Meet our February Child: Drake!

We still have a matching grant going on until February 15th for Anthony. (His 14th birthday is on the 15th.) All donations are doubled until then. Our February child (featured below) cannot receive funds at this time so please direct your monthly giving to Anthony if your heart leads you. He still needs over $1,000+ to deplete this grant. To donate go here. Thank you.

Meet Drake!

Drake is an almost-five year old boy living in Eastern Europe. We often can't mention the specific country name, even though that is not against any rules. It is just an extra precaution so that someone cannot Google the country name, find the child and possibly be offended that their country is not represented well. (We don't dress our orphans like THAT!!) We'll just say his birth country rhymes with Dulgaria. And we have friends who have adopted from this country who have good things to say.

It's rare to see a description of a child to be so thorough. But to quote his listing: "[Drake is] now sitting up independently, pulling up onto his knees in the bed and is working hard to learn to get himself to a complete stand position. When placed against support, he can stand and hold on to something. He can get around independently in a walker and wheelchair. He is working with a physical therapist and learning to crawl. He drinks from a cup independently and eats from a spoon. He plays appropriately with toys and will mimic any action that he’s shown. He still prefers to use his left hand, but he is beginning to manipulate objects with his right hand as well. He enjoys playing board games with other children. He differentiates between familiar adults and strangers. He responds appropriately to praise and to correction. He repeats words that are said to him and is beginning to spontaneously talk. He understands what is said to him and follows verbal directions." His complete listing is found here.

Keep in mind that Drake had a rough start in life and is delayed a bit. "Catching up" developmentally is expected as time goes by. 

From some insider information we've received Drake is one loved, happy little boy. People want to see this little man in a family! And when an orphanage provides physical therapy and works one-on-one with a child, let's just say we all feel a little more hope for humanity. 

So let's talk Drake. From an AMC prospective he's doing well. Before very recently we did not have an update on him and this post was more guess after guess on what we estimated he might be able to do. There are more pictures and videos that we received as recently as last month so some of our guesses were spot on, while others of our expectations were exceeded!  

First off let us just point out that his diagnosis is listed as Freeman-Sholden syndrome (by which they mean Freeman-Shelden syndrome), which is a specific type of AMC discovered after genetic testing. Most of us at Bring Hope have met and spoken with Dr. Judith Hall, the top geneticist who specializes in arthrogryposis and all 400+ types. For one thing the dignosis of this type is hard to do as Freeman-Shelden is the most rare of the distal (mostly affects hands and feet) forms of AMC. Second of all, if the orphanage doctor in "Dulgaria" was able to correctly type this we would be very impressed. (We'd bake him/her a cake.) But to be on the safe side we would encourage a second opinion. His AMC may not be as severe, and after learning more about him... we all doubt it is.

Secondly everything Drake is doing physically is right on target for a very independent, highly functional AMCer. We don't doubt he'll be walking one day. We don't doubt he'll be an independent adult one day. Heck we don't doubt he'll be president! But maybe there's a rule against that if you're not born here. Well he'll vote for the president one day at least. But only if he's adopted! And if you adopt him he may even vote for the party you like! 

I really wanted to do this post on Drake because where he is located makes for easier travel and an easier process than the typical process that we just experienced adopting our son. Easy travel and a shortened process is just feeding my jealous flame over here. :) Adoption is hard. Travel is hard. Leaving other kids at home is hard. This would be less hard. Starting physical therapy from scratch is hard. Starting medical stuff on an adopted kid who has never had medical stuff done is hard. Drake would be less hard. Also he is available to just about anyone. You have a million kids? No problem! You are single? Sure! You are grandparents? Give those grandkids a tiny uncle! Seriously he just needs a family. No home manipulation, wheelchair ramp, special needs experience required. None. He just needs love. We'll hold your hand through the rest. Us AMC family members will take you in and make a place by the fire and help you do this. We'll tell stories and listen to yours. You can do this. 

Since Drake cannot receive funds until he has a family in place, we will just continue to advocate for him. Want to join us? Just share this post (or his RR profile) on Facebook, in your blogs or on any social media site. Print it out and pass out flyers to people in your church (who are required to care about orphans and stuff), your family, neighbors and coworkers. Random people on the subway! Put up billboards! Produce a commercial!! Sky writing!!! 

I'll just be sharing on Facebook because I'm way less motivated than you people.