For those of you that don't know faith, she is my niece.
In April 2008 my sister Suzanne, her daughter Paris, my mom and I flew to Guatemala to welcome my sisters new adopted daughter into our family. We were all very excited to meet Faith. We waited for her for about a year. We sat in a special hotel room on pins and needles waiting for her foster mom to bring her to us. She was 11 moths old. Then the moment came and Faith was put in my sisters arms. I have to say that there was a lot of mixed emotions. We were excited, nervous, confused and had a lot of questions. Like I said Faith was 11 months old. At 11 months old a typical child should have been sitting up on their own, crawling, holding their own bottle, babbling, well Faith was doing none of these. Before I go on about what Faith could do I have to tell you this; When my sister applied to adopt a child she wanted a healthy child. Guatemala is known for having the healthiest kids when adopting out of the USA. She even had a chance to visit Faith when she was about 6 months old.
Ok, so Faith was not a typical child. She was the size of a 2 month old. Could barely hold her head up. She didn't like to be touched, still drank out of a bottle and still woke up numerous times during the night. Loud noise and bright lights were to much for her to handle. She didn't like to touch anything with her hands or feet or mouth. When we got back to the states my sister started on a very similar journey that I was on with Joey. She took Faith to many doctors to figure out what was going on with her. Turns out she is just severely delayed. Maybe from the RSV she got when she was 8 months old, or maybe malnutrition during birth or during the time she was in foster care. We will never really know. My sister began taking her to therapies after therapies. She quickly began to improve.
Over the last 2 1/2 yrs Faith learned to sit up by herself, crawl, play with toys, eat baby food, eat regular food, she began to touch with her hands, and she even says a few words. She went from a 2 month old level to about a 1 yr old level. I know that this doesn't seem like much, BUT it is HUGE. Of course like any mother you want your child to have the best quality of life and want your child to be as typical as possible. For Suzanne, she wants her daughter to be able to walk. Well today she did. She held onto a walker by herself (this in itself is huge because she has a major sensory disorder), she bared weight on her feet and legs ( again huge because of the sensory disorder and the dislike of touching things), then she began to walk all over her therapy center. This is the first step of her walking independently. She is on her way. Way to go Faith! You can see a video of Faith walking by either going to my sisters or my facebook page.
So to slightly change the subject, I had a dream last night. The dream was about watching Joey take his first steps in a walker like the one Faith was using. I have had this dream before, but what was different this time is that I could not see Joey's face in my dream. So once Suzanne told me about Faith walking I realized that the dream I had was not about Joey, it was Faith walking for the first time. Of course right away I got sad for myself, BECAUSE I want to know that Joey will walk like Faith did. BUT one thing I have learned on this journey is PATIENCE.
All of us parents with special needs kids have once said in our child's lifetime " I wish my child could do.............". Then our child does it and as time passes you kind of forget the time when your child couldn't do it and you wish for something else. During all this time of waiting and wishing and praying, we learn patience, we learn understanding, we learn acceptance, we learn about hard work, we learn appreciation of life and of others and we learn more then most people learn in a lifetime. We learn that we might not see the big miracles that we are wishing for, but will see the other miracles that lie underneath, the miracles that are not visible to the eye.
So even though I am still sad that it wasn't Joey in my dream, I am overjoyed that my niece is starting to walk, that her quality of life has just improved dramatically. I am glad that one day my sister will think back to the time before Faith could walk and that she will barely remember those times.
Keep going Faith, and going, and going, and going! You have come an amazingly long way. We love you so much.
Faith when she was handed to my sister.
Faith today
