First Post

My name is Jason. I am a married father of four children. Although my wife and I planned on having 4 kids life has thrown us some serious hurdles in the process. It began almost 14 years ago when Cindy and I were married. We were surprised top find out the week of our wedding that we were expecting. Needless to say this was great news, just a little sooner than we had planned. We were overjoyed to welcome our son Luke into the world 8 1/2 months later. He was a great baby. Within 2 years our first daughter Madison was born and life was great. I had a good job, we bought our first home, and we could not have been happier. After a couple of years we decided to have another child. That is when God blessed us with our Angel Jamie. Although you are not supposed to compare one child to another, Cindy knew something was wrong with Jamie's development. She didn't progress like the other two had in their first year. She wasn't reaching the benchmarks that she was supposed to. After countless doctors appointments we were given a diagnosis that in basic terms said that Jamie's hole in the base of her skull was a little larger than normal. To say that we were scared to death is an understatement, but the surgeon that we saw explained how he would be able to fix the problem and Jamie would make a full recovery. As part of the protocol for the surgery the surgeon ordered a genetic test. The geneticist we saw told us it was merely a formality and he was sure everything would come back negative. Jamie's surgery went very well, but she did have to stay an extra week for recovery. Not long after we were all home settling back into our normal lives the geneticist called , and told us they had found an abnormality. That is when we found out the Jamie had Angelman Syndrome. The diagnosis answered so many questions for us, and to be truthful it was kind of nice to now know what we were facing. Angelman Syndrome, or otherwise known as" A S " is a rare genetic disorder involving a lot of times a deletion in the maternal 15th chromosome. Many children with A S have seizures and are developmentally delayed as was the case with Jamie. The one saving grace of the disorder is that the children are very happy and loving. Cindy tackled all of this head on learning as much about A S as possible. Many of Jamie's doctors joked that we knew more about A S than most doctors do. Don't get me wrong there were a lot of changes that had to made in our lives. Our house had to be super baby proofed and we soon became a single income household. We had to sacrifice many things in the following years, be it family vacations , new furniture, newer cars and many other things that we had always taken for granted. A few years ago Cindy and I decided to take foster and adoption classes in order to adopt a little girl with A S that was in the foster care system. Our decision to do this was met with many people asking us if we were going to be able to handle it. I think most people thought we were crazy. But, we pressed forward. To our dismay we were told that Becca was going to be placed with another adoptive family before we completed our classes. We decided to finish the classes anyway, not knowing what God had in store for us. Sadly a few weeks after we finished our classes Jamie collapsed at school and was taken to the hospital unconscious...................... 3 days later................ she passed away. I will never forget that morning for as long as I live. She slowly slipped away in Cindy's arms ...........What sticks in my mind is that it was dawn looking out the hospital window, and when Jamie took her last breaths it began to rain. That is the first time I had ever felt my heart break. I am not sure if it was knowing that I would never come home to her smiling face, or, if it was the pain I saw in my wife's eyes that moment. She gave everything she had to give Jamie the best , most normal life possible. Or, if it was the fact God gave us such a PURE soul to care for , and then took her away. But, to be truthful God and I had a serious problem. I am not sure exactly when it happened , but, one day I stopped being mad at God , and started thanking him for such a precious gift that he entrusted us with for 7 seven years. Many people will never know the the feeling of love that God gave us through Jamie. She is responsible for the person , husband , and father I am today. Strangely enough our adoption license came in the mail the day after Jamie's funeral. We just filed it away thinking we will never use it. The crazy thing is 6 months later we were contacted by Becca's worker letting us know the adoptive placement didn't work out. We talked to the two other kids and after a lot of discussion and prayer we decided as a family to go ahead with Becca's adoption. While going through this process we found out about another little girl with the same condition also in the foster system. To make a very long story short a year and a half later we have finalized the adoption of Becca and are 2-3 months away from finalizing on the second adoption. Thank you God