How Southwest Airlines Medical Transportation Grant Program Brought Life to My Family
How Southwest Airlines Medical Transportation Grant Program Brought Life to My Family
02-06-2014
12:00 PM
Explorer C
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02-06-2014
12:00 PM
Toby is a magical kid. He lives as though it’s is his job to bring everyone joy—and that is exactly what he has brought to our family! But, we didn’t always have Toby in our family; we adopted him from China about a year ago. Adoption was not always our family plan. We had delighted in the birth of four biological babies, but suffered the loss of three others. We became aware of the huge need for families for the hundreds of millions of orphans in the world, and decided that since we were a family who had lost children, we could also be a family for children who had lost their own birth families. Our first adoption was from Uganda in 2011, when we brought our beloved, costume-loving son, Zareb, home. Almost immediately upon the finalization of his adoption in April 2012, we saw the picture of an orphaned boy in China, Toby. Because we were an adoptive family, we were able to read Toby’s medical file. He had a scary-sounding special need called Arthrogyrposis Multiplex Congenital (AMC), which affects the mobility in the joints of his wrists, arms, and elbows. Honestly, it was more than I had thought of taking on, but we ended up saying “YES” to Toby because we knew in our hearts that he was our child. We would do whatever it took to help him because he was our son, just as we would if one of our other children had this condition.
Toby after being home for one week. Look what love does to his face! He had not had his surgery on his right arm yet, but you can see he had fallen and broken his left elbow.
With Toby home in our arms! Note his splint, this was taken about six weeks post-surgery at Shriners.
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