Marchese Family: Adoption day!

Gavin was born in January 2010, a seemingly healthy 6+ pound baby boy. He took us by surprise a bit, as we had only been on the "waiting list" for 2 weeks! Gavin had rough beginnings- formula allergies, chronic fussiness, frequent ear infections, and finally diagnoses: Cerebral Palsy, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, and severe Sensory Processing Disorder. You'd never know these days! He's symptom free of CP and in remission of EoE! His SPD continues to give us a wild ride, but there's no sweeter boy than mine to make the journey with!

Special Needs Thoughts...

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

-Emily Perl Kinglsey

Monday, May 5, 2014

Adoption day!

Today I toast Cinco de Mayo with a Mexican beer (ole!) and a huge piece of love for what this day means for us. Four years ago today, the state of Arizona declared the boy who I had held since birth, that I would be, the first person to ever feed him, his forever mother. Vincenzo Carmelo became Gavin Wyatt. Before everyone goes up in arms about the name change... We named Grace Loren. Both her first and middle names- we chose. Her mother allowed and trusted us enough to raise her daughter and give her daughter a name. With Gavin we had a similar opportunity, but I felt so drawn in and connected to his birth parents story, that I asked them to please give him a name. We all knew that name would change to Gavin, we asked their permission for the name before we decided (Grant, Griffen, and others were in the running...) Gavin's birthfather's name is Vince, and Felix's father's middle name is Vincent- Gavin felt like a perfect for to honor the "Vin". Wyatt is Classic American. I like to think we chose a play on my maiden name, Waite, since I was the last of the Waite clan. Wyatt also resembled phonetically my maternal grandfather's first name, Wijbrand (or why-brand). Gavin Wyatt- we loved you before we knew you. You gave us a run in the beginning- but man am I ever thankful for you. Today, the day we became a forever family- know you are so loved. Love you forever, baby-cat. (I'm scratching your hand). Someday you'll read this and only you will understand what that means. You are forever my special boy.