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We have adopted 3 teenagers through the state foster/adopt program. Their ages when we first got them in our home were 14, 15, and almost 18. The 18 yr old has Autism and Schizophrenia. Each child has had their own set of challenges that have been met with lots of prayers, unconditional love and acceptance.
I wrote an essay for one of my online college courses about the 14 year and her baby (we adopted both)
I call it our biggest success story (so far...)
I would like to share the story with all of you and encourage you NOT to give up on these older children. They need homes as much and maybe even more than the babies do!
Susie's Story
The following is a true story about one of the many children we have had in our home. Her name has been changed to protect her identity.
Susie was brought to our door one hot July night. Clutched in her arms was not a bag of clothes but a real live baby girl! Susie’s’ caseworker said “Don’t expect this to last, she has been in seven placements in the past seven months” Two of these placements had been mental hospitals. We were told that she was defiant and aggressive and a high risk to run away. I began to wonder “What have I gotten myself into?”
Susie let us know right away to keep our distance. “Trying to hug her was like hugging a brick wall”.
As the days began to unfold we saw just how defiant and rebellious Susie could be. If we asked her to dress a certain way or eat a certain thing you could bet there would be a smart remark or a rebellious deed. If things failed to go her way, she always made sure everyone knew exactly how she felt!
At first Susie tried to take care of her baby. She was 14 and knew very little about parenting. I would show her how to do things for the baby but she could usually find an excuse to get me to do them instead.
After being here less than a week Susie asked us, if we would adopt her. She stated “ I have no one else after my grandma dies” Her grandmother had raised her since she was an infant but due to a heart problem could no longer care for her. She died a few months later. After her death we did decide to adopt Susie. Now the real battle began!
If we thought Susie was a handful before, she was even more so now. In the following months while we were working on getting her adopted, she put us through the ringer! She ran away, she played hooky from school; she would curse and throw a fit when not allowed to see her present boyfriend or people she wanted to hang out with.
One night after being grounded for skipping school, Susie tried suicide. That was the beginning of a slow but sure turn around for her life.
We called the police who took her to the hospital where she was evaluated by a mental health crisis team then hospitalized in yet another mental hospital.
While they were handcuffing my daughter, through my tears I said, “Susie, I love you, I will always be here, and no matter how hard you try, you can not make me hate you.
That night Susie and I talked. She began to let those brick walls around her come down. When I left the next morning, after watching them take her away in cuffs and shackles, I felt like I had just given birth to my daughter.
I would like to say that things got better and stayed that way, but there would be more fits of anger and rage and threats of suicide.
Susie was testing that unconditional love and acceptance that we had promised her. All her life people would abandon her by sending her away or going away themselves. She thought if she pushed hard enough we would do the same thing. We proved her wrong. We proved her wrong many times over the years by just loving her and accepting her for whom she was.
Today Susie is a well adjusted young woman with a bright future. She is very artistic and is being interviewed by art colleges and about to have one of her poems published. I believe that a higher power brought her to us and made us her “forever” family. A family who would never have made it without the unconditional love and acceptance that brought us through the tough times.
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