Baby born without arms 14 years later. This is how he looks. When this family saw a photo of Maria at an orphanage, they instantly fell in love. An adopted child comes to the family with memories of grief, a fear of attachment and a feeling of indistinct loss. The first years often appear to be normal, lulling the parents into a false sense of security.
Then, when the child reaches the age of approximately six years, a more complex self exploration process begins. This is when the child notices that he doesn’t resemble his family while his peers look like theirs. This is also when the who is my real mommy? Question arises. Profound emotions that recall the separation of the first mother to rise to the surface, causing discomfort for the adopted child.
Emotions such as grief, shame, anger and a feeling of isolation can be experienced together without any distinction among them. Children have to cope with uncomfortable emotions and will employ one of two options. They can act out of misbehaving or they can repress their feelings and become compliant.
This is the period when many problematic behaviors begin, and the parents are often confused and bewildered by their child’s behaviors. When Adrianne and Jason Stewart saw a photo of little Maria at the Philippines orphanage, they instantly fell in love and wanted to give her a family.
Now the family is sharing a closer look into their adoption journey after welcoming Maria, who was born with no arms or legs, into their home in 2015. Special needs adoption has changed our family forever, Adrienne says. When we found our daughter, we did not think that we were qualified or prepared enough to parent a child like her a child born without arms and legs. But we knew that we could love her and that loving her was what mattered most. Adrianne’s story and home video has been shared by the Love What Matters page and has been viewed more than 7000 times.
The family also documents their touching journey on YouTube. The couple, who live in West Jordan, Utah, already had three children, including a child adopted from Philippines, but they knew they wanted another. When they called an adoption agency hand in hand, they were given a list of available youngsters and instantly fell in love with the picture of smiling, chipmunk cheek Maria, who was six months old.
They flew to the chosen children’s village in the Philippines to get to know their new daughter and bring her home. Despite Maria’s physical issues, they felt they had to adopt her and would overcome the difficulties, which they insisted turned out not to be so difficult anyway.
We were scared to begin with not knowing what to expect, but everything has fallen into place, Stewart told CBS News. It seems like a big thing when you start out, but everything just works out, the mom said. Maria is very loving and even insists that her Teddy bear gets fed before her. She has physical speech and occupational sessions and has started preschool. As for the practicalities of having a child without limbs, the Stewarts are tackling those one at a time and finding help in unexpected places.
When Maria made it clear she wanted to feed herself, the couple went to Home Depot looking for tools to make her some kind of self feeder, but they were at a loss what to buy and how to make it. Soon an employee stepped up and not only told them how to make a self feeder, but offered with other employees to make it for Maria just out of the kindness of the employee’s heart, not seeking anything in return. She wanted to do this for a sweet girl. How amazing is that? Stewart wrote.
A dentist also created a custom designed mouthpiece for Maria. Various implants for writing or using a computer or other tasks can then be inserted into the end of the mouthpiece. It clips onto her top teeth like a retainer, and we can attach almost anything. I’m not sure if she’ll ever let me take it out of her mouth now, the proud mom wrote on Facebook. We put limits on her abilities and then we see her doing exactly what we thought she was not capable of.
Maria has a little customized wheelchair donated to her from Schreiner’s Hospital, and she uses her arm knob to control it, mom Adrian had said. At first Maria was nervous about the chair, but now she loves it. Stewart told DailyMail.com that their leg prosthetics would never be a possibility, as Maria does not have bone below her pelvis, but arm prosthetics might be an option as she grows older, but her arm nuts are currently too small for attachments. Maria may not have limbs, but that doesn’t slow her down. She has a very active lifestyle above horseback riding with dad Jason.
They’re heavy and cumbersome and we just find other ways to do things that are easier, she said. Maria has a wheelchair that she controls with her arm nub that was donated by Schreiner’s Hospital, said Stuart. As for the other three children’s reactions to bringing home a girl with such special needs, Stewart said at first there was some concern from the oldest sibling didn’t know how she would play or interact with Maria.
However, Stewart said their youngest, Joshua, who was four at the time, had no such concerns. Happy family Above The Stewart family wanted to make their adoption story public so more people will be encouraged to adopt special needs children.
One day I was explaining to Joshua that Maria probably wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the same things he was able to do and ask him if he still wanted her for his sister, he said. Eyes, she can see, she has ears, she can hear, she has brains, and that was enough for him. She says. Now none of them see her as different. She’s just their little sister.
In fact, the family feels the adoption has been such a success that they recently announced they’re adopting another special needs child also from the Philippines. The girl, who is nine, was born without hands or feet and had a fused mouth, yet she learned to walk, run, speak and sing, said Stuart. She also won an art contest with a drawing of a family and the words Love makes me whole. We feel very humbled and blessed that God has chosen us to be her family, Stewart wrote. As for Maria, she continues to tackle the world with tenacity and enthusiasm, and her mother has no doubt she’ll make all her dreams come true.
She’s made us each better. She’s taught us to find joy in small things, to not be sad or disappointed by what we don’t have, and to not take for granted the things we do have. The most important thing she has taught us is that we’re all so much more capable than we think we are, she wrote. It could be better than biological upbringing when the adults are more mature emotionally, financially and socially responsible than birth parents may be.
Adoptive parents actually want and may select a child, whereas birth parents must take whatever the DNA dictates and many of them are not mindful that they are making another human being needing care and attention until after a doctor or pregnancy test gives them the news and then selection is no longer an option.
In most instances, there is a disconnection in adoptees between their emotions and their ability to identify them. This is the core issue in adoption and it is the foundation of most of the problems that occur in adoptive parenting. After many years, she now goes to school with her mates, usually does activities and wants to be a national champion swimmer. She hopes their story of love and perseverance will inspire others to adopt a special needs child. We hope that she reaches all her dreams with this lovely family.
We need more like this for all kids with needs. It seems that love is what they adopt a child needs. Have you ever wondered if it’s really possible to love a child that was not born to you and does not share your genes? Many people worry that they will not be able to love an adopted child as much as a biological child. They may not admit it, but they still have these niggling doubts.
The following was posted by Manny, one of our community on the Creating a Family Facebook support group. I think she’s beautifully addressed a subject that many folks wonder and worry about pre adoption. With her permission, I’m posting it here. Check out the adorable picture of her boys at the bottom. I have a biological son, Skylar, who is eleven years old.
He’s absolutely the light of my life and we have always been extremely close. For those of you who are contemplating adoption and may be wondering, as I did about whether or not you can love an adopted child as much as a biological one. I just wanted to share my feelings and experience with that. I’ll admit that I didn’t immediately love Bodie, my adopted son, in the same huge, all encompassing, instant way that I love Skyler when he was born. But I did quickly feel love for him and it has grown every day.
There were times in the first few weeks that as much as I hate to admit it, I wondered if the love would ever grow to equal my love for Skyler. And that scared me and made me feel guilty and at times made me wonder if I was good enough to be Bodie’s mom.
However, now that Bodie is almost three months old, I can confidently say that I absolutely love him just as much as I love Skyler. At this age, I honestly feel no difference because of him and not being my biological child. I’m just as ridiculously proud and adore him as much as I possibly could a child I had carried Anne birth.