Writing Samples

Below, you'll find a few of my favorites.

MEANT TO BE

(OPENING ESSAY. PUBLISHED 2009)

I could tell you that I knew he was mine because he shares a birthday with my father. I could tell you that our baby photos bear an eerie similarity. I could tell you that he somehow embodies all of the personality traits of my husband and I. I could tell you that he is 26 months old and mostly bald and that I didn't have hair until I was three. I could list any number of things that seem to be cosmic indicators of our familial ties, or physical indicators of seemingly shared genes, or amazing coincidences that link our lives and thereby strengthen our sense of belonging. Because of my love for him I could. I could, but I won't.

There is a proverb that says that there is an invisible red thread that connects.... An unseen line drawn between two souls. In my case, the line is real, and I see it every time I pass a mirror. I survived three open heart surgeries before I was even old enough to vote. I look at the scar on my chest as a badge of honor, proof that I am resilient, that I can do things most people thought I couldn't, and now I look at it as the road map to my son.

My path to Beckett began before I was even born. I was diagnosed with a significant heart defect in utero, and from that moment on I believe that the path to my child was set in motion. Call it a butterfly effect, or chaos theory, or predestination, but the decisions made that day resulted in the life that I now have and the child that I call my son. Despite the fact that my diagnosis was unusual at the time, my parents persevered. They located a specialist who would become my doctor and at six years old I had my fist open heart surgery to replace a faulty aortic valve. At nine and sixteen we repeated the procedure. During college I had a mild stroke and my doctors talked to me about the possibility of a somewhat risky procedure to replace the artificial valve with a tissue version. Doing so would have allowed biological children to be a real possibility, but as my artificial valve was functioning properly I didn't see the need for surgery. Mind you, I wanted to be a mother. I wanted to know what it would be like to experience a pregnancy and actually grow a person, but in the end it seemed too great a risk to take. As my longing for a child grew, so did my disdain for my scar. I started wearing shirts with higher collars, and covering up the scar that I once showed with pride. It had morphed from a source of pride to a glaring reminder of that which I could not do. It became the dark spot in my day. Catching a glimpse of the offending mark in the mirror made me resent the choices I had made and I saw it as little more than proof that I would never be a mom... that I would never have a child. Not because I had fertility issues, not because there was some biological impediment, no, I would not be a mother because of a choice I had made. A choice.

Many years later, after I was married and settled, the yearning for a child became increasingly palpable. I wanted to be a mom. We needed a little one to complete our family. So, we made another choice. We decided that we would become parents through the wonder of adoption, and we chose to adopt from Vietnam. At our very first meeting with our social worker I told her about my medical history and my husband and I expressed our interest in a child with a heart defect. We were choosing to parent, and we were choosing to parent someone that I could understand better than most. It was the single best choice I have ever made.

Little did I know that other people on the other side of the world were also making choices. Just two months before our meeting with our initial meeting with our agency, an amazing child had been born to an incredibly special woman in Vinh Long, Vietnam. In what I'm sure was the most difficult decision of her life, she made a choice to create an adoption plan for her son. She chose to give her son the ability to make his own choices in life, and to have a family that would enable those choices. She made an incredible sacrifice so that her son, so that our son, could be whatever person he chose to be. She made a choice so that he could do the same, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Being slightly Type A folks, we completed the applications and home study in record time and settled in for what we expected to be a lengthy wait for our baby. Luckily for us, another person had made yet another choice. Before our paperwork was even complete our social worker had learned of a little man with a cardiac issue. She knew that he was meant for us and that we were meant for him. So on the same day that she had called to tell us that we were officially waiting, she also called to tell us that we had a son. I knew he was ours the moment that she told me about his heart condition which was eerily similar to mine, but the confirmation of belonging was reaffirmed when I was told that he shared a birthday with my father.

