| The Anderson Adoption Story |
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Deedee Anderson is mother in all directions: 6 biological children, 18 through the miracle of adoption, and one much loved daughter who came with her father, when they married. The Anderson Adoption Story, Written by adult adoptee Deedee Anderson Today the average family in American as 2.3 or so children, last I heard. Our family throws the curve way off with ten children at home full time, and 12 part time. (My husband’s daughter is with us almost half time and my biological daughter who is almost fourteen, visits six weeks a year). In our family, ethnicity is a rainbow, with children of African American heritage, Asian American heritage, Mayan/Hispanic heritage and African American mixed with Native American heritage, and finally, Native American mixed with Dutch and Romany Gypsy. I, the Mama in this family, am Native American myself. My husband Kelly, is of English heritage and his ancestors can be traced back many generations to the first settlers in America and back even more in England. I’ve been raising a trans-racial, formed by adoption family for more than 30 years now. Gee, that’s a bit scary! So how did this happen you ask? And thank you so much for asking! Sometime during my first year of life, I was left on the doorstep of a family in the community where I was born. In the tiny Native American community, back in the 1950’s, this was called a ‘custom adoption’. No homestudies, no paperwork, just leave the baby with a good family and move on with one’s life. For much of my childhood, I remained in that home. We lived simply. No electricity, no television, a generation behind the society that lay a few miles outside the reservation. Our light at night came from kerosene lanterns. We had a root cellar for storing food. We grew our own vegetables, made our own butter from the big eyed jersey cows that wandered the pasture. We had fireplaces and monkey stoves in the upper floor to fight the deep chill of Canada’s winter. Have I mentioned that I HATE being cold? And that Canada has far too much of it to suit me? We drew our water from a well and a hand pump that had to be primed each time, and was about fifty yards from my Grandmother’s front summer kitchen door. We knew our neighbors, we cared about each other, looked out for each other and made our own entertainment. Granny was the local midwife, Medicine Woman and Shaman. She provided a safe and loving haven from the rest of the world and in particular, from my father. As far back as I can remember, alcohol played a negative role in my life, my father always drinking and mean. And mean when he was sober too. He was prone to raging for known or unknown reasons, and liked to ‘tan our hides’, that is, give us a beating. I liked my hide just the way it was, and didn’t believe that ‘tanning’ improved it any at all. Despite harsh times, living off the land, growing all that we could and bartering for what we couldn’t, much of my early years were full of fun, laughter, innocent adventures and discovery. Anyone of a mind can find some of those adventures at www.moromonmohawk.com After the tragic death of my younger brother in a farming accident when he was seven, my mother took to ‘drowning her sorrows’ in my fathers bootleg whiskey. My Grandmother continued to be the light of my life, and provided a safe place, with love and laughter and learning, until the ‘system’ kicked in, removing me, along with my five remaining brothers, and placed us in separate foster homes. Some homes were good, others horrible, and I was moved at random, always with less than I arrived with. Why couldn’t I stay with my Grandmother? Well, times were very different and my Grandmother was considered a ‘witch’ by the standards back then and there fore not considered a fit guardian for us. I kept running away, back to her, to be picked up again, and moved somewhere else. Today I can see how God used those experiences to prepare me for my life and my children. I have a better than usual understanding of how my children feel, and the experiences we’ve shared have helped create a stronger bond that helps us move beyond the pain and neglect they endured before finding our family. When I was 18, being pretty feisty by then, against all advise, I went to court and was surprisingly enough, granted custody of my two youngest brothers, then 11 and 12 whom I hadn’t seen in several years. I raised them to age 18. When the stripper girlfriend of my oldest brother abandoned her five year old in my care, I started fostering, and after a brief marriage, had two daughters, raising them on my own. I returned to school, got my nursing credentials, worked in many fields, but kept feeling there were more children out there who needed a home. Eventually I ended up working as a counselor, therapist, life skills trainer and cross cultural trainer. Through a series of circumstances, and older child adoptions, I raised a total of 14 children during those years. All had some measure of attachment issues, what we now call reactive attachment disorder, but today nearly all are thriving, raising their own children. None have been arrested, all are clean and sober and have varying spiritual belief systems. Two have since returned to heaven, one in