My Gift from Heavens

 My daughter, my lovely baby, who made me see the colors of the bloom and made me a ‘mother’. My baby is special. She is special for a variety of reasons depending upon whom you ask. Back in 1991, in China, she was just another abandoned baby in need of a home, but because she had what the Chinese adoption officials called an asymmetrical face, a deep scar on her abdomen, and hyper-extended thumbs, she was labeled ‘special.’

As her Mom, her special needs were merely cosmetic and inconsequential to me. Her asymmetrical face, which turned out to be that one side of the back of her head was flattened due to bottle propping in her crib at the orphanage, rounded out nicely after getting her off her back for extended periods. The only scar she had was on her temple under her hairline. Her rotund little belly was unblemished. And the hyper-extended thumbs are sweet little double jointed fingers which function fine but will undoubtedly be used for entertaining friends as she grows up. While my daughter is a charming and attractive little girl with a 20,000-watt smile, I would love her no matter what her appearance. And I do with all my heart.

There is another reason that she is special. In spite of the trivial special needs label she had been given in China, she has a very real special need--an underlying neurological condition, undiagnosable at the time of her adoption, which was not apparent for several months after we got her home. Had we been aware of this condition when we first received our child assignment from China, we might have been uncomfortable with the diagnosis and rejected the referral. Rejected my daughter! To think that I might have missed out on the past 5 years of being this little girl’s mom brings tears to my eyes. We could have chosen not to accept the assignment and ended up with another, totally different child. Since that time, our eyes have opened a little wider and we know that perfection can be a little boring. We’ll take a challenge over boredom any day.
I feel sometimes, God had chosen us as parents for our bundle of joy and that’s why her special needs were dormant. He had ordained this to happen.

Our lives began the day she became our daughter. Adopted at 4 months, she was developmentally a two month old. Bundled in layers of clothing and spending a good portion of her day in a crib, she had had little opportunity at the orphanage to practice the physical skills and social interaction that her American counterparts enjoyed. Still, I was not alarmed as this was something I had expected. As I had also anticipated, she caught up leaps and bounds with the love and attention her daddy and I lavished upon her. She blossomed and thrived in our care. The bigger she got, the stronger our bond as a family grew. But by 18 months of age we knew something wasn’t right. Her walking gait and speech were a little different from other kids her age.

It took several months and changing doctors to figure out what was going on. After formal physical therapy, speech pathology, and cognitive evaluations it was determined that my daughter was at the low end of normal for motor skills, at the low end of normal for expressive speech, but at two years of age, she was at the level of a four and a half year old for her understanding of speech and for overall intelligence.

Along with those evaluations came a diagnosis: mild right-sided hemiplegia and dyspraxia. Simply put, her right side is weaker and not as coordinated as her left side. Her doctor speculated that it might have been the result of a small stroke while she was still in the womb. It explained her total left-handedness and her walk. Dyspraxia is not as easy to explain and is often misunderstood. Basically, it involves a failure of the nervous system to fully integrate with the motor system. Children with dyspraxia know what they want to say, but cannot always get the muscles used to produce speech to do what they want in order to make the correct sounds. It was recommended that our daughter enter physical therapy and speech therapy, which would not "cure" her problems but would help her with motor planning to develop alternate ways of doing things.

It has been 3 years since we first learned about my daughter’s condition. Since that time, she has been enrolled in a preschool program, which specializes in assisting children with dyspraxia. It is only 5 minutes from our home. To think we adopted a child from half way around the world to end up in the exact neighborhood, as the school she needed is phenomenal. She has made terrific strides in this program and next year will be ready for regular kindergarten. Her hemiplegia and dyspraxia have, and will continue to create challenges for her as an individual and for us as a family. Our daughter, like us, has accepted this as part of life.

At times, it is difficult for her to keep up with her younger brother, also adopted from China. She tires a little more quickly than he does, expending more energy to get the right side of her body to perform. However, having the competition around keeps her striving to give it her all. When learning a new skill, she sticks with it until she has it down, despite setbacks. One such case was toilet learning.

When even the most resistant of toddlers is usually proficient at toileting by age 3, in spite of an overwhelming desire to "be like the big kids," at 4-1/2 years of age, she was still in diapers. Oh, she could hold it to keep herself dry, but the hemiplegia and motor planning problems conspired against her and she was unable to consciously make herself urinate when her bladder needed to empty. She wanted to learn to use the potty so much, but in spite of her best efforts with multiple repeated attempts and long stretches of self-imposed sitting on her potty chair, she had never produced so much as a drop on the potty. She simply did not know how to pee, but it wasn’t for lack of desire or for want of trying. We made a special effort to follow her lead, yet even without external pressure from us, she was driven to succeeding.

As she struggled with learning to use the potty, in a two-month period of time, she required catheterization 6 times. Let me tell you, it doesn’t take too many times trying to comfort your frightened and hurting child while she clutches you and screams as a team of nurses places a tube into her over full bladder for you to vow, "I don’t care if she wears diapers to her graduation, just let her find a way to learn to do this without so much trauma" I was afraid for her self-esteem as much as her physical well being. It would have been so easy for her to give up, totally discouraged. But, as with so many other things, when she commits to a task, my kid persists until she has it right. Within another couple of months, she had it all figured out and proudly joined the ranks of "big kids." The first time she peed was in a public restroom at a mall. Believe me, we marched right out and bought a well-deserved package of kids’ underwear. She has not worn diapers nor had an accident since that day!

At only 5 years of age, my daughter is one of the most resilient and persistent people I know. She has had some tough challenges in her short life and has met them head-on with grace and determination. I know there are more rough waters ahead but my daughter has proven to be a resourceful and strong little person. She continues to excel cognitively, is already beginning to read and spell, and has a wicked sense of humor. Physical therapy has vastly improved her strength and coordination, but sometimes it has been her sheer force of will that has helped her prevail. Speech and language therapy have pretty much brought her up to speed with her peers. Her doctor opines that by the time she is in junior high, only she will know that she has any sort of special needs. But he is wrong. I will know. I will know of all the obstacles she has faced and overcome. And I will be as proud of her then as I am now. She might not be perfect for the world, but she’s perfect for me. I love her more than anything in the world. After all, she is my daughter, and she is special. She is God’s special gift for me.

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