It makes me so proud...
Mum-of-five Barbara is so proud of what her three adopted children – all of whom have Down’s syndrome – have achieved, that she wrote to Be My Parent to tell us about them!
Life with three disabled children has not all been plain sailing, but fantastic support within the education system made it a little easier to deal with. The children started at mainstream nursery school, and it was fairly evident from the begining that there would be problems.
Dorothy, the eldest, coped well in mainstream school with supported learning. At 11, she transferred to a special school where she stayed until she was 16. However, Ian and John did not manage as well. They both have behavioural difficulties, and we found that staff and children at our local school tended to mother them, rather than stimulate them, so a special school was felt to be more appropriate.
John, the youngest of my babies, now coming up to 21, finds many things difficult to cope with. He has thyroid problems and very little energy most of the time, and is quite happy to sleep if we let him. Life is a never-ending round of stimulation and demands, but I am just as proud of him as of any of my other children. At the moment, John is doing a further education course at college, and it is not yet decided what he will do once it is completed.
Ian, who was not meant to live six months more, is coming up to 22, and is a real strap of a man! His heart condition has been OK, and although it remains serious, has not given us too many headaches along the way. His quite severe behavioural problems are kept under control with medication. Ian has been, and still is, difficult to cope with, but he is full of life and fun, and I would not, for one moment, have it any other way.
How we built up our family
It was after we had been married for a couple of years, and many fertility tests later, that my late husband Roy and I thought about adoption. The idea of adopting a disabled child came from my work at a residential hospital for people with special needs, though this wasn’t a decision taken lightly. We had to be sure we could cope, and that my daughter from a previous marriage, Sarah, would in no way suffer from our actions, and after many discussions with family and friends, we decided to adopt a child with Down’s syndrome.
We first saw Dorothy in Be My Parent, at the time when it was still a loose-leaf book, and after being assessed by Parents for Children, adopted her in 1981. To us, she was perfect, and more than we could have thought possible. We knew we had everything we dreamed of; this baby turned our world upside down and inside out, but we were happy. It wasn’t long before we decided to adopt another child with Down’s syndrome, and soon we were looking after Ian. However, it was discovered he had a very severe heart condition, and we were told it was unlikely he would live beyond another six months. We were devastated, to say the least, but we had to make the decision to either go ahead with the adoption or give him up. Roy, Sarah and I spent many long, agonising hours trying to come up with an answer to this cruel twist of fate. In the end, we decided that if he was going to die, he would do so being loved and cared for by people who desperately wanted him. Three months later, our adoption went ahead as planned.
We knew we wanted a third child with Down’s syndrome, but had to make sure we could cope with three. This time, we decided to foster with a view to adoption, and in due course John joined our family as a foster child, and five years later our last adoption went through. Shortly after Roy died, I gave birth to a son, the result of our continued fertility treatment. Daniel, now 11, and Sarah, who is married with her own children, are besotted with their sister and brothers. Dorothy, Ian and John can wind Sarah around their little fingers, and they tend to mother Daniel – though now he’s older he doesn’t let them get away with it!
After a further education course at college, Ian is now doing a local communities course, as well as an IT course, and hopes to be able to take his NVQ Level 1. Life has been a bit of a pig for Ian, but he has coped and it makes me so proud.
As for Dorothy, I felt I just had to get in touch with BAAF to share our wonderful news about her success! Her disability has meant she has had to work hard to achieve her goals, but she has taken it in her stride and I feel she is an inspiration to others in her situation.
Dorothy has attended our local college for four years now, first as a further education student and now as a catering student. It was her choice to take a course in catering, and the college let her do the one-year course over two years, so as not to put too much pressure on her. She passed her NVQ Level 1 in catering with excellent grades, even doing work experience at a well known football club. Her aim is now to obtain a second NVQ in table service.
She has worked really hard to overcome all the obstacles in her way, and is the first student with Down’s syndrome to have completed and passed the course at the college. What an achievement, and some CV to write, eh?! My children have been, and still are, a constant joy to have around, and I feel their achievements have been made possible not only with the love, time, energy and hard work that we lavished upon them, but also with the good education and support system they received.
My husband Roy sadly died 12 years ago, but I know he would have been just as proud as I am of all of them. When I don’t feel well, or something has gone wrong, they know, and always manage to put things right with a simple cuddle, or a ‘I love you, Mum’. I would certainly challenge anyone to beat that!
Edited by Suzanne Harding
Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in May 2004 .
This article is published with the kind permission of the people involved. You may download it for your own reference but if you wish to use it for any other purpose, please contact Be My Parent for authorisation: Be My Parent, BAAF, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Telephone: 020 7421 2666/5/4.
Last updated: 13 August 08
