Tess's Story

Tess's Story: We belong to an adoption group that places special needs children/babies. I saw a post for Tess (Teresa, the bio parents named her). I sent in our profile to the agency and within a few hours, we were told that we had a daughter! The post that prompted our submission included her medical conditions: Tess had already had heart surgery for pulmonary atresia, VSD, and PDA. She had a low birth weight. She was baby B of a set of triplets. She had a GTube for feedings and a preliminary diagnosis of SCID. She would need a thymus transplant at Duke Hospital in North Carolina. She needed a family where one parent stayed at home, where there were no other children, and parents willing to travel for up to six months with her to NC. Tess had been in NICU for most of her life, in isolation. In order to see her, we had to put on gowns, gloves and masks. She would be discharged from the NICU with the Gtube feedings; she would require IG infusion once a month for antibiotics; she had three meds to also go into her feeding tube, and they thought that she would come home with a pulse oxometer (she didn't!). Genetic testing had been sent off and the results are still pending. And the hospital mentioned what a sweet baby Tess was (they were not kidding!) And so, with this information, we decided to go for it. She sounded perfect for Mark and I and for our parenting experience. And she is...just perfect! We kept the name the bio parents chose for her (Tess as a nickname) and gave her a name to honor my little sister, Kathy Jo, who passed away when she was eight when we were hit by a car. And so, she is Teresa Katherine. Everything happened SO quickly, we have yet to finish her nursery. We've been blessed to have friends and family send things for our Tess. Thank you so much! We are registered at Babies R Us, for anyone feeling so inclined. I hope no one gets sick of me posting about our daughter. And if you do...tough!!