Welcome to Tyler’s Story – We Are Complete.

Tyler’s story actually begins not long after we returned from our journey to bring home Ryan.  After Ryan’s adoption went so smoothly and Ashley’s reversal surgery went so well, we continued to quietly follow others’ adoption stories and read about other Waiting Children.  It is very difficult to not be emotionally affected by their faces and stories.  Especially since we have been so fortunate with how our family has grown, and how our lives (and certainly our childrens’ lives) have been enriched beyond measure.

We really had not planned to adopt again, but after one of the visits that we had with our social worker (who works with Holt primarily), she mentioned that Holt had lots of children on their website and had we ever looked at them? Sure, we agreed that we would take a look…what’s the harm.  We’d be “just looking” after all, right?

During one of our “just looking” sessions, we came upon a little boy who had been named Carter.  His description told us that he was 5 years old.  His special need was diagnosed as “iris coloboma” and he had the cutest little smile.  Holt worked with GWCA to find him on the shared list, and they passed along his profile to us.  That was about the time that our plans began to change, and “just looking” evolved into “just checking his information”.

After we reviewed his very skeletal record (essentially one sentence of medical history and description of his eyes, and a few photos), and we talked to Ryan’s CHOP eye doctor, we debated all of the pros and cons for over a month.  This time the situation was a bit different and so we engaged the entire team.  We were especially sensitive to the reactions and input of our other 4 children, with whom we shared most everything.  We considered everything from every angle we could think of: having 5 children under 11 at the age of 51 and 52 yrs old; adding another vision impaired child to the family; was our house big enough; would our support system of family and friends be robust enough; could we financially handle another child; how would his addition affect the dynamics of the children; etc., etc.  As complex as it was, it was tremendously satisfying in terms of learning about how our current children processed their own adoption stories and projected their own emotions and memories into their opinions.  We’re so happy we did that.  Each of their approaches was so interesting to hear, and exposed us to another facet of their developing personalities.  That was about the time that “just checking his information” became “Let’s name him Tyler!”  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Tyler is from a very poor area of China (Shanxi, a province heavily reliant on coal production, located nearer to Beijing than Shanghai) and is living in a foster family with foster grandparents in their 70s.  He seems to be well cared for.  At this time, he is not being educated either, so we really weighed what his life would be if he were left in China vs. what resources he can and will have access to in the U.S.

We still are not 100% sure what his eye issues will be or even if his “real” diagnosis is iris coloboma (as we’ve learned that this is rare in general). It has been confirmed that he can see colors and people but that his field of vision is limited to about 3 feet now (uncorrected).  Based on our experience already with Ryan’s vision needs and having Ryan’s IEP already in place at school for vision related issues, we felt that Tyler will have a managable need for our family to handle as our last and final child.

Tyler will also only be speaking a northern Chinese dialect, so that will add another completely different dynamic to our trip this time!  But that will just make the trip that much more interesting.  We’re hoping that, with 4 siblings falling all over themselves to welcome Tyler to the team, and with a capable in-country native guide, he will be able to pick up conversational English very quickly.  Then he’ll hopefully transition to Kindergarten at our local Elementary school.

As with all special needs adoptions, decisions and commitments are carefully considered and must be made with limited information.  Every adoptive family faces this challenge.  We’re hopeful that our experiences, tempered with our commitment to Tyler and our new family of seven will see us through.  Here’s the thing…you never know what opportunities, challenges and joys life will send your way.  25 years ago, just prior to our getting married, we participated in a pre-Cana seminar, ostensibly to assure ourselves that we were compatible.  When we got to the question of a family and how many children we’d like to have, our answers we were close – but didn’t completely agree.  Lisa wrote 2;  I wrote 3.  After all this time, it occurs to me now that perhaps, we were supposed to ADD our answers together.

We are very excited to begin our journey and to welcome Tyler to our family…and to complete us.

We welcome you to follow along.