Journey to Amalie
Contribution by Brandy and Ted Pancoast
Hi Everyone, |
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Leigh Anne has asked us to share a bit of our story with you and we are happy to do so. If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at pancoast@theofficenet.com. |
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Who are we? |
Brandy Pancoast...piano teacher, early childhood Musikgarten music teacher, music school owner, new mom Ted Pancoast...custom cabinet maker, guitar teacher, custom cabinet shop owner, new dad |
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What was our story? |
We decided in October 2006 that we wanted to create our family through adoption. We decided in November of 2007 to pursue an older child adoption. We did not know what our future child's special needs would be; only that it would be important for us to consider where we live. We live in rural America (love it by the way) and major medical needs would be very difficult to address well. |
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In January 2008, we saw the picture of the wonderful little girl who would legally become our first daughter in June. She was five and was deaf. We did not know why, but we knew she was the daughter of our hearts. It did take a week of contacting everyone related to deafness and the needs of the deaf before we felt sure that we had the support we needed to be the parents of this little girl. |
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What did we do? |
We read everything we could get our hands on about older child adoption and deaf culture and started taking sign language classes twice a week. |
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What happened when we got to China? |
We used the sign language, but our daughter was not deaf only hearing impaired. She actually could communicate in Mandarin. The sign language ended up being the transfer language between Mandarin and English. After two weeks in China, the other families we were traveling with commented how much more we were able to communicate with Amalie than they were with their newly adopted older children using Chinese despite their preparations in studying the language. |
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Now we are home... |
Amalie has hearing aids now and is in speech therapy twice a week. She is doing very well, actually they tell us she is doing outstandingly well. We did not experience the common two month transfer between languages in the third and fourth month home when communication is often not very possible and tantrums are expected. We went from a Mandarin speaking child to a child who used signs and tried to say words and now to a child who uses English and a few gestures to communicate. We have been home for almost four months now and we never even needed the speech communications book the speech therapist provided for us to use when the tantrums due to frustration at the inability to communicate happened. |
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Why are we sharing this? |
We strongly encourage every non-Chinese speaking parent walking down the older child adoption path to consider learning basic sign language to ease the transition from Chinese to the new language. It may not be the best thing for every child, but we know it has been a blessing to us. We plan to adopt a second older child as soon as we are able to and we will use sign language with Amalie's sibling as long as that child's special needs will allow it. The ability to have basic communication about food, behavior, clothes, love, family, etc, etc, etc before we ever left China and the access to a Chinese speaking guide was significant. While we were as prepared as we could be for a several month time period involving very limited communication, we are grateful to be able to walk through this time of creating our forever family without that challenge. |
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Journey to Shayna
Contribution by Mary Beth Tepper
Our LID date was 01/22/07. We always kept special needs in mind, but did not get serious about the program until the East Meets West Conference this past April, after the new privacy (and shared list) rules went into effect. Our Gotcha Day was Sept 1st, and we have been back from China since September 11th. We brought home Shayna Helen Chaoyang Tepper, born 02/25/05 in Shiyan City Hubei Province, and her special need is atrophy of the right eyeball, considered minor, but not correctable. Shayna will never have sight in the one eye, but her other eye is unaffected, with good vision. The condition is very manageable, and I expect we will be visiting an ocularist soon to fit a contact over the eyeball to fill out the eye socket.
Shayna is a beautiful, delightful, vivacious 3.5 year old, and she is as normal as a NSN child, with the exception of balance, and a blind spot that disrupts her play from time to time. The transition to her new home has been exceptional. We love her like "crazy cakes!" And we fell in love instantly, but the experts say that does not happen. Her disability does not hinder her confidence at all.
I watched the special needs list for awhile before I became comfortable with various disabilities, did some research, found some blogs and bottom line fell in love with Shi Zhao Yang when she was referred to us. I spoke with Great Wall many times with many questions on the various special needs before Shayna's file was before us. We did our due diligence consulting with an International Adoption Pediatrician in Chicago before signing an LOI, but we knew when we locked the file that she was the one for us. We went on faith somewhat since the condition is not widely known, and we were
not sure how serious or minor it was. We also felt quite lucky that Shi Zhoa Yang came to us when she did. On the shared list, anyone could have locked the file, but Great Wall was on the ball, as I am sure they do for all of their clients.
When you know it is the right one, you just know. If you wait for all the questions to be answered, you will never be ready.
If you are not on GWCA Shared SN email list, they send one out regularly; I suggest you contact Leigh Anne to get on the list. You will begin to see what type of special needs is right for you.
Our other variable was age. We were interested in an older child at first, but after reviewing several files of children 5 and 6 years old on the shared list; we decided to stay on the younger side, less than 4YO. There were two benefits I did not count on. First, being able to REVIEW THE FILE as opposed to being matched by the CCAA, we did in fact, have some control over the age, and that ended up to be more important to us than we thought. Second, for me, exploring the Shared list gave me some control over the process, when I felt helpless with the wait time that seemed to be growing by the month.
I have posted some pictures at http://ph.groups. yahoo.com/ group/GREATWALL/ photos/browse/ 2077?b=1&m=t
Shayna is a very normal child with a minor special need, and fulfills our family's desire to be more abundant. Her special need is minor compared to what she brings to our family. Yes, there were many unknowns and unanswered questions, so we had to go with our hearts, and take a huge leap of faith to trust this was the right decision. And it was.
If you explore SN's you will open more possibilities, and when the time is right.... Best wishes. I hope this is the type of information you were looking for.
~ Mary Beth
sidebar: We traveled at least 15 to 18 months before we expected to on the NSN, but that was not our main motivation for opting for SN. We strongly believe that the CCAA is giving adoptive families priority on SN children, but I have no real basis for this statement, only an accumulation of my experience since April and my peaked interest exploring the shared special needs list. This is a bold statement with no real fact, so take it for what it is, my opinion.
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