a symbol of how our family would be complete. Interestingly enough, the number four also is important to our Haddie. Each time she sees a group of four, she associates our family to that!  This picture below is our “family picture” from left to right there is Daddy, Momma baby, Chloe baby, and Haddie baby!

I will close with one other post-adoption story. In the days following our arrival home, Haddie noticed our several family pictures from when Chloe was little. Haddie would point and say “Dong Shuang,” her Chinese name. At first I was correcting her, but then I thought, “What if this puts it in to Haddie’s heart that she has always been with us? That she forms in her heart that we’ve forever been family?” How cool would that be to help her with the bonding and attachment! Know that it is in both our hearts to keep her Chinese heritage alive and that Haddie’s foster family be always remembered. But for that short time post-adoption I stopped correcting her and let her cement in her heart that we have been family forever.

-The Rohrscheib Family

Look What Love Can Do

Adopting an older child can be a unique experience. Not everyone realizes that after the age of three in China, a child can be classified as an ‘older child’ and it is possible that could be deemed their special need. Karen was kind enough to share some of her experience adopting little Emily at the age of 5, and what to expect from this particular process.

Adopting An Older Child – My Experience

By: Karen Pugh

This week I had the pleasure of spending an evening with my younger daughter Emily. Big sis Corrie was spending the night at a friend’s house and we had a special mommy-daughter night. Emily was delighted to have me all to herself! At age 7, she has been home just two years and she has thoroughly embraced her new life.

Can you imagine being 5 ½ years old and never having anyone sit down and read you a book? Try to imagine seeing beautiful snow outside but never being allowed to play in it. Or how about still being hungry after dinner and not having any chance to get more to eat. What about wanting a hug but no one being willing to give you one? This is just a small part of what Emily experienced during her years in China.

Today Emily is a very happy little girl. Her favorite color is purple, she loves Rapunzel and Princess Sofia and she has a large group of friends. Yesterday she spent two hours outside building a snowman with a friend. She gets a hug any time she wants and she never goes hungry. We watched Tangled on TV, snuggled right next to each other. (She has the movie nearly memorized by now). Then it was upstairs to sit on her bed and read a book together. After the book, I tucked her into bed and gave her at least three kisses and two hugs before she settled down for the night and went to sleep.

There is not a day that goes by without her telling me how much she loves me and how happy she is to be here and have a family. She has a much different perspective on life because she was older at the time of adoption. She knows what her life would have been had she not been adopted. I know that we are never to expect our children to be grateful for becoming part of a family half way round the world (after all they leave all that they have ever known behind), but Emily is very grateful. She thanks me on a regular basis for her new life.

I have thought of some questions a person considering adopting an older child might have:

1) What if they have trouble attaching?

In my case, I really did my homework and read quite a lot about attachment prior to adopting Emily. Also, in many cases, the older the child is, the more information you can get on their personality. All of the reports on Emily indicated that she was smart, got along well with others, and was well behaved.(I even found out her favorite things to eat: candy, cake and cookies!)

After I got my LSC, I sent her a box of stuff including a three page letter filled with all of the questions I thought she would have about her new life and family and the answers to those questions. She knew, before we ever met, that I was an eye doctor, that she had an older sister, that she would have her own room, and that Mommy was going to take her to the doctor to get her back fixed(she has scoliosis). We even went to Build a Bear and recorded my voice saying Ni Hao Ru Ping, Wo Ai Ni. (Hello Ru Ping, I love you!) Emily recognized my voice right away as the voice of the bear! I included photos of her new family and our house.

I knew to meet her where she was at, letting her hug me and sit on my lap. I even let her paint my nails bright red. Orphanage kids are often younger emotionally than they are chronologically. It would not be unusual to have a newly adopted 10 yr old want to sit on your lap and snuggle. Even today, two years after being adopted, she LOVES to snuggle!

(With 20/20 hindsight it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to buy red nail polish. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by removing it so I looked like I was hemorrhaging from my fingers for several days!)

