Gracie's Story

Graciela's Story

I think of all our children Gracie's story has the least amount of twists and turns. We first met Graciela in April of 2007. We'd seen her picture on the Adoption RI web site and she just looked SO scared. I think I must have read her profile a hundred times, trying to read between the lines. If I've learned on thing from an adoption process is that no one is as they seem in a profile. If a child is said to be "charming" what they are really trying to say is this child "lies." If they say the child needs to be the "youngest in the household" it usually means that child has been severely neglected, abused and needs to develop some healthy bonding with adults. Gracie's outline didn't say much, other than throughout her challenges she still managed to find something each day to smile about. Wow...looking back I think that is about the most accurate thing I've read to date. She had many health issues related to her bowels and physical development. She was a failure to thrive infant (most likely due to the mother being unavailable during cancer treatments.) She has low muscle tone and has dysmorphic features of her face, feet and hands. Gracie went into the care of the State of RI after her biological mother passed on. Her birth mother died from cancer when Gracie was around 4. She and her brother, Christian remained with the birth father but soon it became apparent, that he could not take adequate care of the children. His grief and dependency on psychiatric drugs and mental instability made it unsafe for the children to remain in his care. He voluntarily relinquished his parental rights and the children were placed into the custody of the State of RI.

Graciela was around 6 or 7 when she went into care. She was fortunate enough to be sent to a home where she remained for the next 4 years. She was placed with a retired nurse by the name of Donna Deroisers. Donna was not married and had another child whom she adopted from the State of RI who was intensely needy. In the 4 years Gracie was in the home, she continued to say that she would care for Gracie for as long as necessary but was not interested in adoption.

We'd seen Gracie's picture several times on the Adoption RI web site. We were familiar with her because we had also met her during the time we were in RI for adoption of our other daughter "C. " Gracie was a tiny little gal with a big heart and smile. She had a head of soft curls and inquisitive eyes, but I never heard her talk. We became very interested in her after seeing her at "C's" adoption. This little girl was there with the same Social Worker who had placed "C" in our home. I honestly can't say what drew me to her...perhaps it was her smile...perhaps it was the look in her eyes...but I just knew we had to see if there was some way she could come to us. I contacted the Social Worker who was VERY excited about our interest. She volunteered to bring Gracie up for a visit to see us.

This first visit went pretty well. Graciela was wild though and it seemed that her hands were into EVERYTHING. She soiled herself a couple times during her visit and when the Social Worker and I went to change her she SCREAMED bloody murder. I was astounded that such a little thing could make SO much noise. I also wondered why she was so terrified to get cleaned up. She screamed "No Momma...No!" Of course my thoughts were...was the "no momma" meant for ME...her foster mother...or her birth mother? Had she been abused and not just neglected? Lots of thoughts.

Gracie came for another visit with our family and this time she spent the night. It was a LONG night. Gracie was just as wild during this visit. She would not listen to my husband AT ALL and would flop all over the sofa, screech and run through the house and fall down. I thought for sure she was going to hurt herself...or break something. It was like watching a penned up animal, although she seemed truly happy and not upset. During her 24 hours with us, she soiled herself constantly and each time we went to the bathroom for a shower and clean up, she screamed, cried, and acted like I was killing her. If I tried to soothe her it just made it worse. She had gotten up in the night at some point and stripped off her disposable diaper which was covered again in feces and was SOAKED, and crawled back into bed naked. When I went to get her up in the AM...she was a sight to behold. She had also taken the sheets and blankets off her bed and had wet and soiled all over. I had wanted to scream...but instead...I pointed to the shower and she went in...screaming all the way. No one had told me ANYTHING about stripping, soiling, or eating her diapers. No one told me a thing about her lack of sleeping. When I took her back to meet her Social Worker the next day, she cried. It was so pathetic, but I will be honest to say that I could not wait for her to leave. I was exhausted. We waited a couple days and then told the Social Worker that we just weren't sure if we could be her family. We felt horrible, but we had to be honest with ourselves. How would this gal impact on the family as a whole...and would we be up for this? The Social Worker was very disappointed but said she understood.