a hate crime, murdered because he was Native American and his girlfriend was ‘white’, and a daughter who refused medical treatment for a treatable cancer and died at the age of 34 in 2000, the ultimate abandonment of a child with attachment issues, die before your mother. During the last six months of her life she moved in with me and we were able to learn to accept one another, forgive past hurts and find some measure of comfort in our relationship. She’d had a hard life and felt that God was giving her permission to go home when she was stricken with cancer. Later in my life, when I was quite contentedly single, I met my husband, Kelly. We married and decided to adopt ‘one’ child. We started out doing all the paperwork for an international adoption from Guatemala, since Kelly served a church mission in South America, spoke Spanish, and was familiar with the culture and customs. We chose to adopt a boy, given that boys have a harder time finding homes. During the early months of our marriage, due to immigration rules, I was still living in Canada, and visiting my husband in Utah when I could. In late April of 2001, I finally completed all the paperwork, got status to live in the US, and made the long trek, with all my belongings in my trailer behind my car, from Canada to Utah. All along the way, I kept feeling this ‘push’ to get home FAST. Kelly wanted me to stop and visit with friends and family that I might not get to see again soon, but I just couldn’t over ride the ‘push’. I made the long drive in just two and a half days, arriving home in the wee hours of the morning. Instead of sleeping late, I was impressed to get up and check my email on my husband’s computer. There I found a picture of a little boy who was about six days old, in Dallas, who didn’t have a family. Along with it was a note from a friend I’d made on the adoption mailing lists, saying she ‘had a feeling this was my son’. When I saw his face, I knew he was my son, as I had with all my chosen children. We contacted the agency, they asked for our Homestudy. We had to have it modified from an international one to a domestic one in just a few hours, and it was off. Later that day we were told that our little boy was waiting for us, and when could we come get him? And, oh why the way? What’s his name? There followed a flurry of telling family (not all of whom thought our adopting an African American newborn was a good idea), and making preparations. Some of my now adult children voiced their disapproval loudly and vehemently. Strangely it was my biological children who felt the most negatively about my taking on motherhood at such an advanced (in their eyes) age of 45. That night Kelly and I made a flying trip to Baby’s R’ Us, trying to figure out what we needed for a newborn, not having anything on hand. This was late April and we’d not expected to travel to Guatemala till August or so. We felt an air of unreality to our new adventure. Both my husband and I woke up separately during the night, and snuck down to our living room to turn on the lights, to make sure we really had gone shopping and hadn’t dreamed the entire thing. Two days later I was in Dallas, getting acquainted with our new son, whom we named Isaiah Bryce Porter Anderson. In my home community, we give one name for the child himself, one name for someone living whom we’d like him to grow up to be like and one name for someone in the Spirit World to guide and direct our child from there. Isaiah’s ‘Bryce’ is named for one of my son’s in law, a wonderful young man and father to two of my grandsons. During the first two nights I was with Isaiah, I had one of those very vivid dreams, (known in my Native American culture as Medicine Dreams) which are more accepted among my culture or origin than in the larger society. In it, I was watching a grown up Isaiah, getting ready to leave to serve a mission for our church. (I’d converted and joined the LDS church in 2000.) He was older than most young men going out, and I was aware he’d had some health issues in his life. Standing beside him was this massive, very dark skinned young man, and I knew that he was Isaiah’s brother. I started looking around, and saw all these faces! Other children. I could see them as they were when they would find us, and as they were in the dream, older, staring at their brother with such love in their eyes and on their faces. I was astounded to realize these were ALL my children too. Just remembering it still gives me chills! Readers, please understand a few things. At this point, Kelly and I had no intentions of raising a large family. He had a daughter who was only 7 at the time. I’d raised all my children but one, and didn’t plan on doing the larger family thing again. But Heavenly Father obviously had other plans! Returning home from Texas to a wonderful great reception of friends, neighbors and family, I kept my dream to myself. After all, I thought, Kelly didn’t want a big family. I’d agreed to that. I couldn’t very well change my mind now could I? But I put it out there, that if this was meant to be, Heavenly Father would have to make it work out, cuz I sure wasn’t intent on trying! (Oh the measures we take to rationalize our unwillingness to follow God’s Plans!) At placement, we had been told that Isaiah was ‘normal