The Silcock Family Newsletter

July 2010

Its been a while since I have written. We have grown a little larger since late 2009. Carlos, Cristian, Jeremy and Richard's adoptions all finalized. These boys were all adopted by me as a single parent. Alex Q.'s adoption will be finalized this month in Orange County. Andre's adoption might be finalized by the end of 2010. I am starting the adoption process for Dimitri, Donald and Devin. All three of these boys will be private adoptions.

Our new family members include Dimitri (10) who came to us from Ukraine via Alabama. He was adopted by another family from Alabama in 2009. That family felt like the services and supports in their state were not meeting Dimitri's needs and they decided to place him with another family where his unique needs could be better met. Donny and Devin are 18-year-old twins from the state of Washington. They joined my family after their 18th birthday but at least they have their "forever family" now. Better late than never, Stephen (16) was finally placed with us after over a year of visits. All of the new guys are fitting into the family well. Each of our new family members have their own challenges that made them difficult to place in a more traditional family. I think that's what makes our family so unique. We are able to meet the needs of children with a wide range of disabilities and abilities. Not only are these four children/young men thriving, as the rest of the Belles-Silcock boys/men are, but they now don't have to spend their lives in foster care or other institutional settings instead they have a "forever family" to count on for the rest of their lives. Isn't this what it is all about?

Of course, some people think foster care is a better option than a large family. For example Donny and Devin's adoptive placement with our family, prior to their 18th birthday, was thwarted by Orange County Social Services. Although the social workers in Washington and my home study agency agreed that the placement of these two young men with my family was appropriate, without any explanation to me, Orange County Social Services decided to not approve any placements that required an ICPC. Its pretty sad that Orange County Social Services has such power but does not even offer me any explanation. Also interesting that Orange County Social Services currently has two children, with very challenging mental health issues, adoptively placed with me. Orange County Social Services staff has expressed nothing but praise for my willingness to take on these boys and for the positive behavioral changes they have made since their placement with my family. In any case, maybe one day someone in a decision-making position at Orange County Social Services will sit down with me face-to-face to discuss the rationale for their decisions effecting my family. I envision this happening when they need me as a placement for another Orange County child with challenging issues.

This summer has brought a little adventure for the guys. Eight of the boys filmed an episode of the television show "House" last month. This month, Jeffrey shot a feature film. The working title of the movie is "Terri" and the cast included John C. Reilly (Step Brothers, Cyrus, etc). The boys enjoy acting and it was nice to see them get a few parts this summer. Between summer school and summer camp a few of the boys traveled with me to Moorea (South Pacific). They has a wonderful time snorkeling, jet skiing and swimming with the sting rays and sharks. James has been practicing with the high school football team over the summer and hopes to make the freshman team in the fall. Jeffrey, Javier and Mathew are working at Camp James all summer. Everyone else is keeping busy at the beach, the skateboard parks or the local amusement parks.

On a very sad note, our son, Justin Damien Silcock, passed away on June 27, 2010. He had been hospitalized for a while and it was becoming very clear that he was not going to recover from this latest kidney infection. In fact after several weeks in the hospital Justin's kidneys completely stopped working. Additionally Justin was no longer able to breathe on his own. All of his vital organs were shutting down very quickly. Although we all knew that Justin was dying, we could not bring ourselves to face the fact that we were eventually going to need to stop all of the life-saving measures and turn-off the machines that were keeping Justin alive. We never did have to face that day, because Justin's body completely shut down on its own. It had been a life of ups and downs since Justin was discovered to have Ig A Nephropathy He beat the odds many time. He even had a successful kidney transplant. Unfortunately the Ig A Nephropathy never left his body and soon attacked his donor kidney. Despite his medical issues, Justin lived a full and interesting life. Even two days before he went into the hospital for the last time he had a chance to go to the movies and to his favorite place, Chuck-E-Cheese! We kept Justin involved with all of our family activities. Sometimes he was too tired to fully participate but we always made sure he had the opportunities. Justin had been a member of our family since the age of three, he was 14 1/2 years old at the time of his death. We will miss Justin's fighting spirit, feisty personality and beautiful smile.

More soon,

Ann