Yes, he was adopted, but he is our son. Adoption is an action, a single occurrence, a way of becoming a family, not of being a family. The circumstances that brought us together may be unique, but our family is not. We are simply two parents doing the best that we can in order to give our child the life that he deserves, the life that his birth mother dreamed of, and the opportunity to choose his own path. Like mine, the heart that beats in his chest is slightly scarred. Someday he may have a similar scar on his chest, and if he does I hope that he chooses to see it as his own badge of honor. As a reminder that he was loved before he was even born. As a reminder that we adored him from the moment that we heard his name. As a reminder that family comes in many forms.

Now, nearly two years after the phone call that made us a family, it is clear that he is ours in every possible way. Not because we choose to make it so, but because it just is. He is my child. I am his mother. We are family, not only because we choose to be, but because we are meant to be. After all, our life together may have begun with a string of seemingly unrelated choices, but our reality is based on love, and loving him was never a choice that I had to make. I do not love him because I choose to, I love him because I live to.

Little Rock Family

2013 FEATURE ARTICLE

At six years old, I had my first open heart surgery to replace a faulty aortic valve. At nine we repeated the procedure, and at 16 we did it again. It is because of my cardiac history that my husband, Ken, and I decided to expand our family through adoption, and it is the reason we chose to seek out a child with cardiac challenges of his own.

That said, this is not an adoption story. It is not a story about a formerly special needs child who grew up and started a family. This is a story about joy. A story about love, and hope, and listening to your gut. This is a story about getting help when you need it and learning to find your way. This is our story.

Beckett came home from Vietnam two weeks shy of his first birthday. He was tiny and perfect and full of personality. Though we were slated to be in the country for close to 20 days, we received special permission to come home around the 10-day mark. We were expecting immediate heart surgery, and arranged a pediatrician appointment for the morning after we landed in Little Rock.

Jet lagged and overwhelmed, we made our way to the doctor only to find out that he had a raging ear infection, but very little else. We could hardly believe our ears. After months of waiting for this child, worrying over his cardiac status, we were greeted with the news that he had a significant murmur, but not the issues that he had been “diagnosed” with in Vietnam. A cardiologist confirmed a few months later that no surgery would be needed. Beckett was pronounced a healthy baby with a very mild heart condition that likely wouldn’t even require lifelong monitoring. That was a very good day.

Six months after we arrived home, we had a follow-up appointment with our adoption social worker. Beckett was nearly 18 months old at the time and she asked if he was talking. He was not. We had assumed that his silence was due to a change from Vietnamese to English, and our doctors had assured us that all was well. For first time parents, doctors are like gods. Their word is infallible; after all, they have years of data to draw from, while you only have one child. But I knew he was quiet. I had noticed that one of his hands was always in a fist. We had been prepared for one set of challenges, but it wasn’t this set.

So began our immersion in speech therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy. We soon learned a whole new vocabulary: Dysarthria. Aphasia. Autism. Deafness. Auditory Processing Disorder. Brachial Plexus Injury. Cerebral Palsy. Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Apraxia. Dysphasia. Each one sounded scarier than the last. I quit working so that I could take him to 12 hours of appointments every week. There were no answers and very little progress, but then we found hope.

Referred by a friend, we contacted The Allen School, a local preschool and day-habilitation center for children with developmental disabilities. On Beckett’s first day there, his supervising teacher called and asked me about his hand. She saw what everyone else had dismissed. That moment proved to be the key to unlocking his puzzle. Six months and countless doctor visits later, we were on a path to help his hand. Because of The Allen School’s therapy team, it went from 10% function to 90% in less than a year. His expressive vocabulary increased from under 10 words to 25. He was three years old.

Officially diagnosed with a Brachial Plexus Birth Injury and Apraxia of Speech (a motor planning disorder that makes word formulation difficult), he will likely require continued therapies into adulthood, but today my kindergartener is flourishing. He attends elementary school in a regular classroom. He reads. He writes. He aces spelling tests with three syllable words. He tells jokes. He plays with friends. He does all of the things that neuro-typical children do, though it takes a little bit more effort for him to do so.

Much has changed in the past three years. Then, the future was frightening. Now I am excited to see what it holds. If the last three years are any indication, my son has great things ahead.

Feature 3

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