2) What about the language barrier?

Well, since we had several months before travel, my older daughter and I took a fairly intensive course and we learned how to speak, read, and in Corrie’s case write Mandarin.  It was actually fun to learn another language and it has really helped me understand Emily’s difficulties in learning English. For instance, there is no conjugation of verbs in Mandarin: he is, they is, you is, you is yesterday, etc. There is also one word that covers singular pronouns: Ta is used for he, she and it. Having a basic vocabulary in Mandarin REALLY helped in the first few months.

One very funny episode happened in China where it was helpful to know what Emily was talking about. Our first day in Guangzhou, Emily got to swim for the first time.  She absolutely loved it and we went three times. Upon awakening on day two, Emily announced to us:” Bu Zaofan, hui yoyo!  “NO breakfast, go swimming!” We went to breakfast anyway because the pool hadn’t opened yet. Emily just sat there, arms folded refusing to eat.  Then my sweet daughter Corrie told her: Yi Zaofan, Er hui yoyo. One breakfast, two swimming. She was OK after that.

Of all of the potential issues with older child adoption, I would have to say that language acquisition is the most common and predictable challenge. If you expect your child to be fluent in English in six months, you are being unrealistic. It can take five years or more to become completely fluent in another language and some older kids never really become entirely fluent. Emily now tests as being proficient in English but she still makes numerous grammatical errors in her speech and writing. She is constantly learning more vocabulary but many of the words she is learning are words her peers already know.  She is getting straight A’s in first grade but she is about a year older than most of the other children in her class. Reading is just becoming fun to her because she now has most of the background vocabulary to understand the story. I spend more time helping her with her reading because we often have to go over what she has read to make sure she truly understands it.

I have a friend who adopted a teenager from China. This sweet young lady is now a junior in high school. She is getting great grades but her mom has to go over the reading in every subject to ensure that she completely understands. An assignment that might take 20 minutes for a regular English speaking student takes her nearly an hour to complete.

If you don’t think you will have the patience to provide long-term additional academic support for your older adopted child, you should reconsider adopting in this age range.

3) What if the child I adopt isn’t what I thought she/he would be like?

I guess I would say count on it! To quote Forest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” Your child’s adoption file accuracy is limited by the descriptive abilities of the person preparing the file and the medical resources available. Fortunately in my daughter’s case, everything that was written about her personality and academic ability was right on. She is a sweet, very bright little girl who excels in math which was described well in her file.

However, the information about her medical condition was not complete. There ended up being more wrong with her back than scoliosis.  An MRI showed that she also has a mild form of spina bifida called diastematomyelia. An ultrasound showed she has one kidney.  The kidney works fine thankfully. She had her spinal cord detethered(the spina bifida part) prior to getting a rod put in her back for the scoliosis. I had researched her special need and I did know going into the adoption that there was a chance that she could have spina bifida. I am actually glad that I did not know the full extent of her condition. I would have felt too intimidated by it to pursue adopting and I would have missed out on a totally awesome kid!

When you adopt a child with a listed medical special need, it makes a lot of sense to do research on it, including any other conditions that could be associated with it. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

4) What about the flip side of this: What if YOU aren’t exactly like what your new child is expecting?

Remember, if you are adopting an older child, you are adopting a fully formed person with their own opinions, thoughts and dreams. In Emily’s case, even with all of the prep work on my part, I still wasn’t quite what she had pictured in her mind. She could not get over the size of my nose! Mama yo da beize! (Mama has big nose!) Apparently the two dimensional photos did not prepare her for the three dimensional reality! She stared at my nose with a mixture of horror and fascination for days. She would measure my nose with her fingers, then compare it with hers. She also wanted to have a mama with long hair. I even tried to grow my hair out but it’s very thick so it just didn’t happen. As an adult, with full reasoning ability, we can handle altering our expectations much more easily than a child can. Please remember give your new child acceptance and time to adjust to their new reality.