and healthy’. We soon discovered that he had many medical problems, and eventually he had a Gastronomy Tube inserted into his tummy since he couldn’t keep food down any other way. On several occasions he wasn’t expected to last through the night. My husband would give him a Blessing and he would rally. He’s been diagnosed with OCD, Asperger’s syndrome, and a host of medical issues. Today, he’s a delightful, charming little boy who makes everyone fall in love with him. At almost five he’s reading at first grade level, is exceedingly active, and takes everything apart that he can. His two favorite heroes are MacGyver and Mr. Monk. Despite his age of almost five, he’s definitely the ‘older brother’ of his siblings, and often surprises us with his understanding of life and people. The next few months after Isaiah’s homecoming were difficult, focusing on Isaiah’s health issues, finding him appropriate treatment and working hard to form that first attachment so critical to adult success. Isaiah hated to be put down, couldn’t bear to be out of sight of his parents. One of us was always holding him, day and night. If he heard voices with African American ethnicity using harsh tones, he’d scream uncontrollably. One morning when he was about six months old, I received a phone call from a friend I’d made via the adoption community, who lived in Detroit. I had recently send a picture of Isaiah, dressed in his finest, and his much loved sister Kasey (who’s of Asian American heritage) to her. She told me that she had a young woman who’d arrived unannounced and unexpectedly in her office, who had just that day found out she was five months pregnant. This expectant mom had seen the picture of Isaiah and Kasey on my friends desk and was insistent that the baby boy she was having was for our family. After much prayer and consideration, we had spiritual confirmation that this was our child. We made arrangements to adopt him. During the intervening months I spoke with his tummy mummy often. She would put the phone on her tummy, while I’d talk to him. We’d all agreed on the name Isaac for him. She’d explain to him that I was his forever Mamma. She explained that although she loved him she couldn’t be there every day for him, but that I could and would. I made tapes of stories, telling him of his family and how much he was loved and wanted. These were played for him several times a day. I was in the delivery room when he was born, and the first time he heard my voice, still hooked up to many tubes and wires (there were some birth complications), he turned towards me and responded for the first time since his birth. Today, we maintain an wonderfully close and loving relationship with both his tummy mummy and extended family. And his bio grandfather was a pro football player. Isaac has the biggest feet you’re ever seen on a young boy! At the second post placement social workers visit, the social worker asked my husband about the reservations he’d had about another child, and how he felt about that now. My husband astounded me by saying “this is so much fun, I think I want a dozen”. I almost fell off my chair, since that was the first time I’d heard that he was changing his stance about a larger family. There was no way out now! Isaac blended into our family effortlessly, a beautiful, bright, inquisitive and sensitive boy who’s now about to turn four. He instinctively loves football and soccer and any other rough and tumble sport, even though we don’t watch much sports at home. He has an instinctive tackle and it’s a long standing joke that he’s knocked over every member of our family but Mama. Once he even knocked his Daddy right through the baby gate, breaking it in half, and send him skidding along the floor giving him rug burn. Back before we married, and in the first months after, when we first researching adoption, and were still exploring all the alternatives, we had made inquiries about a sibling group of four children little girls in California. We never heard back on them and later had decided we’d adopt a newborn instead. Over the course of our adoption journey, I’d started helping other families find their children. I’d contacted case workers in many states, and when Isaac was about five months old, and Isaiah’s health has stabilized, we started sending out our Homestudy for sibling groups. The system stinks! We sent out over a hundred copies of our Homestudy, called at least that many caseworkers. Most failed to return our calls or acknowledge our interest despite the fact we were approved to adopt a sibling group of up to seven children. Many of those children we enquired about are still out there on the photo listings. Should be easy right? It’s not. I connected with a Matching Specialist in CA while helping another family and asked her about the original four children. She said they were considered unadoptable and had been removed from the ‘available children’s lists’ due to many challenges. Feeling certain about our desire to parent them, we insisted on proceeding anyway. We learned that the first case worker had unexpectedly died back in 2000, and there hadn’t been another worker assigned until just a few weeks before we made contact. After many trials, and two trips to appear in front of the Judge to convince her that we had the