The hospital didn’t know what to do, but one woman was willing to help. A child can completely transform your life. Someone who knows all of this is Chelsea Zeleny Flora and she’s telling us about her experience. No one like him him had ever been seen before at the hospital. Parents adopt kid with special needs after being told he wouldn’t walk and may potentially have fetal alcohol syndrome.
He needed a home and he needed it now, the mother said. As a foster parent, I believe it’s impossible to fully comprehend the responsibilities that come with the position. It was our expectation that we would have one perfect baby. We already had two biological children, a girl and a son with autism who we adopted from foster care. We had intended to adopt quickly in order to get out of foster care as quickly as possible.
And so in 2016, when we welcomed our wonderful baby daughter into our family, we had no idea that our hearts would soon be willing to open again, this time to a child with primary medical needs who we had heard about on social media. A continual stream of messages on our local Facebook page asks if anyone has a spare bed for this youngster or if anyone can make room for a sibling pair.
Normally I would have skipped over these kinds of messages, but this one couldn’t be ignored. Child has been waiting in hospital for two and a half months, has been unable to find placement, has no femur bones and is deemed medically frail, the post stated. According to the hospital, he only has a few more days until they’re forced to discharge him owing to a lack of available room.
In any case, I commented in order to obtain more information, but after learning the degree of his medical requirements, we decided it was simply too much for us to bear. In addition to the three other children already in our care, I was confident that someone else would step forward and they had to. The next day, another post rolled through my account and then another the day after that, all from different people saying the same thing. This baby needs a home today and there isn’t one available for him. It was a never ending cycle, so it was time for me to call and make everything official.
I needed more information. The excellent, the bad and the downright ugly. What is this prognosis at this point? What’s the point of doing this? Is it possible for me to achieve this?
There is nothing good about what he said on paper, and the hospital had never seen somebody quite like him before. They claimed he wouldn’t walk and that he might even have fetal alcohol syndrome, but he needed a place to call home and he needed it now. After contacting our agency, we discovered that with a small amount of additional yearly training, it was feasible to upgrade our license to accept children with primary medical needs. Then his CPS nurse got in touch with me again. I was expecting her to try to persuade us into adopting this child, regardless of whether it was the best choice for our family or not.
She spoke with me for what seemed like an eternity. I appreciate you providing me with information and addressing all of my questions. She inspired me with her personal story of adopting three children, the improvement that children with physical disabilities are making, and the incredible medical technology that’s currently available. She persuaded me into saying yes that day, but she didn’t have any plans for me after that. The reason for this wasn’t only because of what was required, it was also because she took the time to make us feel comfortable and capable of providing what he required.
Our choice had been reached. Now the question was, what would be the reactions of our friends and family? We had recently adopted our ten month old and said goodbye to a long term foster placement, both of which took place within the previous month. When we first started looking into becoming foster parents, we told everyone that we really wanted was to step down from the role and return to our normal lives. We were ready to give up on the visits, the paperwork, the rules, and the uncertainties.
Nevertheless, this small baby boy made us understand that we couldn’t give up just yet. On a Tuesday, he walked through the front door and into the new house. Even though my heart raced in anticipation of the arrival of the new baby into our family, it was also racing with enthusiasm at the prospect of bringing a new baby into our house. He was endearing. Yet there were certain things that struck out about him.
Because he was born at 32 weeks, he was quite little and he lacked both of his femur bones and both of his hip bones. His head was deformed from lying in a hospital bed for two and a half months, and he had twin amniotic bands around both feet, which added to his sense of insecurity even further. I was terrified of everything. Was it correct that I was holding him? Was he in any discomfort?
Is it truly possible for me to achieve this? The case worker left after informing us that his family was in the process of completing a home study and would be ready to accept him soon. Our hearts were immediately guarded and we felt a tiny sigh of relief knowing that this youngster would soon be returning home to be with his family. When my older children returned home from school, I introduced them to the new addition. All of my concerns about how they would react to him were alleviated at that moment.
Of course, they were interested in his thighs and calves. They asked a few questions for him, but overall they were enamored with him. Each of them took turns embracing him, pleading with him to stay with them forever and arguing over whose room he would sleep in that evening. My five and seven year old children did not see a physical impairment. Instead, they saw their brother, if only for a little moment.
As the months passed, we discovered that he was the most difficult baby we’d ever had. He sobbed uncontrollably. He was unwell all of the time, couldn’t sleep, had appointments all of the time, and had minimal resources. Each doctor presented a different prognosis for the patient who had bilateral PFFD class D. One stated he would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Another offered surgery in conjunction with prosthetics, and a third claimed he had a comparable patient who was a high school football player. In his own way, of course, it didn’t matter how perplexing it all seemed at the time. While we waited for medical appointments, therapies and Caseworker visits, we found ourselves falling in love with this boy. Despite our reservations about our capacity to care for him, our commitment deepened and our hearts were opened. He wasn’t only a patient in need of a bed.
He was also a medical needs placement. He was our kid, and we made the choice that we would give everything we had physically, mentally, and financially to him as long as he was with us. No matter how long that was, there was no success with the kinship arrangement. In the course of our monthly visit, the caseworker inquired as to whether me or my husband would be interested in adopting him. The answer was a resounding yes.
Despite the fact that I was facing the unknown and the reality that this would not be an easy road to walk down, I didn’t have to ask myself, Could I do this? We were prepared to commit to a journey that would last a lifetime. Alongside our son, he’d reached milestones that he was not meant to have reached. By the time he’d been in our care for one year, he was crawling in his own unique way, and fetal alcohol syndrome had finally been ruled out as a cause of his birth. We were able to witness the transformation of this small, ill infant into a healthy, joyful toddler.
The boy chatted, he laughed, he had tandems, and he engaged in all the other activities that other children his age engaged in. With the exception of walking after 522 days in foster care, we were able to adopt our son on November 15, 2017, on National Adoption Day. The name Charles was chosen in honor of my husband’s grandfather, and it was a name we’d chosen years ago but had imagined we’d never have the opportunity to use. He had become our son. As far as we were concerned, his status as a case in the system, a medical condition, or a prognosis had eventually been downgraded to that of Charlie.
Following his adoption, he began crawling in a different manner, up on his feet and using his hands for balance. Then he began to stand up on his own. Without assistance, he was resolved to follow in the footsteps of his peers. He learned how to ride a scooter, Walk with a Walker, Climb the stairs, and generally adjust to a world that was not designed for him to live in. Following Charlie’s second birthday, he got up and took six steps without the assistance of his Walker.
That’s six steps with fewer than half of his legs at his disposal. That’s six additional steps beyond what he should have taken. Those six steps were the first of many to come, and any anxiety we had about his future vanished almost instantaneously. He opened our eyes to the power of love, devotion, and the desire to make a difference in the life of a child. Also, we’ve learned that we should never define someone by their condition or place them in a box of things that they supposedly should be able to perform.
Charlie is still two years old today. He enjoys swimming, Eating hot dogs with ketchup, Playing outside with his buddies, and is slowly but steadily learning to walk with the help of his parents. I have no faith that he’ll grasp the situation and that he will not simply walk away.
His activities will range from running to playing football or soccer, as well as whatever else he desires. There will be more barriers to overcome in the future, but for the time being, he’s my sweet, sensitive boy who walks on his hands, who rides a scooter Better than other kids his age, who adores his mother, and who will defy every single disadvantage placed in his path.
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