We are hoping to add to our family through adoption, will you be the one to choose us? Our children are our greatest joy, and our most magnificent accomplishment. We can only imagine what a difficult time you are going through and the magnitude of the choices you are now faced with making. We admire you that you have chosen life and want a life full of love and opporunities for your child. It is doubly difficult because we know your child is very loved and very much wanted, but understand that circumstances maybe are not right for you to parent your child at this time, or maybe you are overwhelmed at the uncertainty of a dibilitating condition. Why are we wanting to adopt a child with special needs? Well, just over 10 years ago our life was blessed by a very special child. Our son Ethan suffered a significant brain injury during his birth. It was a wonderful and difficult time for us. Wonderful because we had this beautiful and precious child, we were now a family, but what life held for him was a very bleak picture at that point. We were told if our son lived, he would be in a vegitative state, but this did not change our hopes and dreams for him. We took him to many doctors/specialist, clinics, therapists. He smiled at us, interacted with us, showed us more love than we could have imagined possible. Doctors never stopped painting a grim picture for this little boy, but we didn't care, this child was amazing. We learned to see the world a different way. We had to learn to be mean and agressive to get the services and care our son needed, we learned incredible patience and tollerance. Special needs became our life, and we have been blessed because of it. We chose to adopt a child with special needs, because these kids are amazing. They have tremendous courage, and strength that typically abled children don't have. We feel that our experiences with our son gives us a unique advantage to give another special needs child the best opportunity to become all they can because we have been through the challenges before. We can be optimistic while still being realistic. I encourage you to find out more about our family by reading below as well as our other blog posts and see if we feel like the right choice for you!
We are currently a family of six, but we hope to soon be a family of seven (or even maybe eight if a set of twins or young siblings join us!) We are a family that loves nothing more than spending time together. Weither it is just watching a movie, swimming, cooking, hiking in the mountains or on a grand adventure it is always better when we do it together. We also have a large extended family which includes members from several races including Native American, East Indian and African American. We are multi-cultural with family all over the world from England to New Zealand! Our kids have been international travelers from a very young age and we still have many travel destination dreams, but much of our travel right now is weekend trips in our big family van so that our son Ethan can stay comfortable and mobile in he power wheelchair. Which means we get to go to vistit grandpa in New Mexico or drive to California for a day at the beach. We have a lot of traditions that we can't wait to share with our new family member....like Guy Faux (bonfire night, Nov. 5th) or just individual time with mom and dad (each of our kids rotate weekends where they get to stay up late and spend one on one time with us), or geo caching (treasure hunting) on our weekend road trips!
We live in a large 2200 square foot 4 bedroom home on 1/3 acre. Our boys share a room, and our girls share a room, and we have one open which we have set up as a nursery for when our new addition arrives. We have a large yard where the kids love to spend time in imaginative play, where I grow a vegetable garden and where our dog, 7 chickens and 3 rabbits live. We also have a seperate securely fenced pool! Our house is completely wheelchair accessable and set up for a child with many physical limitations. Our house is in a cul-de-sac in a very family oriented neighborhood with parks, schools and shopping within walking distance.
Terry is 44 years old. He is an amazing father, a loving husband, a devoted son, a brother, a wonderful friend, and an abundant provider. He loves to cook, go camping, play pool, watch movies, build and fix computers, play with our kids, go for long drives through the country side. He has four great kids who adore him, and he is a great dad. He is firm but very loving.
Terry works as an IT director for a local charter school, which means he gets to spend a lot of time with his family. He has been in this same job for over 6 years now, but has also enjoyed working as a contractor in the IT field, teaching at Northern Arizona University. He graduated from University with a degree in accounting, but computing has always been his passion.
Terry was born in the United Kingdom, and is the oldest of 5 children. He grew up in poverty and has always had a goal that he would do something with his life and he certainly has! He immigrated to the USA in 2000 when he met and married me ;0).
Terry is a very upbeat person, a bit of a character. When I met him he was always on the go, unstopable. He has settled down a bit since getting married and having children. He is very structured, consistant, motivated and resourceful. Adopting a child with special needs is only natural for him. His oldest son Ethan has special needs, and Terry himself has a visual impairment that has had tremendous impact on his life. Terry will provide our adopted child with the same love, devotion and continuity he provides our biological children.
My name is Becky. I am 36 years old. I am a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a teacher, a student, an artist, a musician, a child of God. I love to read, garden, cook, sew, knit, sculpt, sing, go camping, take pictures, spend time with my family. I have four great kids, and would have had more, but labor/delivery was hard on both me and my babies; I only took one home with me from the hospital and it is ever so hard to leave the hospital with empty arms, so we have desided to grow our family through adoption. Our lives have been particularly touched by children with extraordinary needs, and because of this our hearts are drawn to those kids who need extra help and care. This journey began 5 years ago, but with four very young children we did not begin searching in earnest until a little boy named Theo, who has CP found his way into our hearts.
In the past I have worked as a nanny, in customer service, administration in the medical field, as an artist and now I am a stay at home mom. I aspire to be a "healer" not a doctor ;0) I learn everything I can about natural and alternative medicine; education and learning is very important to me. While I may never finish my degree, I encourage all my children to do there best in school with a goal to attend college. I am very proud to say that my children at the tender ages of 6, 7, 8 and ten have goals to be a physical therapist, a teacher, a nurse and a cheif.
I feel so very blessed to have a wonderful husband, who is an amazing hands on dad and works very hard so that I can stay home and raise our children. We work well together, strengthen each other. He is my solace and my strength. We often dream aloud together of our future and make goals and plans. We are all very lucky to have him working in the education field, so he is often able to spend school holidays and vaccation together as a family.
I am generally happy and cheerful. I have spent considerable time in charitable endevours that focus around preemies and infants and children in need and this has blessed my life, given me focus and help me develop my skills. I strive to be "green" with a goal of self sufficiency. I am patient. I am shy. I can be stubborn. I try to think and plan before I act. I try to consider others and look at things from many perspectives. I tend to think nothing is imposible. I am an optimist. I am a survivor. I admire courage, selflessness, resourcefulness. I aspire to be all that my Heavenly Father has meant for me to be.
If you have any further questions, please contact us at:
becky@preemie-babies.com