In conclusion, I am very happy to have adopted an older child!  I hope that by being candid about my experience you have gained more insight into what it would be like to adopt an older child and I hope that some of you decide to take the leap of faith and pursue it!

(The girls right after we returned from China)

Welcome Home!

This video shows the wonderful journey one of our families made bringing home their son. It’s a beautiful story that we hope can encourage many to take the leap of faith and become a forever family for one of our beautiful children.

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The password for this video is superhero.

Welcome Home MingWei

The staff at GWCA are so excited to welcome home the Onchak family and their newest family member, Ming Wei. We applaud the efforts of the Onchak family and especially Ming Wei’s courage! A reporter in China got wind of Ming Wei’s story and was compelled to learn more. See what Mr. Han has to say about this heartwarming tale of a child finding her forever home.

Orphan Starting New Life in U.S.

By: Richard Han, Shenzhen Daily News

Just days before her 14th birthday, Chen Mingwei bid farewell to Shenzhen Social Welfare Center and boarded a flight in Hong Kong on Thursday to start her new life in the United States.

On the other side of the planet, a group of 30 family members in Ohio, will greet her at the local airport and organize a birthday party for their new family member.

Chen lived at Shenzhen Social Welfare Center for five years. She’s the latest and oldest orphan to be adopted by a U.S. family under a program with Great Wall China Adoption, a division of one of America’s leading international adoption agencies.

China is party to the Hague Adoption Convention. Children from China must meet the requirements of the convention in order to be eligible for adoption. Chinese law allows for the adoption of children up to and including age 13; children 14 and older may not be adopted.

“In China, many families tend to adopt a child younger than 3. It was impossible for Chen to find a family in China,” Tang Rongsheng, director of the welfare center, said.

Before Chen turned 14 Monday, Tang treated her as an emergency case and contacted Great Wall, which sent out communications to thousands of U.S. families. A family in Ohio decided to adopt Chen after seeing videos of her attending different activities.

In the three years since the cooperation program was initiated, around 140 children from Shenzhen Social Welfare Center have been adopted by U.S. families.

Ming Wei and her new Forever Family

Halloween Photo Contest Winners

The staff at GWCA are so grateful for all of the families that submitted photos for our Halloween Photo Contest.  If you haven’t had the chance to look, check out our Facebook here you can see all of our little Halloween cuties.  If you missed out, you can still email your pictures to shannon@gwca.org to land a spot in the album.

The staff at GWCA diligently voted on our winners, and it wasn’t easy!  So without further ado here are the GWCA 2013 Halloween Photo Contest Winners.

Spookiest – Headless Horseman Jacob

Cutest – Olivia as Minnie Mouse

Most Handsome – Zac is just as handsome as Maverick in Top Gun!

Most Clever – Juniper as Albert Einstein

The Biggest Sweetheart – Hailey as Tinkerbell

Most Unique – Emma as a Minion

Most Adorable– Go Cowboys! Harper the Cheerleader

Most Creative – Annika and Chandler did a great job with their homemade costumes.

Sassiest– Sophie as Vader Girl

Most Beautiful– Amelia as Cinderella

Honorable Mentions

Ethan as Woody

David as Eeyore

Mei as a Superhero

Leila and Malia as Minnie Mouse and Catwoman

Avery as a Native American

Look What Love Can Do

Look What Love Can Do….Love Changes Lives!     

Hi Everyone…

We are the Pancoast family.  We live in Washington State about 40 minutes from the Canadian border and 40 minutes from the Idaho border, in rural America, and we love it.  The nearest major city is Spokane, 80 miles south of us.  If we can do this, so can you.  Ted had a custom cabinet shop and Brandy had a music school when our journey to China began.

Our story begins way back with our marriage and the discussion to adopt someday to make a family instead of walking a traditional path.  Five years later, a special little girl recently adopted from China entered Brandy’s music school and set us on the path to China.  Unfortunately we had to wait for Brandy to turn 30 to qualify, so we waited a bit more.

