When November rolls around each year, we find ourselves reminiscing about our family's beginnings - this Thanksgiving marks 6 years as a family. Six years of snuggling our beautiful Liberian princess. Six years of wheelchairs, AFOs, thickened liquids, AAC, Diastat, and therapies. Six years of praying every night, "Lord, wake me up and take me to her if she needs me." Six years of treasuring every day as a family.
I suspect that Gracie will never be able to fully share her story herself. So, as will be my role for her entire life, I will speak for her. We sense the joy of the Lord in her and we pray that she does truly understand God - she speaks loud and clear with her overflowing, body-shaking joy that there is a joy in her that exceeds our understanding!
We are so grateful that God prompted us to adopt Gracie as our first-born child. For much of our life as a family, we have lived in countries where birth order is valued greatly. For instance, in Kenya, a mother is named according to her first-born child ("Mama Grace"). World-wide, inheritance and family honor are carried on by the first-born. We are proud to call Gracie our first-born and make a point of making it clear that she is FULLY our first-born. We consider adoption to be as complete as being born from my womb. We view adoption of children to be a picture of the gospel - we are fully adopted by God, co-heirs with his son Jesus Christ, co-sufferers, co-glorified. (Romans 8:14-17)
So it was that God ordained Gracie as our first-born in every sense. She is our oldest child. She was the first child to join our family.
We thought we wanted a slightly younger child as our first-born and one with less severe disabilities. Once we had completed the initial stages of the adoption process, we were presented with a few options from the orphanage in Liberia. Long story short, God gave us a nearly 3 year old with moderate cerebral palsy and significant developmental delays. In fact, her condition either deteriorated between referral and when we first held her (a real possibility since she likely had untreated seizures and acquired Hepatitis A in the final months before we arrived) or her condition was underestimated. Either way, we gathered into our arms on Thanksgiving Day 2006 a 3 year old infant. She weighed less than 18 pounds, had no sense of her body, but was intensely delighted to have a mom and dad.
Over the next intense year, she couldn't fall asleep without sleeping on one of us, spent hours screaming (now we realize it could have been from pain from her hepatitis), had intractable seizures that landed her in intensive care, grew 3 clothes sizes, and was lavished with attention as the first grandchild and niece. She thrived with all the attention, took her first supported steps, and started to gain an awareness of her body.
Little did we know that this precious little girl was changing the course of our lives.
I was in my first year of Family Medicine residency at the time and the entire focus of my education shifted to rehab medicine in the context of Family Medicine. Because of all the quality time that Gracie and I spent with neurologists, I became one of the few in my community health center comfortable with prescribing seizure meds when a patient couldn't see a specialist. As I learned, I taught residents and medical students about special needs equipment, assessments, therapies, and resources. And my focus for missions shifted from being a general medicine missionary doctor to the care of children with disabilities. God used Gracie to craft that interest in me even while I was still receiving my formal education.
Gracie is perfect for our family: social, outgoing, funny, music-loving, physical-humor loving, adaptable, and healthy enough (now) to be away from the tertiary care center and able to be maintained by her mommy-doctor. Yes, there are some limits that her wheelchair and dietary needs place on us, but not many, relatively speaking. And there may be future challenges that arise that dictate what we can do as a family. But so far, God has used her to shape the course of our life and also to touch the lives of so many others that have crossed our paths.
We are not on the mission field despite Gracie and her needs. God used Gracie to shape our path and direction. God uses Gracie daily to minister to people - her joy, her jokes, her unfettered love for people.
THANK YOU, God, for entrusting precious Gracie to us! May we parent her faithfully.
Here are a few blog posts from our first days together:
My first thoughts about my Gracie
Her developmental level and abilities when we first got her
Our first family photo
I suspect that Gracie will never be able to fully share her story herself. So, as will be my role for her entire life, I will speak for her. We sense the joy of the Lord in her and we pray that she does truly understand God - she speaks loud and clear with her overflowing, body-shaking joy that there is a joy in her that exceeds our understanding!
We are so grateful that God prompted us to adopt Gracie as our first-born child. For much of our life as a family, we have lived in countries where birth order is valued greatly. For instance, in Kenya, a mother is named according to her first-born child ("Mama Grace"). World-wide, inheritance and family honor are carried on by the first-born. We are proud to call Gracie our first-born and make a point of making it clear that she is FULLY our first-born. We consider adoption to be as complete as being born from my womb. We view adoption of children to be a picture of the gospel - we are fully adopted by God, co-heirs with his son Jesus Christ, co-sufferers, co-glorified. (Romans 8:14-17)
So it was that God ordained Gracie as our first-born in every sense. She is our oldest child. She was the first child to join our family.
We thought we wanted a slightly younger child as our first-born and one with less severe disabilities. Once we had completed the initial stages of the adoption process, we were presented with a few options from the orphanage in Liberia. Long story short, God gave us a nearly 3 year old with moderate cerebral palsy and significant developmental delays. In fact, her condition either deteriorated between referral and when we first held her (a real possibility since she likely had untreated seizures and acquired Hepatitis A in the final months before we arrived) or her condition was underestimated. Either way, we gathered into our arms on Thanksgiving Day 2006 a 3 year old infant. She weighed less than 18 pounds, had no sense of her body, but was intensely delighted to have a mom and dad.
Over the next intense year, she couldn't fall asleep without sleeping on one of us, spent hours screaming (now we realize it could have been from pain from her hepatitis), had intractable seizures that landed her in intensive care, grew 3 clothes sizes, and was lavished with attention as the first grandchild and niece. She thrived with all the attention, took her first supported steps, and started to gain an awareness of her body.
Little did we know that this precious little girl was changing the course of our lives.
I was in my first year of Family Medicine residency at the time and the entire focus of my education shifted to rehab medicine in the context of Family Medicine. Because of all the quality time that Gracie and I spent with neurologists, I became one of the few in my community health center comfortable with prescribing seizure meds when a patient couldn't see a specialist. As I learned, I taught residents and medical students about special needs equipment, assessments, therapies, and resources. And my focus for missions shifted from being a general medicine missionary doctor to the care of children with disabilities. God used Gracie to craft that interest in me even while I was still receiving my formal education.
Gracie is perfect for our family: social, outgoing, funny, music-loving, physical-humor loving, adaptable, and healthy enough (now) to be away from the tertiary care center and able to be maintained by her mommy-doctor. Yes, there are some limits that her wheelchair and dietary needs place on us, but not many, relatively speaking. And there may be future challenges that arise that dictate what we can do as a family. But so far, God has used her to shape the course of our life and also to touch the lives of so many others that have crossed our paths. We are not on the mission field despite Gracie and her needs. God used Gracie to shape our path and direction. God uses Gracie daily to minister to people - her joy, her jokes, her unfettered love for people.
THANK YOU, God, for entrusting precious Gracie to us! May we parent her faithfully.
Here are a few blog posts from our first days together:
My first thoughts about my Gracie
Her developmental level and abilities when we first got her
Our first family photo
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