Adopting a Child with Down Syndrome

Even before we were married my husband and I talked about wanting a large family. We both came from families that were relatively big (4 siblings each) and we loved the camaraderie we had with our own siblings and wanted that for our future family as well. Then we got married. God had other plans for us.

We spent the next 6 years going to infertility doctors and praying our hearts out.  I had several surgeries for endometriosis.  We were finally diagnosed with “unexplained infertility”. 

I was shattered.    

All I wanted was to be a mom. I knew in my heart Mike would be an amazing Dad. Why? If this desire to have a baby is a good,why would God take this away from me?

My husband and I are Catholic and prayed Novena after Novena. One day I spoke to a dear friend who was a priest and he said “Why do you feel you need to be a biological mother in order to be a mother?” I never thought seriously about adoption. I just thought we would get pregnant. After speaking to him though, everything changed and we changed our focus from figuring out what was wrong with us to adopting.

We began working with an agency and within a year we had a little bundle in our arms, our first son. Every month we wrote letters to his birth mom in complete tears, grateful tears and feeling so incredibly blessed. Then 7 months later we got a call about our second son, a little 7 month old with Arthrogryposis. Exactly the same age as our first son. We had never heard of Arthrogryposis but Mike said, “ We don’t have a lot but we have a lot of Love and that is all he needs”. God seemed to be leading us to this little one and we said “Yes”.

The boys are 14 days apart and are like twins! So we learned about Arthrogryposis just by having him and took him to  PT, OT, and did lots of therapy at home. So far he has had 11 surgeries including reconstructive hip surgery when he was in a body cast for 4 months. We faced many challenges but when we were told he would never walk, we didn’t believe it. We just prayed and said to each other I wonder when he will walk… because we know he will it just might take a bit longer.

Mike made different pieces of equipment  to help him get dressed, since he could not bend his arms. He built him special chairs, modified his walkers and we did hours of exercises and still do. A few years passed and we always said yes to every situation that came up of a possible adoption. But we found out that all adoptions are not easy. All adoptions do not go quickly. And sometimes people change their minds. We always leaned on each other and trusted God. It was not always easy. There were many tears and many hugs but we always  wanted what God wanted for our family.

Mike and I always said that we were open to adopting a baby with Down Syndrome on our adoption forms. We both have some but limited experience with children (school aged) with DS since we are both teachers (I taught elementary school before adopting the boys). Then one fine day I was on Instagram and happened across two pages.

And that brings us to Little Miss.

One was of two little boys (toddlers) that had DS, one boy was adopted by @downrightwonderful. And the other page was @cedarsstory! I reached out to both of these beautiful women and they both wrote back and answered my questions and told me they would pray for me and our desire to adopt a baby with Down Sydrome. Mike and I wanted to learn everything we could about Down Syndrome and see what kids were like who had it. We wanted to know if we would be able to parent a child with DS and what the biggest challenges were and if it was different than parenting a child who did not have down syndrome.

Each night we would watch videos on the channels of these two women and each night we would laugh and smile and slowly begin to see…. It didn’t look scary. It looked beautiful.

We talked to Kelsi about adoption and she referred us to the website she used to adopt their son. They adopted internationally and we wanted to adopt domestically. It was on that site that we found The National Down Syndrome Adoption Network. That is when we met Stephanie Thompson the director of NDSAN and began a wonderful relationship with her. After being on her list for 5 months, we were chosen by a couple! They felt in their hearts that they were meant to give their baby to couple who could not have children, and they wanted her to be raised Catholic. They told us how much they prayed for an answer to their prayers.

When we met them at the hospital the birth mom wanted me to be the first to hold Little Miss. When she put her in my arms…. Katie opened her eyes! The birth mom started to cry and I said “What is wrong?” She put her arm on my shoulder and said “She KNOWS, She KNOWS YOU ARE HER MOTHER! She never opened her eyes before”.

Tears of joy streamed down both our cheeks because both our prayers were answered. Her birth mom even gave me a statue that said “You are proof God answers prayers”. Katie is now 9 months old and we can’t imagine our lives without her. She has brought such joy to our home. She is completely adored by her brothers and everyone that knows her. She has also brought so much joy to our family. She is just what our little family needed and we feel so incredibly blessed we get to be her parents!  

Sometimes when one of us is holding Little Miss, Mike will look up and say to me “Can you believe we have a little girl”. And we both smile in awe.  And I think of all of those tears, all of those years wondering why I couldn’t have children… and now I see… I look at my boys and this sweet little baby girl and I see God’s plan was all along to lead us right where we are here with these little ones…. my prayers were answered to have these three gifts!