Then, after much adoption research and soul searching to make sure we were on the path we were meant to be on, we started the great paper chase in the traditional path to adopt from China.  Never did we dream that six years later, we would be the parents of six children (ages 9, 9.5, 10.5, 11.5, almost 14 and 15.5) adopted from the special needs track and have traveled to China four times.

We changed from the traditional path to the special needs path after taking an older child adoption class online and realizing that we were both visualizing a girl who was 5 or 6 and neither of us needed to have a baby to complete our dream.  The very next photo list had a little girl who quickly became our first daughter…well after another year of paperwork.  She was our daughter in our hearts right away though.

Was the decision easy…definitely NOT.  Did we want to adopt her..YES.  Did she call to our hearts…YES.  Were we afraid we couldn’t give her what she needed…Absolutely.  What did we know about a deaf child?  We weren’t deaf and neither of us knew sign language.  Could we meet her needs?  Were we really meant to do it?  Time and again as we researched our area for answers in the two weeks to follow, God brought the people into our lives to confirm that yes we were indeed called to be her parents and could meet her needs.  The bottom line in the end was that we knew in our hearts that she was our daughter.

Less than a month after we returned home with Amalie in 2008, she drew a picture of her family and put it on the refrigerator.  It had her Dad, Mom, Amalie and a sister.  It seemed indeed we were headed back to China and at Amalie’s 6 month post placement report visit, we started the next home study.  Little did we suspect what was going to happen next.

Eleven months after Amalie came home, we started to watch the list again believing that we could “really look” in a month when our paperwork was ready.  We saw a GWCA Newsletter that featured a small/language delayed child who had been waiting for a long time and asked to see her file in a month when we qualified again if she was still waiting.  It turned out we could see that file right away since she was in the special needs track and 24 hours later we began the specific paperwork to bring Opal home.  The very day after we sent in Opal’s dossier, we saw GWCA’s website for their Beijing Journey of Hope project and Amalie saw the picture of a friend.  In Amalie’s words…”She cries all the time.”  When asked why Amalie said “..she is waiting, waiting, waiting for a family.”  Never did we dream that that statement would lead to a call to GWCA that would lead to an impossible miracle.  Sophie became the first time approval was granted to a GWCA family for a special exemption to bring home two unrelated children at once.  Out of the blue we were going from a family of three to a family of five.

Sophie and Opal were our greatest education into the mystery of file errors in the adoption process.  Opal had her first seizure one day after we returned home…surprise…no mention of that in the file.  Oh, you mean she isn’t really 9 but more likely 5.  And don’t forget she only wears size 3 toddler clothes.  Or Sophie’s webbed neck is actually 5 fused vertebrae…hmmm.   Needless to say this adjustment period was a time blessed by love and giggles, and yet exhaustion, as we tried to find the answers to too many medical mysteries for two girls.  Despite all the challenges, it was SO worth it.  To see Sophie and Amalie reunited was priceless.  To see the nannies study Amalie’s hearing aids with tears in their eyes and talk to her and have her reply in English and have them thank us…amazing.  To see Sophie asking with gestures if she could have hearing aids and eager to go home to get some…beyond words.  And to see Opal move from a shut down child unable to interact with us to a giggling, chatterbox who attached faster than we could believe…you can only know it if you live it.

Love changes lives indeed…

But our story was not done.  The house had too many girls and Ted was outnumbered.  Soon the girls were lobbying for brothers too, so at Sophie and Opal’s one year post placement report visit we began another home study.  This time we did the paperwork for two kids at once, just in case, since the rules had changed and that was now allowed.  We didn’t expect to do it again.  It was too exhausting and how would we ever pay for it.  Nevertheless we opened the door with the intention of reusing the dossier later.

