That Is Your Daughter A girl in Jamaica finds a family in America By Madeline Pecora Nugent Back in the 1990's, while sitting at our kitchen table going through the mail, I came upon an appeal from Food for the Poor. The appeal featured three children from various homes in the Caribbean. The third child was a three-year-old Jamaican girl, her legs missing from the knee down, sitting on a nurse's knee. The child, abandoned at birth, was active and inquisitive. Out of the blue, the thought came, "That is your daughter." Startled, I determined to put this idea out of my mind. But I couldn't. So I decided to wait three months. If this notion was from me, it would go away. If it was from God, it wouldn't. The thought, "That is your daughter," persisted. After three months, I shared this experience with my logical husband, Jim. He pointed out all the impossibilities. Kay-Marie was from Jamaica; we were from the United States. She was black; we were white. She would require prostheses; we couldn't afford them. She lived at a rehab hospital and was not up for adoption. I was being emotional because our niece, who had lived with us for over two years, had just left. I promised to wait. After three more months, I could not get Kay-Marie out of my mind. I begged Jim to let me see if we could adopt her. He reluctantly agreed to let me try. I called Food for the Poor. Mr. Fernand Mahfood, then its director, returned my call and gave me the phone number of Mona Rehab Center, where Kay-Marie was. Even though she was abandoned, she had not been legally released for adoption. We'd have to go through the Social Service Agency in Kingston, Jamaica to complete the paperwork. Now many things began to happen, all concurrently. ___________________________ After three more months, I could not get Kay-Marie out of my mind. ___________________________ The Social Service Agency contacted the hospital where Kay-Marie had been born. They tried to locate her parents but could only find her paternal grandmother, who said that she didn't know where the parents were but that they "didn't want her." So the agency released Kay-Marie for adoption. We contacted Wide Horizons for Children, which specializes in foreign adoption. There were fees, paperwork, meetings. We learned about the honeymoon period when the adopted child is on best behavior and then the testing period when the child will see if you'll love him or her no matter what. We heard stories from parents whose kids gave them few problems and others from parents whose kids gave them many heartaches. In the meantime, I had one day dropped one of our daughters off for choir practice. A girl climbed out of the car ahead of us and, using crutches, swung her way into the church. By her gait, I immediately knew that girl had artificial legs. So I took off after the car and followed it for miles until it pulled into a shopping center. I leaped out and caught the woman driver as she was opening her car door. "I know you don't know me, and I apologize for following you, but I noticed the girl you left off at St. Lucy's and I think she has artificial legs. We are thinking of adopting a girl who would need artificial legs, and I was wondering if you could help me to understand what it's like to raise a child with artificial legs." The woman, Gloria Schmidt, was very gracious. She told me about her daughter Tina, who did have two artificial legs. Gloria pointed us toward the Shriners' Hospital that provided all of Tina's prosthetic work free. Shriners asked us to mail them photos of Kay-Marie. When they saw them, they agreed to help her. Three and a half years elapsed from the time I first saw Kay-Marie's photo until I flew to Jamaica to pick her up. We had been writing letters and sending photos of her four siblings and our house and pets. We were able to stay in a little guestroom with the Sisters of Mercy, who kindly had their driver take us to the necessary government spots as well as to the hospital where Kay-Marie was born and the one to which she had been transferred before being moved to Mona Rehab (now Golding Rehab Center). Kay-Marie was six and three quarter years old when I first met her. We had a twenty-four-hour honeymoon, and then the testing, which lasted for years, began. It was Kay-Marie's will against mine. Kay-Marie had the idea that being adopted meant getting everything you want, the way you want, when you want. It took a few three-hour temper tantrums to convince her that living in a family means not always having things your way. In the meantime, Kay-Marie was entering puberty with all its emotional highs and lows, becoming a woman at the age of eight. Moreover, Kay-Marie, lacking in the necessary school skills and harboring learning disabilities, entered kindergarten at the age of almost seven. Unable to keep pace with her class, Kay-Marie nevertheless had an IQ too high for the resource class. Thus, while emotionally adjusting to adoption and puberty, Kay-Marie was also interacting with kids intellectually more advanced. This volatile mix had me in the school office more times for Kay-Marie than I could count. By the time Kay-Marie was about to enter fourth grade, she was becoming convinced that she was stupid and bad. I did what I swore I would never do. I took Kay-Marie out of public school and homeschooled her. ___________________________ Kay-Marie had the idea that being adopted meant getting everything you want, the way you want, when you want. ___________________________ Homeschooling with Seton Catholic Home School's accredited curriculum was time-consuming but a lifesaver. Kay-Marie made homeschooling friends and worked extra hard, completing two grades in one so that she was able to enter ninth grade in the local high school, taking specials in the school and completing her academics at home. When she was eighteen and three quarters, she graduated with a high school diploma and then entered Rittner's School of Floral Design in Boston, where she graduated six months later with a diploma in Floral Design and Floral Business Practices. Kay-Marie is now nineteen and three quarters, has her own apartment, and is starting her own floral business. Her determination and willingness to work hard will bring her success. No one has a typical adoption experience because every child is unique. Yet I'd like to encourage those considering adoption to look into Jamaica as a country of choice. This poor nation has many abandoned infants who will never be adopted. Because English is the spoken language, one can communicate directly with the necessary officials. The only negative is that adoption from Jamaica seemed to take so long. Nevertheless, the fees to adopt from Jamaica were considerably less than from other nations, and people can be certain of adopting one child or many. Kay-Marie is our daughter. Maybe another Jamaican child is yours. Madeline (Pecora) and Jim Nugent are the parents of five children, ages 19 to 31. Madeline writes stories of the patron saints for Saints' Stories Inc. (www.thombs.com/saints) and has authored seven books including St. Anthony: Words of Fire, Life of Light; Clare and Her Sisters: Lovers of the True Christ; My  Child, My Gift: A Positive Response to Serious Prenatal Diagnosis; and The Divine Office for Dodos: A Step by Step Guide to Praying the Liturgy of the Hours. The Nugents live in Middletown, Rhode Island, USA. This website: Copyright © 2006 Dream World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. All rights reserved. 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