resources to adopt the children, wanted the children and were well aware of their challenges, we finally brought our girls home in November of 2002. All four sisters had tested positive at birth, for marijuana, heroin, cocaine and alcohol. None had weighed over three pounds at birth. At homecoming they were 2, 4, 6, 7, and are now 5, 7, 10, and 11. All have been diagnosed with attachment issues, early onset bipolar disorder, FASD, PTSD and a host of other challenges. All are delightful children who are healing, loving life and making good progress. They’re lots of fun, and are learning how to function in a family. Two of our girls had been institutionalized for several years before homecoming. They had little exposure to how a family worked, had been exposed to horribly violent movies and pornography in the government operated group home they’d lived in for some years. It’s taken a lot of hard work, patience, consistency, structure, and did I mention hard work? The girls are of African American heritage, the same as our first two sons. In December of 2003, I connected with a case worker in another state, who had a Hispanic/Mayan sibling group of two boys and two girls that were needing placement together. We were assured that they were ‘normal’ with ‘only the expected issues of grief and loss’. Their faces were so familiar when I first saw the pictures the caseworker sent. We’d seen a lot of families overwhelm themselves adopting only children with special needs. We had decided we would search for children with fewer challenges this time around to complete our family. Well, as we’ve learned, God has other plans! After many trials with things like social workers who didn’t approve of larger families, officious government workers who thought they should and could over rule homestudies, intransigent ICPC workers, having to hire an attorney, several trips to the sending state, meeting a host of unreasonable requirements by our own state’s system, we brought the first three children home, with plans to bring the youngest, then fifteen months old, home a month later. The children were then 3, 4, and 7. They are now almost 5, six and nine years old. Upon homecoming, we became aware that our youngest boy had some significant physical issues. We started the long road to medical assessment and treatment. He’d been born with a hole in his spine that no one had ever dealt with, and has been diagnosed with spina bifida, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, FASD, PDD, autism, Mood Disorder, RAD and Adjustment disorder. Several months later he had surgery to repair a tethered spinal cord, but his bladder had been damaged before by failure to receive medical treatment before homecoming and he requires daily catherterization, and uses a wheel chair for long excursions. He will need repeated surgery thought out his life to deal with his physical issues. He’s making great progress in healing in many areas of his life. He’s sweet, loving, gentle (except for the rages), and loves being with his siblings. During the first month after bringing three of the children home, there were complications with the process for placing the youngest. It was a long and difficult fight to get her placed with us and her biological siblings. She’d originally been placed with another foster family who expected to adopt her, given that they were assured ‘no one would want four children’. It was heart breaking for them to have to bring her to us. For what ever reasons, she too hadn’t received the care she needed. Since homecoming she has been diagnosed with hydrocephalus, spina bifida occulta, a tethered spinal cord, cerebral palsy, Adjustment Disorder, Mood Disorder, attachment issues, and cerebral atrophy of unknown causes. She is now three, making moderate progress, and as the baby of our family, is a bit spoiled. One expects to have unknown medical issues when one adopts internationally, and it was a big surprise to us to find out that it can and does happen to children in the domestic foster care system. No one in our case is sure why it happened. The case workers from the sending state are dedicated, compassionate and truly care about our children. They seem to have just fallen through the cracks. The other boy, (now 6.5), in this sibship, has mostly emotional challenges, including RAD, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, FASD, probable drug and alcohol exposure, speech and language delays, Mood Disorder, and remains a handful to parent. He’s making great progress, and we have hopes that he will function independently as an adult. He’s helpful, wants to make good choices, loves to work hard and works even harder at getting stronger and making better choices. The last child in this sibship is the ‘dream child’. Smart, good in school, well behaved, helpful, and developing along a pretty normal curve. She’s a delight. She loves to hear the story of how I dreamed about her, searched the whole world over (literally looked at thousands of children’s pictures) to find her and bring her home. Over the years my husband has inherited all of my now adult children and gone from a father of one to step father of 12 to father of ten adopted children. For him it’s been a longer journey. But he has risen to the many challenges, is an engaged and involved father who loves being a dad. When he comes home each night there’s a chorus of shouting and jumping up and down, with ‘Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!’ Raising a trans-racial, formed by adoption family today is in some ways easier than it was when I started out all those years ago. It is less socially acceptable for people to make or behave in racist ways, the level of social consciousness has shifted. Inter-racial families are more visible and more accepted. There are more resources available, more effective medication and more effective and available therapy. The Internet makes the search less painful, but no less difficult. There are more options for teaching, for healing, and many states, Utah included, offer wonderful respite programs for families who’ve adopted challenging children. The Internet also offers access to support groups, and widespread dissemination of information of all kinds are now readily available. The support found in many On-Line support groups among parents who’ve walked or are walking the same road is beyond price. In other ways it’s much harder today. These days, society seems to assume a negative intention about trans-racial and larger families. Since most families have only one or two children, and many families find that a challenging and difficult experience, few can imagine raising a houseful of children with challenges and doing it well. Many think because they couldn’t do it, no one can and it’s their job to ‘catch’ what ever they perceive as being wrong. So some folks assume a negative intention, make judgments, rather than offering support or friendship. Many of us larger families are harassed by CPS or DCFS workers, who for what ever reasons, feel they have more rights and power over our children than we, as parents, do. The media is quick to jump on anything, true or not, and sensationalize the entire thing. And even faster NOT to print a retraction when the initial evidence becomes suspect. Just a few weeks ago I had a teacher who’d had my daughter in her classroom for ONE day tell me that she didn’t think my daughter had all the problems that are so well documented in her files. She suggested in all sincerity that if I would just ‘ease up’ she’d be fine, and that she surely didn’t need the special programs that were in place for her. Further discussion showed that she hadn’t even read the file! Or the reports. But she thought she knew my child better after ONE day than I, who’ve been her mom for years. And was quite appalled that I called her on it. And even more appalled when I contacted her supervisor and voiced my objections. The system itself fails our children, repeatedly returning them to unsafe and unsuitable families, until the damage is so great that there is little hope of recovery. Often adopting families are not given full disclosure, and families can and are destroyed by false allegations, systems abuse, over zealous or power hungry case workers and social workers. Many states have cut the essential post adoption assistance programs, making it impossible for families to continue to provide a stable and loving home for children with extreme challenges. In my opinion, this nation doesn’t place a high priority on children’s welfare, short or long term, and would rather turn a blind eye than reach out and make a difference. The fact that this costs millions in dollars through out these children’s lives as they become involved in the criminal justice system, or the child welfare system, or the welfare system is overlooked for short term gains. We are a nation in a hurry to DO. Our lives tend to be rushing from one responsibility or task to another, with little time to just ‘be’ and enjoy the small pleasures in life: a child’s new success, a sunset, the beauty that is found everywhere, the pride and pure love that our children inspire in us. If every family who COULD adopt a child, did, we wouldn’t have a half million children in foster care. But for many, it’s never a consideration. For far too many of us, our lives tend to be over scheduled, over worked, and so much more stressful than even a few years ago. So, given all this, do we, as a family, why continue to do this? Why work so hard at what so few can appreciate, support or understand? In my community of origin, I was taught that children are sacred, and closer to our Creator than the rest of us, not being so long removed from His care in the Spirit World. That what we do for them, is a measure of our respect for our Creator, and the gifts He lent us to use in this World of Physical Things. And for all my years, learning, trials and tears, children are still the best adventure! When I get to the other side, and speak to Creator face to face, I want to be able to look Him straight in the eye, and say: “I did my best for YOUR children”. I’m blessed that my husband shares this belief and vision. Deedee Anderson You may contact Deedee through her website as well as email ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Submit Your Family Story!  Link to this article | Views: 215
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Thanks for the opportunity to once again read one of your incredible stories! Love your writing as always.
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