The next thing we knew a precious little face was smiling at us from the photo listings saying “I’m yours too” and within minutes of Brandy showing Ted the picture we were filling out paperwork to bring Webster home.  As the time drew closer to the end of Webster’s paper chase and we were waiting for travel approval, we saw a video of a 12 year old boy asking for a family.  We asked about adopting him and in the end were not able to.  Little did we know that was going to prepare us to bring home David on a fast track adoption.  We saw David’s picture and his eyes had that same look we had seen in Amalie’s eyes…Where is my family?  The difference…David was about to age out and he had been waiting for a long time.  We ended up adopting Webster and David in an expedited trip through China making it back to the US with only a few hours to spare to clear customs before David’s 14^th birthday.

At this point we were sure we were done…five kids in a little over 3 years, a recessed economy severely impacting both of our businesses and a home that was pretty full.  Perhaps God laughed at us because one night Ted said that maybe we should go back for another boy to balance us out…three girls, three boys.  The next morning the 12 year old we had asked to adopt was featured as an aging out 13 year old on an advocacy blog.  That afternoon at lunch the kids asked for another brother and David added the request for a brother who could speak Chinese.

Well…there was no way we were going to be able to do another $30,000 adoption, but all the signs were saying ask for the impossible.  We did, the doors kept opening, the dossier could be used again, the funds came together and Jonathan came home in July.  We have looked at six files, six children have joined our family, we can’t imagine it any other way.  For whatever reason, we have been scanning a list or website or newsletter and have known…This one is ours.

We could write a book on all of the experiences and life changes that have come with this process.  Never did we dream that we would be parenting two older boys with stories that break your heart, have three deaf children and a special little giggling chatterbox.  Each and every one of them is a precious treasure and we can’t imagine our lives without them!

So our advice…read everything you can to prepare, take the online adoption classes, talk to other adoptive parents…and when you find that child who seems to belong to you, step through the door and see if the doors keep opening.  The doors will open if they are meant to be open and never forget to celebrate all of the special hugs and laughs and smiles you find when those children come home.  You may need to fundraise like crazy, apply for grants, be blessed by donation surprises and learn to change your expectations, but it is worth it…Love always is!

Is it hard?  Yes sometimes it is as you work through the junk that comes with what our kids have survived and help them relearn those survival skills they had to develop to deal with their lives.  Then there are the moments when you find yourself in those wonderful conversations that let you know they are going to make it through, make it all worth it.  The first time your “deaf/mute” child talks to you is incredible and the first time you hear “I love you” verbally defies description.  The first time your boys who had no hope of anything talk about “when they go to college” and begin to dream of having choices is inspiring…not because they may choose to go to college, but because they begin to believe that they can do whatever they want to and DREAM.  When the little girl who couldn’t see or make her brain process anything discovers she can…well…no words can describe that either.

Ted still has a custom cabinet shop and Brandy still has a music school.  Now though our days are full too with all that goes with our “Pancoast Eight” family…homeschooling six kids, Irish Dance lessons and travel as several of the kids quickly move towards the top competition levels with the help of their world class teacher, basketball teams and the practicing, games and coaching that goes with them, piano lessons, guitar lessons, speech therapy, specialists, specialists, specialists, and best of all LOVE!  Oh and Brandy’s mom finally quit asking when she was going to get grand kids since she has 10 now after the last 4.5 years.

One last nugget…special needs is just that…a special need…and every child is special.  Sometimes they need extra love, sometimes they need extra help learning to read, sometimes they need extra medical help…it doesn’t really matter.  Every child is special…they are the unique person they were meant to be.  It doesn’t matter if the path you take is traditional or not, every child needs a family to love them and believe in them and support them.  Every child needs LOVE!

Want to know more, feel free to contact us at pancoast@theofficenet.com or 509-738-4913.  You can also visit the blogs of our adoption journeys. 

www.myadoptionwebsite.com/jonathan 

www.myadoptionwebsite.com/webster 

www.myadoptionwebsite.com/pancoast 

www.myadoptionwebsite2.com/amalie 

Starting with the most current adoption and moving back through time. You can set up your own site at www.myadoptionwebsite.com. Joe and Jennifer are incredible to work with if you want an easy to manage travel website while you travel. We have loved working with them.