Information email: largefamilies2001@yahoo.com
By DANIEL PULLIAM-H-P Staff Writer ( HP website )
Herald-Palladium (St. Joseph-Benton Harbor, Michigan)
July 07, 2002
Five of their remaining seven children have special needs. Two are drug babies, one is a shaken baby, one had severe oxygen loss at birth and another was born with a brain defect.
Nora insists that she and her husband are not saints, just normal people who want to help children.
While the Edgars wait for their eighth special-needs child, this one from Raleigh, N.C., they struggle to find words to describe why they do what they do.
Nora, 44, said it is because they are Christians and that it strengthens their faith when they adopt these children. She said she is sure she could not do what she does if she were not a Christian.
"It all makes heaven so much closer for me. Before Adam died, we never knew where he was mentally. But now I know Adam is in heaven," Nora said. "He was miserable, and looking at it that way, it makes it wonderful. You know they are safe. You know they are whole."
Adam was a year old when the Edgars adopted him.
"He would quit breathing all the time. He would turn colors," said Gary, 54. "We expected him to die anytime."
Adam died last summer at the age of 3. Three weeks later, Chrissy, 7, suddenly died. She had muscular dystrophy and was not expected to die. Gary and Nora adopted her when she was a year old.
"Her death was much more difficult than Adam's death," Nora said. "Chrissy, she had a personality, and her death was all of a sudden."
For six years the Edgars and their adopted children have lived in a condo converted from hotel rooms in the old Quality Inn at 655 Riverview Drive.
Gary retired from General Motors Corp. three years ago. He and Nora, who is a registered nurse, own about half of the old hotel rooms, which they rent out as condos to summer vacationers and temporary residents.
The Edgars married 14 years ago, and two years later started taking in foster children. About a year later they started adopting children.
Parting with foster children was traumatic.
"It is almost easier when a child dies, compared to when they are taken away from you," Nora said. "When the child dies, at least you know they are in heaven. When they are taken away from you, you don't know where they go."
Luke, a 1-year-old, was their first adopted child. He died four months after they officially adopted him. His family had abandoned him and he had schizencephaly, a brain disorder.
"You could hold a light to his head and see right through," Gary said. Another child who is living much longer than any doctor every predicted, Sammy, 8, has holoprosencephaly, which means his brain is not correctly divided into two parts.
Sammy's mother was encouraged by doctors to have a late-term abortion, but she refused. Three months after his birth, Sammy was dying and the mother decided to give him up for adoption.
Sammy also has no eyes. Fake eyes were made for him when he was younger, but Sammy kept poking them out, Nora said.
The Edgars said the rewards involved in adopting special-needs children are many.
"When a kid who isn't supposed to do anything at all causes a lot of trouble, it's just a blessing," Nora said with a laugh. "Sammy was supposed to die two weeks after we adopted him. Well, it's been almost eight years."
When Caleb and Faith smile, the Edgars said, nothing else seems to matter. Caleb, 8, was born a drug baby and Faith, 3, suffered shaken baby syndrome.
Managing Financially
The Edgars receive stipends from the various states from which they adopt the special-needs children. Medical bills are covered mostly by Medicare. All other medical bills are covered by Michigan's Children's Special Health program.
Stipends vary from child to child depending on which state they come from. The Edgars have adopted children from New Jersey, Ohio, California, Arkansas and Michigan.
"If I was doing it for the money, I wouldn't be doing it," Gary said.
Nora said there is no way they could adopt even one of these children if they did not receive medical aid. The bills would just be too high.
The Edgars don't think the fact they have adopted 10 children and were foster parents to 10 others makes them special or unique.
Some of their friends call them saints, but Nora said there is no halo around her head.
"A lot of people say they don't know how you can do this, but it is really not that different from raising regular children," Gary said. "A normal child does things for the first time and it's a big deal. But when these kids do something, it's a big deal because they weren't supposed to do anything."
