Hello Everyone!
My name is Penny Bailey and I am very excited to have the opportunity to be a part of the FIESTA project! I will be a contact and support person for families statewide who have adopted medically fragile/medical special needs children. I have a special place in my heart for these adoptive families as we too, have adopted a medically fragile child.My husband and I have been foster parents for the last 5 years. We have two children by birth who are 11 and 9 and two children through adoption who are 4 and 3. Our three year old, D, is our med frag kiddo. D was born at 34 weeks. He has Fetal Valproate Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effect. He was born with a severe cranial defect, craniosynostosis. He is developmentally delayed. BUT...make no mistake, he is a wonderful, incredible child, who is the light of our home. We face many challenges with D, both behaviorally and medically, but would not trade him for the world. Making the decision to adopt a child can be the most joyful, scary decision of your life. Making the decision to adopt a child with lifelong medical needs is all the more difficult. I am hoping that by participating in this project with La Familia I can help provide support to each of you. I hope to help create support groups where you all feel safe expressing your frustrations and joys! I am hoping that we can find some regional contacts for DD Waivers and Medically Fragile so that we can all have some concrete, accurate guidance in navigating these programs. We are still working on structuring my role in this project and I would love to hear from each of you about what your specific needs are. I look forward to working with you all! Penny :)