A post by contributor Melissa Davis: Melissa is a wife and mom of 3 – two precious biological kiddos and a beautiful adopted daughter from Taiwan who happens to have special needs. For Melissa, that has meant becoming her daughter’s strong and relentless advocate. What she shares can encourage and motivate us all to become warriors for our children and meet any needs they have along the way!
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Good old Merriam Webster defines an advocate as one that pleads the cause of another; one that defends, one that supports or promotes the interests of another. Did you know that when you begin to foster and/or adopt, you become an advocate? I had no idea the extent to which this would be true!
In October 2011 we brought our beautiful 2-year-old daughter home from Taiwan. We knew she had special needs, most likely Cerebral Palsy (confirmed several months later), but we had to wait until she was home to know what that would look like in her life. She is now five and has a total of about 20 words she can say clearly. She understands far more than she can speak, probably even more than we realize. She requires constant supervision to keep her safe, due to her instability and lack awareness of danger or how to protect herself. She is brave, curious, sweet, and VERY loved. No one better mess with our girl or they will have to deal with 4 people and a doggy who adore her! When she became my daughter, I didn’t know it, but I had just become her advocate!
One of the things that brings out the momma bear advocate in me is people who want to know, simply out of morbid curiosity, about her life before she came to us. People ask crazy questions right in front of her! Did her mom not love her? (Yes, she did.) Why couldn’t her mom just keep her? (Life is complicated sometimes.) We aren’t sure what she understands at this point, but we assume she understands these questions, and we know she will someday fully understand them. My strong belief is that, unless someone NEEDS to know information to help her in some way, then they don’t need to know the details of her past. That is her story, for her to tell. So, I have learned to answer in generalities. I never feel I need to share more information than is required.
Along with this, I always want her to hear me speaking highly of her birth family and her birth country. They are both a part of her and always will be. We love her birth family. Without them we wouldn’t have the privilege of having her in our family! Despite any issues or shortcomings they may have had, we love them, we want her to love them, we want her to hear us talk lovingly about them, and we want her to talk about them herself. We also loved Taiwan and talk about it frequently. It is a beautiful country with beautiful people and a rich culture. In these ways, we advocate for her in helping her to love herself and her past, and we help others to accept those things about her.
There are people who say hurtful things, people who shoot hateful glances at us because she looks different than the rest of our family, and she already recognizes those attitudes. For my part, I will help her to not internalize those things. When possible, I verbally correct people. When that’s not possible, I shoot a disapproving glance back at them or simply pull her closer, hug her, or give her a big juicy kiss on her sweet cheek and tell her how much I love her. This sends a big message to them and to her and sometimes is all that advocacy requires.
A major area of advocacy I have had is in the area of medical care. I’m sure this is true of any parent with a special needs child. However, there are things that adoption brings that add to the need to really advocate for her. For instance, she can’t talk much because of physical limitations NOT because she speaks Chinese (the main language of Taiwan). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to tell doctors and therapist this very thing. Another example is that she had cerebral palsy from birth that caused her delays. She doesn’t have the delays because she was in a crib all day for two years in her orphanage. Taiwan has amazing orphanages and even have therapists who work with the kiddos. Yes, I’ve also had to tell many people this. Why is this important? Because the care she gets will be different based on what led to her problems. If medical providers base their care on false assumptions, our daughter won’t get what she really needs. She can’t tell them that, so I need to do it for her.
We have had amazing speech, occupational, and physical therapists! They have become like family, and I have loved them because they love my girl. Having said that, I have had to fire two therapists who wouldn’t listen to me about what she needed. They assumed they knew her better than I did. Being adopted, this is an easier assumption for some people than it is with biological children. It just is. I don’t know why. These therapists refused to look past their preconceived ideas or training for “what works for kids like this.” When they wouldn’t listen, I acted. I allowed the first therapist who didn’t work to hang around for far too long, because I just didn’t know yet how forceful advocacy needs to be. The second time this happened, I wasted no time. We recently moved to a new state. With her new therapists, I clearly stated what does and does not work with her and what she needs. They have all been great and on board with all of it. If they had hesitated, however, I would have changed immediately.
Finally, my biggest role as advocate with our sweet girl has been paperwork, phone calls and e-mails! Yes, as unglamorous as that sounds, getting what a child needs usually requires jumping through a lot of hoops. I thought adoption was a lot of paperwork. I laugh as I type that! I had people tell me not to take no for an answer when it came to getting what she needed, and that is so true. I WILL get what she needs, whoever I need to talk to or call to get it! No amount of medicaid paperwork, denial letters, or false assumptions will stop me. Having said that, whenever possible, I always try to get what she needs by being the kindest and sweetest parent the person has talked to all year! If they want to help me, then they will want to help her. Advocacy doesn’t have to be rude or harsh.
Why do I share all of this with you? If you are interested in fostering or adopting, prepare right now to find your voice. You will need it! If you already are a foster/adoptive parent, please know that your child needs you to be their voice, be their defender, be their protector. You may be the first person in their life who has done so. Sometimes you may offend others, even family and friends, by being an advocate for your kiddo, even when you try not to offend. That’s okay. They are adults and can handle it. Be gracious with others when you can, educate them when you can, but FIRST always stand for your child! If your child has special needs, learn as much as you can and then do whatever you can to get what they need! Even if your foster/adopted child does not have special needs, he or she may need emotional and psychological care. They have come from hard places and been through hard things. Get them what they need. Be aware of how they are treated and how they are feeling. Being adopted is hard. They need you to help them on this journey!
Above all, realize that God chose you for this child and knew you were the best parent for them. He will help you to know what is needed and what is best. God knew what He was doing when He entrusted a sweet kiddo into your family through foster/adoption. There is no expert, no stranger, no friend or family member who trumps that! Your child needs you to stand on their behalf. In the words of the definition I began with, your child needs you to plead their cause and defend and promote his/her interests. You can do it! The Lord will help you, and you have others who will cheer you on. I wear advocate as a badge of honor now, and I hope you will as well.
The Adoption Cottage 