The Swiss-Cheese Children: An Adoptive Mother's Journal

By Grace Schomp

For years, my friends have been saying that I should write a book, but it has always seemed that the days were too busy to sit down and put this outrageous life on paper. Has my life settled down? Not really. But I need to make sense of the craziness, and maybe writing will help.
If you read books about happy endings, this book is not for you. The ending is real, and sometimes real life is not pretty and, oftentimes, not happy.
To understand the whole picture, I must start at the very beginning. A song from my childhood reminds meThe beginning is a very good place to start.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499063844

Grace Schomp

The author lives with her beloved golden retriever, Dixie, outside of St. Louis, MO. She has been a teacher of students for over 34 years. One former teaching partner wrote this about her book: The world is lucky that it will get a little piece of the woman that I admire, respect and love.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Grace Schomp.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4990-6385-1

                eBook         978-1-4990-6384-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/19/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

669612

Summer 2013

This book is dedicated to

my husband;

together we endured a

lifetime of anguish.

Side-by-side we celebrated only

tiny glimmers of happiness as we

attempted to assimilate

The Swiss-Cheese Children

into our family.

Preface

For years my friends have been saying that I should write a book, but it has always seemed that the days were too busy to sit down and put this outrageous life on paper. Has my life settled down? Not really but I need to make sense of the craziness and maybe writing will help. If you read books for happy endings, this book is not for you. The ending is real and sometimes real life is not pretty—and often times not happy.

To understand the whole picture I must start at the very beginning. A song from my childhood reminds me the beginning is a very good place to start…

I met Tom my junior year in college. We sang together in choir and Madrigals. I had known of him the year before—I knew him as The Boy Who Had Cancer. He asked me out on a date. The date was out of the ordinary—setting the pace of our life together. His friend was a pilot and he was a student pilot. Was I available to go flying Saturday? So our romance began in the skies…

Many dates followed, and it wasn’t long until we realized that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. We married a little over a year later. My mother asked me about Tom’s cancer after we announced our engagement. I confidently stated that his Hodgkin’s disease was in remission and in five years he would be considered cured. She got that worried-mother look. I simply dismissed her concerns to needless worry.

Our wedding was picture perfect in November of 1977. Right before our vows Tom sang to me More from Mondo Cane. More than the greatest love the world has known, this is the love I’ll give to you alone. What an incredible beginning.

Eighteen months into our marriage, we received devastating news. Tom found enlarged lymph nodes in his armpit. The radiologist wanted to wait 6 weeks before a biopsy in case they were swollen from a localized infection. The waiting period was Hell. My mind worked overtime imagining the worst possible scenarios. I have a great imagination, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine the nightmare that was about to begin for us.

The biopsy proved malignant and aggressive treatments began immediately. Unless you have witnessed chemotherapy I cannot describe how grueling the treatments were. Anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours after receiving an intravenous injection, Tom would begin to vomit. The vomiting was intense and long lasting. He would hug the porcelain-god for 8-12 hours after a treatment. During the 18 months, Tom nearly lost his life several times due to side effects. Secondary infections would develop; his white blood cell count and iron levels would fall dangerously low. Doctors were afraid to put him in the hospital because they feared he would pick up a strain of bacteria that was immune to known antibiotics. He survived, and I survived, both just barely.

In 1982 we felt the time was right to start a family. Our first concern was that Tom might have damaged sperm from the radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Our doctor suggested a sperm-morphology test. The sperm would be studied to see if any appeared mutant. We were not prepared for the results. The sperm were not damaged; there was not a sufficient sperm count to consider Tom fertile. We could not have children—we were an infertile couple. Want to know when I want something really bad? When I cannot have it. We discussed options, and the only one we agreed on was adoption.

We knew that adopting a baby was nearly an impossibility for us. Adopting babies was expensive—estimated cost of $10,000. Instead of contacting lawyers and physicians for babies, we contacted the Division of Family Services (DFS). We were not prepared for the experience. Our first visit is burned into my mind—I will NEVER forget the haunting words of the social worker.

Our adoption specialist was brutally honest. She described the children that come through their system with marked candidness. She said 99% of the children are sexually abused. She said all of the children have severe emotional deficits; many of them could not overcome such disabilities. She described children who had been made to eat feces. She described children who had been beaten beyond recognition. She told of cases of neglect where 4 years