Did you know November is Adoption
Awareness Month? I didn't, but apparently Huffington Post and Jeremy
Green, father of nine-going-on-ten, did, and they got together via
HuffPost Live to talk about Green's unusual adoption story.
Green is the biological father of three
children, but he and his wife, Christianne, weren't ready to stop
adding to their family when, after losing two infants, they were told they were not able to have
any more children biologically. They decided to look into adoption. The couple's
initial instinct was to go for “healthy infant”, but as they
looked at the list of children waiting to be adopted, they found that
many of them had special needs. This meant that these children
immediately didn't match up with anyone who hadn't checked off the
box that said yes, they would adopt a child with a specific special
need.
When Green looked at his first adopted
child's profile, he was overwhelmed and nervous. Elli was blind.
“I said, 'You know, blind—that's a
pretty significant special need. We don't know anything about that,'”
Green says. “But then I came to realize that nobody knows anything
about raising a special needs child, and special needs kids are born
to families all the time. And you just deal with it and you figure it
out."
After the Greens adopted Elli, a
child's disability was never an issue when it came to the adoption
process. They saw that these children were just people.
The Greens have adopted six children
with various disabilities, and it seems to have worked out
wonderfully for the whole family. Often, the children work together
to help accommodate one another's needs. For example, their daughters
Lexi and Sophie were adopted at the same time in December 2010, and
they are a great team. Lexi is blind, and Sophi was born without
arms, so the two will pair up, Lexi grabbing Sophi's empty
shirtsleeve and Sophie leading Lexi around the house. They do
everything together.
Now the Greens are getting ready to add
a tenth child to their family. They announced their intentions in the
spring of 2012, and their community backed them up big time. They
pulled together and raised $200,000 to go toward the construction of
a larger home that would better accommodate the sizable family. The
boys of the family watched the construction process from beginning to
end, but the five girls didn't get to see it until their princess
tower was framed inside. They all moved in about two months ago and
say it has made an amazing difference for them and that they are
incredibly thankful for all the support they've been given.
“The best thing about the house is
probably how it came together,” Green says. “It is a house built
on love.”
I hope this story made your gloomy day
(if you're in the Portland area, at any rate) a little brighter. I
think it's always nice to be reminded that people are capable of
looking past what seems to be an immediate or impossible obstacle and
making it work out for everyone involved.
Want to read more about the Green
family and how they took, as they quote, the road less traveled? Check out their blog: www.abeautifulroad.com (Seriously, it's a really cute blog.)
Have a nice holiday weekend, everyone,
and be good to each other!
How beautiful is that?
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