Shane and Stacy Huff will likely never be empty-nesters. It’s a fact the two have had to come to terms with since adopting three special-needs children. Since 2013, the Huffs have opened their home and their hearts to three girls, two from China and one from Philadelphia.
Emily, 17, is confined to a wheelchair, but is eventually expected to live on her own. Sarah, 10, lives with cerebral palsy. And Sidney, the youngest at nine years old and most recently adopted, is non-verbal and suffers from Down syndrome.
For Stacy, having three special-needs children has meant hustling to and from doctor’s appointments or therapy sessions. For the family, it’s meant having to better plan vacations to ensure that all children can participate.
And for Jenny, 17, the couple’s biological daughter, bringing home Emily in 2015 meant temporarily giving up more than half of her bedroom to accommodate her new sister.
Will, the only son, has had to adjust to being a big brother not only for one sister, but four. If his parents adopt any more kids, he’s jokingly urged them to bring home a boy.
The change has also meant that Stacy and Shane, who are now in their mid-40s, will likely be taking care of Sarah and Sidney long after their biological son and daughter are raising kids of their own.
“That’s something we thought about and talked about before we adopted Sarah. We knew that she would probably be with us for good,” Shane said. “That’s OK. The thought of us being empty-nesters and not having kids at home is not an appealing thought.”
They say that the adjustments are answering God’s calling. “God put a call on our family to do this,” Shane said.
Shane and Stacy will be celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in June. Shane, a Jackson Preparatory School graduate, and Stacy, a Jackson Academy graduate, both attended Samford University in Birmingham.
After college, the two lived in Birmingham for a couple of years before moving back to the metro Jackson area.
Shane is the chief financial officer for MMC Materials, a concrete supplier in Jackson. Stacy is a stay-at-home mom, who taught pre-school for a while. She is now writing a book about her family’s experience.
The family had considered adoption for years, and finally decided to act on those feelings in 2012.
“It became an overwhelming desire and we couldn’t escape it. We spent more time trying to talk ourselves out of it than we did saying, ‘yes, this is what we want,’” Stacy said. “Separately we prayed about it.”
The two intentionally decided to look for a special-needs child and partnered with Lifeline Children’s Services, an agency working in China. “We knew there were needs in China and that’s what we were drawn to,” she said. “The process was pretty laid out.”
At the time, children available for adoption were classified in two groups: younger children with fewer special needs, and older ones with more needs.
“We wanted a three, four or five-year-old with minor needs,” Stacy said. “That was our mindset. They give you this big list and you have to check off which special needs you would take.”
For Stacy, that was one of the most uncomfortable parts – checking off children based on special needs. “I didn’t want to say ‘no, I’m not going to take you.’ ”
Lifeline worked with five orphanages and would help coordinate meetings between orphanage officials and potential parents. “If you looked at a file, you could talk to (medical officials) who had seen the child,” Stacy said. “Some would be listed on the website.”
After poring over lists, the couple was drawn to one child in particular, a little girl who was at the worst orphanage Lifeline worked with.
“I came across her picture and knew the second I saw it. She was five and had cerebral palsy. We requested her file, talked to the American doctor who had seen her. We found out she was non-verbal, seriously delayed and a few other things going on that the doctor didn’t know were genetic or the result of being at the orphanage,” she said. “We didn’t know what we would do.”
A video of the then five-year-old Sarah soon won them over. “We got the video, watched it for 10 seconds and we knew,” she said. “That sealed the deal for us.”
Nearly a year after beginning the process, in November 2013, Stacy and Shane traveled to China to pick up their second daughter.
Prior to that trip, though, God tugged at the family’s heartstrings again. This time, the two saw a video of an 11-year-old girl, the future Emily Huff.
That was in August 2013. “As soon as I saw her, I thought, ‘we hadn’t gone to China once yet. Why is the Lord telling (us) this is our daughter?’” Huff said. “I couldn’t let that go.”
About a year and half later, after finally getting settled in with Sarah, the Huffs made a return trip to the nation of more than a billion people to bring home Emily.
“By then, she was 13. In China, once you hit your 14th birthday, you’re no longer eligible to be adopted,” Stacy said. “We weren’t cutting it that close, but it was still significant that we needed to get there and get her.”
Emily suffers from spinal muscular atrophy, a neuro-muscular dystrophy, and uses a wheelchair to get around.
“That doubled the number of kids we had in two years, and the two new children had very significant special needs,” Stacy said. “That was an adjustment.”
Sarah, a third-grader at Madison Avenue Elementary, is still non-verbal but is able to communicate through signing. She also is receptive to verbal communication.
“We home-schooled her for a long time. She had significant post-traumatic (problems),” Stacy said. “She’s a precious girl and rules our world, but she does struggle sometimes.”
Learning to care for Emily, who is now a high school freshman, was also a challenge.
“At that point, we had two 13-year-olds, who all of a sudden (became) sisters, and all of a sudden had to share a room,” Stacy said.
Jenny had mixed emotions about having to share her room. “I was excited but also kind of, ‘I like having all my space,’ ” she said. “I like to think I handled it pretty well.”
The Madison Central senior regained her solitude about two and a half years ago, when her family moved to a larger home. “It’s actually the only bedroom on this side of the house,” she said. “Whenever I need to, I can lock my door and do what I need to.”
Jenny will be joining her brother at Mississippi State in the fall, where she, too, is planning to major in communications. She currently maintains a 3.7 grade-point average, runs the scoreboard at football games, and participates in theater.
“(She’s) an amazing girl. She gets overlooked a lot,” Stacy said. “She just plods along and has accepted her sisters and cares about them.”
Emily also had to adjust to her new home and surroundings. Under Chinese law, children who are over 10 years old must give their consent to being adopted.
“I was excited but very unsure about leaving my friends,” she said, adding that the toughest part of the transition was learning the language, making new friends and getting used to American food and culture.
Her favorite thing, so far, has been going to Disney World with her new family.
After the newly enlarged family had gotten into a good rhythm, God again had another surprise in store.
“We came across a picture of a little girl who had been adopted from China, who (had been) diagnosed with a chromosomal disorder, which the adopted family was not prepared for. They were going to dissolve the adoption,” Stacy said. “We were in the process (of adopting her), but another family was chosen.”
The couple thought they were done adopting, when Stacy learned of an eight-year-old with a Down syndrome and autism diagnosis. The child, who was from Bulgaria, was living with a family in Pennsylvania at the time.
“We moved forward and brought her home in May (2018), on my birthday. We went to get her and spent the week in Pennsylvania,” she said. “She’s been with us almost a year.”
