Thread by @DrRooftopKY

As you may or may not know, my beautiful daughter Charlotte (we call her Charlee) is adopted. Charlee has #DownSyndrome. That doesn't define who she is, but it definitely adds to her flair! A few of my mutuals have asked how we came to adopt Charlee. I figured I'd attempt a story

My wife and I were foster parents, because sheltering abused and neglected kiddos was something we felt called to do. We're older, have adult children, so adoption wasn't really a goal for us until we brought our future son home from the hospital after 10 days in the NICU.

He was born with NAS and had a lot of complications from it. That first year was hard. Birth mom never showed up to visits, never came to court. Dad didn't either. For 2-1/2 years we went to every court date and attempted visit as we fell head over heels in love with this boy.

Finally the day came when his permancy goal was changed to adoption. Our case worker asked us if we would want to adopt him. We enthusiastically said YES!

Why did I start the story here? What does this have to do with Charlee?

Everything!

About a week after we adopted B, we were at Kroger. We were friends with a few of the workers there as having a big family, we shopped there a lot!

We saw one of our friends, and told her our great news. She knew B since we brought him home, and was happy tears crying with us.

Then she asked us some cryptic questions about adoption. How to go about it, do you need a lawyer, etc. Finally she just came out with it... Her best friend was pregnant, worked three jobs, didn't want to be a mom, but didn't want an abortion because life is sacred.

We told her the process we went through as foster parents to adoption, but told her private adoptions were different, but we would try to get her some information.

Then she asked point blank... Would you all be willing to adopt? My wife and I nearly fell over. Of course we would!

She paused, just one thing... The baby has Down Syndrome.

We were unfazed. Yes!

Then she added, the baby has a heart defect, but they can fix it. Yes!

By this time we were all ugly crying in the middle of the deli at kroger as people walked by staring at us. It was kind of comical.

We gave her our contact info, hugged her and went home a little overwhelmed.

We didn't know anything about DS, so we started reading everything we could on the subject. We talked to other parents of DS kids. Got in touch with a wonderful organization called the Down Syndrome Association of Central Kentucky who gave us lots of info.

Days and weeks turned to a couple of months went by with no phone call. We would see our friend and ask for updates, but all she would say is that her friend has your number. She'll call when she's ready.

Finally that day came. I was taking down the outdoor Christmas lights and I heard my wife screaming from inside the house. I ran in to see what was wrong. It's the mom! She just texted me. She wants to meet! The ugly tears came back hard.

We decided to meet at a restaurant, with our mutual friend in attendance to make it easier. We talked for over 2 hours. Brought photo albums of our family to show her. It was wonderful to finally meet her.

They left the restaurant first. We sat and waited wondering what she thought of us. The mom called us from the parking lot and said that she wanted us to be her daughter's parents. Daughter? Cue the ugly tears again!

From this point forward, my wife drove her to her prenatal appointments and they became fast friends. Finally the day came when the doctor said it's time. Her amniotic fluid was low and they needed to induce.

My wife stayed with her, and when she was ready I was invited in to see my daughter be born. I actually got to cut the cord. It was surreal!

We didn't get to hold her long, because there was a problem and she was whisked off to the NICU. Her sats were dropping, she was blue.

Transport was arranged to the children's hospital and admitted to the PCICU (cardiac). She had what they call coarctation of the aorta. It was closed just below her subclavian artery. She wasn't perfusing from the chest down. This was a life threatening emergency.

She was only 5 pounds, and they took her to surgery to repair her aorta. Hours went by. Finally the surgical team came in and told us that it went perfectly. They used her subclavian artery to make a flap to repair the aorta. She was in recovery and we would see her soon.

She wasnt out of the woods yet. The team said she had an AVSD (big hole in the middle of her heart) that need repaired as well. They wanted her to get bigger first, so for 5 months she lived in heart failure until she was big enough for the second surgery.

Then came the g-tube surgery, she was failure to thrive and kept pulling her NG out of her nose. Lots of complications from this one as she doesn't heal normally. But she got there.

Finally came adoption day. Family and friends and birth mom came to celebrate! She was finally legally ours!

So that's the story of little Charlee and how she came to be our daughter. She a fighter. She's spunky. She's headstrong. She's a freaking warrior!

If you made it this far, thank you for listening. I hope that you see the miracle that is Charlee like we do.

When I first wrote this thread, I was unaware that @DSAofCentralKY had a Twitter presence. I want to tag them now to thank them for the amazing work they do supporting families and children with #downsyndrome. I'm glad to be associated with them. They are an invaluable resource.