Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Tina Salvador for a summer series highlighting writers who focus on disability. In this post Tina shares about adopting a child with Down syndrome. 

Our story is not the story of a family pregnant with a child and receiving a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. We had no expectations for of a typical child only to be shocked to hear that they would be caring for a child with a disability.

However, we were shocked when God asked us to adopt a child with Down syndrome.

Adoption is not new to our family

God spoke to us about adopting a child in 2006 when we had two biological children who were 10 and 6 years old. We traveled to China in 2008 to bring home a 5 year old girl with a repaired cleft lip. Again in 2012 we traveled to China to bring home a 12 year old boy with hand differences. We felt our family was complete (just as we did when we just had our two biological children) but God had other plans.

Shortly after arriving home with our son in 2012 I began noticing more children with Down syndrome in China waiting for families. China once felt these children were “un-adoptable” and so they were left in the orphanage with no hope of a family. Thankfully this has changed over the past few years. More and more families are choosing to adopt children with Down syndrome and it’s a beautiful thing. What I did not know was that God was working in my heart and really giving me a heart for these children during this time.

We did not know much about Down syndrome, but we decided to adopt one last time, a little girl who is 7 years old and just happens to have Down syndrome.

We traveled in October 2015 to bring Karsynn YuYang home. Although life with her is BUSY and our family dynamics are much different now than they were prior to October, we wouldn’t change a thing. She challenges us each and every day with her stubbornness and bossiness. The amount of appointments we have with doctors and such have doubled, but the love she gives makes up for all the challenges BY FAR. She loves with 110% of her being and lights up our family like we could have never imagined!

Her favorite things are playing baseball, swinging on the swings, and playing with bubbles…as well as watching her Chinese cartoons. She is learning so much sign language and English words and we are learning more and more about life with a child with Down syndrome. I now currently advocate for waiting children in China who have Down syndrome and we  thank God every day for allowing us to parent and care for all 5 of our kids.