Adoption News

SPECIAL NEEDS ORPHANS GET HELP

Project Raises Funds For Children’s Operations

By REGINE LABOSSIERE, Courant Staff Writer; PHOTOS by Tina Ann Chapman & Rick Hartford

August 29, 2005

The Redentis had three sons and wanted one more.

Mary Jean Redenti gave birth to the two older boys and she and her husband adopted their third son, who has a developmental disability, from Russia.

For the fourth child, Redenti knew what she wanted.

“This time we wanted to have someone with a physical disability.  ... We specifically said no arm, no leg,” Redenti said, referring to her and her husband, Andrew’s, choice to adopt again. “We just wanted to give a child a home who normally wouldn’t have a home.”

The Redentis contacted Lutheran Community Services of Southern New England, a Massachusetts-based adoption agency with a satellite office in Rocky Hill. In May 2004, they brought Jonah from China to their North Haven home. Jonah was born with one hand.

According to the U.S. Department of State, the Redentis are one of thousands of American families who adopted a Chinese child in 2004. And they are one of more than 20 families in the country who adopted a child with special needs last year through the Lutheran adoption agency.

The China Center for Adoption Affairs initiated a humanitarian project to raise money for corrective surgery for orphans in the organization’s care. The Tomorrow Plan for Rehabilitation of Handicapped Orphans through Operations began last year and is a three-year effort to raise millions of dollars to help 30,000 orphans.

This summer, the Lutheran agency began raising money to contribute to The Tomorrow Plan. The adoption agency’s goal is to contribute $10,000 to the project by raising $5,000 from donations, then matching that amount.

Three staff members are going to China in December to present the agency’s donation in person. The agency has been reaching out to all of its New England offices and clients around the country. So far, the agency has received about $2,500 in donations.

“The China program, to our agency, is very important. It’s probably 80 percent of the international adoptions we do every year,” said Darlene Lundy, international adoption specialist at the agency.

Lundy said The Tomorrow Plan “helps a lot of children who probably would never have the opportunity to be adopted or even have the opportunity to have the surgeries.”

When a social worker at the agency told the Redentis about a child from China with a malformed hand, “We said, ‘That’s the one,’” Mary Jean Redenti, 42, recounted.

Jonah’s hand cannot be corrected with surgery, Redenti said. He was born with amniotic banding that prevented his hand from fully forming, she said.

But as she watches Jonah, 3, run around with her three other sons, ages 6 to 11, Redenti doesn’t see him as a special-needs child.

“It hasn’t hindered him at all,” she said. “When I got him, he was already potty-trained. He could dress himself.”

The Lutheran agency gives clients a sheet full of names and pictures of children who have been referred for adoption. When Valerie Whitehouse saw the picture of a small Chinese girl, she saw her daughter.

“I know it sounds silly, but I just knew,” Whitehouse, 35, said.

Whitehouse said adopting internationally was an idea she had long considered and, after a year of trying and not getting pregnant, she and husband, Todd, decided to adopt. They first attempted to adopt a Polish child, but the Whitehouses experienced problems and delays. After their paperwork had been in Poland for about six months, a social worker at the Lutheran agency told them about the China program.

In May 2004, the Whitehouses brought home Cecilia Jade Whitehouse, who is now 3. Jade is a translation of part of her original name.  Valerie Whitehouse is now pregnant with the couple’s second child.

Cecilia was born with a cleft palate and had reconstructive surgery in China, unbeknownst to the Whitehouses, they said. But Cecilia also had a 50 percent hearing loss because of fluid that had built up behind her eardrum and had not been removed. Since moving to Connecticut, Cecilia has had surgery to fix that problem.

“When she had her surgery done in China, we were kind of disappointed,” Valerie Whitehouse said. “They could have spent the money on other kids who didn’t have families waiting.”

Whitehouse said contributing to The Tomorrow Plan would be a major boost for special-needs children available for adoption in China.

“I think it’s great getting people just to realize the special-needs route,” she said. The Whitehouses have contributed to the Lutheran Adoption Fund, which gives financial assistance to families who want to adopt. They expect to contribute to The Tomorrow Plan.

The Redentis have donated $100 and plan on adding the project to their list of charities they donate to every year.

“I think it’s great,” Mary Jean Redenti said. “I just don’t see [special needs] as being a barrier to anything. They’re just very manageable problems.”