We continued our search at that point for other children. Now that we had the adoption bug...it was like we knew we wanted another child...but who? Dennis and I talked about it a lot but in the end we reached the same conclusion...we wanted Gracie. But the bigger question was, were we right for her? Reluctantly we called the Social Worker again and asked if we could give it another try. She naturally asked what had changed to make us decide this was what we wanted to do. The answer was not so straight forward. I told her that nothing had really changed, but we needed more time to decide if we felt we could offer Gracie what she needed. We knew we had to be able to accept her JUST as she was, knowing that she may NEVER change...and we had to be sure we were up for a life time of commitment. The Social Worker agreed, but stated that she felt we needed to move much slower this time. We were in PERFECT agreement.

Graciela made several more visits to the house and each time she seemed more and more settled. She quickly picked up on the house rules so to speak and it was becoming easier for all of us. We made the commitment to Gracie and told the Social Worker that we were ready to proceed and wanted to adopt her. This didn't come to a surprise to anyone because each time when we took Graciela back to meet the Social Worker they knew she didn't want to leave us. She cried from VT all the way to RI and kept saying, "Momma?" "I go?" "No Donna" (she called her foster mother by her first name.) We were all planning an October move date (just after her 11th birthday) when a monkey wrench got tossed our way. It seemed that all of a sudden Donna Deroisers the foster mother had stated SHE now wanted to adopt Graciela. Even though we had been approved and had a transition plan almost completed with a move date in sight, the brakes were quickly put on. The State always sides with continuancy in a placement and since Graciela had not yet moved, it seems that the foster mother would get the option first if she wanted to keep Gracie. We were upset and angry. Afterall...she's had 4 years to decide and not ONCE had made mention of wanting to do this...why now? We waited and waited for meetings to happen which didn't...and for vacations to be had and FINALLY late mid December we were told that the foster mother had withdrawn her request and therefore a move would take place. We were ESTATIC!!!! Graciela came to the house just after Christmas and on January 9th, she joined our family. She legally became our daughter on July 17th, 2008.

The first year was a learning year. We got her health under control and soon learned that most of her "health issues" were not really issues at all. We realized that she was given SO many laxatives that it was impossible for her to hold back. Once we cleared up that bowel issues...we began on toilet training. Everyone told me I was nuts to try...after all...she was 11 and who trains an 11 year old with MR to use the toilet. Well...we did have success! It took about 9 months but we had a lot of success and few accidents (at least for the day time.) She still wet at night and we had to be creative in our night time routine and dress attire. One of the things we learned is that Gracie had Pica issues. This mean that she ate things that were not considered edible. Bits of paper, toilet, tissue, and other small objects that she could easily put in her mouth without being noticed. We had been told that she would become so impacted with stool that she would get distended and vomit, but in reality...what was causing the vomiting was her ingestion of inedible items. Her diapers were the biggest issue. She required them at night, but she would tear them up and then eat bits of it or stuff pieces of it in places like her ears. We had to be creative with night time attire. One piece footed PJ's have become the PJ's of choice. I adapt them for comfort but put them on backwards and pin the zipper so she can't get them off.

Graciela is a real joy to have. Despite her somewhat trying behaviors, she brings so much happiness to our family. She loves to smile! Her vocabulary has grown immensely since being with us. There are days when it hardly seems possible that she has severe MR. She only speaks in 2-3 word sentences but she can almost ALWAYS get her point across. She is incredibly smart and is a sponge taking in things by watching and listening and repeating at a later time.

Gracie is entering the 8th grade this coming school year. She had a visit with her biological brother recently and this was a lot of fun for all of us. Gracie is on an IEP and attends a mainstreamed classroom however due to behavioral issues and limited attention span she is often pulled out for more individualized work with her 1:1 aide. She doesn't really use school for learning. It's more of a big social playground for her. She HAS made some incredible friends over the last few years who help and assist her. She loves being with her peers and being like all the other girls.

Where Graciela is...there is always sunshine!