Three of the children have to be hooked up to machines when they sleep at night, but other than that, Nora said it is very similar to having normal children.
"You have to sleep with one ear open and you are up a lot, but that's true with a lot of kids," Nora said. "Sometimes something really bad happens and you have to go from a dead sleep to wide awake. You just have to be ready for anything, and after you get the training, you just have to have the will and desire to do it."
Gary said even though it gets tough some days and things get hectic, his family is like any other.
"You have to believe in the Lord," Gary said. "Because if you don't, it will drive you nuts."
The church they attend, First Presbyterian Church in Benton Harbor, is about 40 percent black, and Nora said that is unusual in this community.
"There aren't too many racially mixed churches in this area. And I mean truly mixed," Nora said.
Because some of their children are minorities, the Edgars said they had to be selective in where they chose to raise them, especially their two oldest children, DaNay, 12, and Kaylin, 11, who attend Countryside Charter School.
"If you are going to adopt trans-racially, you have to find a community that accepts that," Nora said. "I go to the store sometimes, and people do give me the look."
Nora also said there is a negativity growing in America towards big families.
"Social workers often don't think we can take care of this many kids," Nora said. "They need to start listening to the parents in this matter."
Losing family
Gary said even though he and his wife have to give up some things to adopt their children - including more than half his family - "things are really not that bad."
He said his two grown sons did not like the fact their father was adopting special-needs minority children at first, but now both treat them as if they were brothers and sisters.
"Their kids love it," Gary said. "How many kids have an aunt who is only two years older than they are?"
Other family members have not reacted as positively. Cousins and nephews no longer associate with Gary. He said it is mostly because of their wives.
"Yes, it bothers us, but there is nothing you can do about it," Gary said. "It's our choice to do this, and it's their choice to separate from us. Yes, it is a loss losing a family member, but what are you going to do?"
Nora said her family has not rejected her, but they do try to avoid her.
"I'm not going to quit what I'm doing with the kids just because people don't like it," Nora said.
DaNay and Kaylin do not have any problems outside what Nora called "normal pre-adolesent girl problems." Both girls are energetic and help out with their younger siblings when they are not in school.
DaNay and Kaylin are enthusiastic about their brothers and sisters. They said they love having a big family and enjoy playing with their siblings.
"We love to dress them up," Kaylin said. "Sometimes we dress Sammy up in girls clothes."
DaNay said she is used to having five siblings with special needs.
"If I was a different girl, and I had never been here, it would be different," DaNay said.
Nora said DaNay and Kaylin see and help with everything.
"I could trust DaNay and Kaylin with these kids as much as some of the nurses," Nora said.
Networking for kids
Nora is an adoption specialist for the Adopt America Network, an agency based in Toledo, Ohio, that concentrates on special-needs children or those who are considered hard to place because of medical or mental problems, age, race or sibling status.
As the number of adoptable children increases, older children, minority children, children with anything from mild to severe medical conditions and special-needs children fall between the cracks of the adoption system, Nora said.
Nora said that, considering the number of children in America waiting for adoption, she finds it frustrating when parents who want to adopt look overseas.
Not only are foreign adoptions more difficult and more expensive, Nora said, but the adopted children often do not make the adjustment to America very well, and the parents become frustrated and end up giving the children up for adoption again, this time in America.
Nora said there is a surprising number of foreign-born children in America's adoption system.
As a specialist and a field representative in the grass-roots organization, Nora spends a lot of time on the telephone, connecting families who want to adopt special-needs children with state agencies.
It costs $3,500 for the network to find one child a permanent home, compared to the more than $20,000 it costs for public agencies.
The network includes 44 adoption specialists such as Nora in 25 states. Last year the network placed 201 special needs children. Its goal this year is 250.
People interested in more information about Adopt America Network may visit the organization's Web site, www.adoptamerica.org, or call Nora at 616-925-0401.
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