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News and Ideas from around the Anglican World |
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April 2006
Wendy & Robert Goetze
While the average Canadian family has been downsizing over the past few years, the Goetze family has only grown. Robert and Wendy Goetze of St Paul’s Church, Edmonton are raising seven children -- three biological and four adopted -- and loving it. Somehow Rob and Wendy found time to talk with TAP news editor, Sue Careless.
Wendy: We spent 14 months trying to conceive, only to
lose our first son at 6 ½ months into the pregnancy. Our hearts were
broken, but we also felt very clearly God’s deep love for us. We
also had a very clear sense of how precious every child is whether
they come from us or someone else. We had our second son, Brennan, a
year later, followed by another miscarriage. We struggled again to
become pregnant and decided at that point to consider adopting. We
started a private adoption
Rob: When the twins were about a year old, we felt God calling us to adopt an orphan from Haiti. We had learned about the high risk of Haitian children dying before the age of five. Again our hearts were broken in a good way. When the twins were just two years old, we brought Jazmyn as a baby home from Haiti. We thought it would be great for her to have a sibling of the same racial background. Since then, we found out that there are hundreds of Canadian children – and in particular black and native children – waiting for adoption. Again our hearts were changed. It was then that we adopted two siblings – a little boy Keyshawn, 2 1/2, and a little girl, Dominika or Meekah, 17 months, of Jamaican background born in Ontario. We told the social worker that if their birth mother had another baby within three years of Meekah’s birth, we’d consider adopting that child. We’re convinced that God has a sense of humour because Asiah was born exactly three years later, on the same day as Meekah!
TAP: What advantages are there to adoption? Wendy: It’s a lot easier on your body physically. You still have the same waiting period as in pregnancy. For us, whether a child has grown in my womb or in our hearts they are ours. It doesn’t feel any different. You still check to see if they have ten fingers and ten toes and you fall in love with them just as you do with your biological newborn.
TAP: Why did you choose to adopt rather than foster? Wendy: For years, I worked as an art and play therapist with children who were in foster care. While the children were in therapy, they were fine. When they were out of therapy, they would regress again. It became clear that these kids needed to have a permanent, forever family, and that therapy was just a band-aid remedy. Kids are smart; they know that they need a loving family and the security that comes with it.
TAP: Do your children have a say in adopting another child? Rob: Yes, absolutely. At this point, they’ve opened up negotiations by requesting that we adopt more children. Because our children are so young, they see adoption as a way of growing our family.
TAP: How accepting are the children of each other? Rob: We expected that there might be some adjustments when our adopted children arrived, but none of the kids have ever done anything except show excitement and open arms and love to their new siblings. We have to admit that we’re really surprised and very thankful. They have said things like, “I wish that there was no badness in the world and that the little ones’ brains hadn’t been hurt by the alcohol when they were babies.”
TAP: Did you known at the time of their adoption that Meekah and Keyshawn had Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD)? Rob: We initially thought that Meekah did not have any issues but that Keyshawn had global developmental delays. It was only when they were home with us for several months that we became aware of the challenges that both children have. Both kids have a diagnosis of FASD now. Because it is a spectrum disorder they have differing special needs. Keyshawn’s sense of hunger has been cut off from his brain so that he never gets the message of being hungry. This, coupled with how the food feels to him, makes eating quite a challenge for him. Meekah’s fine physically, but struggles with language comprehension and sometimes will become very frustrated because she loses her thoughts or words. She cannot retain more than one instruction at a time. If she’s sent upstairs to get dressed and make her bed, often she’ll make it upstairs but will forget why she’s there.
TAP: Are there concerns that Asiah could also have FASD? Rob: It’s very likely. Currently, she is showing a significant delay in speech. While we’re saddened as we see her frustration, we’re delighted with how quickly she is learning to sign. We’re trying as a family to learn as fast as she is how to communicate with our hands and faces. All the kids are eager to learn how to sign so that they can help their little sister.
TAP: How challenging is this disorder? Wendy: If we think our children have to achieve a university degree and be successful by worldly standards, then we would just give up. But God has been very gracious and shown us how He sees our children: it’s a privilege to be entrusted with such incredible gifts. These are kids who were brain-damaged before they were born. Every day they teach us what God wants us to know: compassion, sacrificial love, patience, endurance. They also have huge smiles and incredible insights into God’s love. They pray for their birth mom – that she would have a safe place to live with food and love. One day when I was struggling with how to cope living with three children who have daily challenges and who will need to have somebody helping them for the rest of their lives, God reminded me of how He sees us. Here we are on this earth, struggling along, making mistakes all the time, not getting it right, missing the point, doing really stupid things, and He still wants us, puts up with us, does even better than that – sends His own Son to bear our sins so that He can spend the rest of eternity with us! I only have three kids who are challenging. God’s got all of us! I think I’ll manage.
TAP: Did being trained as a child therapist help prepare you for this family? Wendy: Yes. Not only did it help prepare me to have this family, it helped lead me to the choice to adopt. Watching children in therapy struggle because they didn’t have a permanent home that gave them stability, seeing them go through one abandonment or loss after another, really confirmed to me that in order for children to know that they are wanted and loved they must have a sense of permanency - just as we need to have permanency in our relationship with our heavenly Father who adopted us. I do want to say though, that you do not have to have a background as a therapist to adopt. There are incredible resources and supports available for adopting families.
TAP: Do all the children get along? Wendy: Our children don’t have options when it comes to whether or not they are going to get along with each other. We don’t allow bullying or clubs that exclude some children. We have to work together or things don’t happen. I take all seven kids out – the three bigger ones all keep an eye on a smaller one. Everybody listens or they know we go home. They know we have rules in place not to be mean, but to keep everybody safe.
TAP: How do you celebrate the cultures of your adopted children?
Rob: Our four adopted children are of African heritage
so we have artwork, music and African instruments in our home which
reflect their cultural background. We also have traditional African
clothing that the kids sometimes wear to church. Wendy: I’ve also
learned how to braid their hair. This is really important. A black
woman who was adopted into a white family told me she wished that
her momma had learned how to
TAP: How does home-schooling save you time and energy? Wendy: Imagine trying to get seven children out the door every morning! Then there’s the homework and piano practice in the all-too-short evening. Homeschooling is the only option for us. It gives us all-day family time and more free time because home-schooled kids very often complete their work in less time because they have more one-on-one instruction than in a regular classroom. It allows me to spend more time with each child than I would be able to if they were gone most of the day and that’s really important when you have seven kids that you want to pour love into. I love watching the kids when they learn something new and understand it for the first time. If they were at a regular school, I’d never get to see those epiphanies.
Home-schooling means that I don’t have to run all over the place taking the kids from one activity to the next, which is really important for our special needs kids who don’t transition well from one activity to another. Even the piano teacher comes to us, which means that I can continue teaching the others while one has a lesson. Doing things this way gives us a lot more time as a family. At the end of the day, the kids don’t have homework. Everything’s done before Daddy gets home and we can then enjoy that time with him. |
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TAP:
Why did you decide to adopt?|
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