Crissy Christian-Adopting kids and dogs- what could be more fun?

Crissy Christian is a mom to two adopted kiddos who have grown into amazing humans.

She also fosters dogs to give them confidence and security to become members of new families.

Crissy has also been instrumental in starting a program in Kenya through Helping Hands International,Inc.
Such an amazing outreach for child sponsorship!

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Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com

Transcript

[00:03] Jan: Are you looking for an inspiring lesson, something to motivate you? You've come to the right place. Welcome to Women of the Northwest, where we have conversations with ordinary women leading extraordinary lives. Motivating. Inspiring, compelling. I'm Jan Johnson, your host. I'm the kind of person who can't sit still, always have to be doing something. I'm just an ordinary woman who has ideas pop into her head and thinks, what's to stop me from doing that? And my preference is to be doing something that affects the life of someone or the community as a whole. It's what brings meaning to my life. And, hey, isn't it rewarding to see people smile? Ordinary women leading extraordinary lives, gals that are not afraid to have an idea and take the next step. Yep, that's the kind of gals I'm talking about. These are the women I'll have conversations with each week, telling their stories and sharing their passions. Motivating. Inspiring, compelling.

[01:01] Jan: Hello, listeners. So glad you've joined us. My guest today is Crissy Christian, who will share her adoption stories, both of humans and pets. Enjoy. Hello.

[01:12] Jan: Welcome to the women of the Northwest. Crissy Christian, glad to have you here.

[01:17] Crissy: Hi, thanks for having me.

[01:19] Jan: I thought today we could maybe talk about parenting. I could go on and on about parenting. I mean, ten kids?

[01:28] Crissy: What do you oh, my word. I only have two. I thought I would have ten, but two has me exhausted.

[01:33] Jan: Stories gallore in my mix. We have two adopted children, and our two kids were adopted at age six and eight and were natural siblings. Two different dads, same mom, same with our two. My husband actually started with the adoption before his divorce. When the divorce got thrown in, he decided he had already made a commitment to these two kids, and so he continued with the adoption. So a boy and a girl at that, who had been through some neglect of neglect and some situation in foster care that ended up with some sexual abuse as well. And so adopting kids, even from a young age or whatever, you still have things in their past that are hard to work through and whatever, but what's your story? What's your adoption story?

[02:35] Crissy: Yeah. So both our kids were adopted. Same mom, two different dads. So the birth mom had her daughter, Emma, and she lost her at three months. She lost her, as in she was taken away. So what happened was she was living under a bridge, literally, in Grants Pass, Oregon, with her newborn baby in November, very cold time of the year. And by January, so little Emma was three months old, and she had stopped nursing and was just really lifeless. So mom walked her to the hospital in a freezing rainstorm, and when she got to the hospital.

[03:15] Jan: They didn't think.

[03:16] Crissy: Emma would make it through the night. She was so sick. And she did make it through the night, and then she was immediately put into foster care. The birth mom, she had a rough life herself. She was only 15 at this point. She was a foster kid and homeless and just really struggling. So they took her baby away and then her hope was she got pregnant again very quickly after that and then she thought, well, if I can find a home for this baby I'm carrying, then maybe I can get Emma back. And so we became part of that journey. We heard of her through word of mouth and started making friends with the birth mom. We put her up in an apartment, took care of her and watched her belly grow. With our Elijah growing in there, she was drug free with both kids, which is amazing, really amazing. I thought that's a miracle in itself. And so she had Elijah. We got him immediately at birth and she kept trying to get Emma back but she just couldn't get on her feet. So we reminded her many times that we would take her, we would adopt Emma as well. So she finally, thank God, signed the papers over because otherwise it could have been drug out for years and years and years as we know. Still took a little while to make it official, but we pretty much were able to foster and then adopt Emma. So she moved into our home at age two. I remember having her two-year-old birthday party. Little chubby Emma. Now she's 17 and way taller than me. Yeah, it's pretty amazing stories. So we have both those kids and it's interesting because adopted and foster kids have a hard go, even, you know, Elijah, who is drug free and we've had him since birth, he's been a challenging child.

[05:01] Jan: Yeah. So your kids, did you talk to them about being adopted or?

[05:06] Crissy: Yes, we've been open since day one. One of the reasons is because when I was growing up, I did not know who my birth dad was. I thought I did, and then when I was nine, my sister was ten, my mom sat us down and said, oh, by the way, this is not your birth father. This other guy was. And it didn't really affect me, but I saw how it affected my sister. She went down a dark path, she searched for him forever. So I always swore that I wouldn't do that to my kids. So from the beginning we would read them little books about the bird that was adopted. We just gently introduced it to them. So the word adoption wasn't a scary word. So they've always known that they're adopted. We've always been very open about it. The birth mom, it was a closed adoption, but she would stay in touch with us but then she just sort of dropped off. We haven't heard from her in probably.

[05:53] Jan: Ten years and so have they since seen her or tried to? Do they want to try?

[05:59] Crissy: No. Our son, Elijah, I don't even think he really cares that he's adopted. I mean, it's pretty amazing. He has no interest at all. Our daughter. She calls it her sad backstory, but she also does at least put it out there that, of course, when she's 18, we would be happy to help her meet her birth mom, but she doesn't seem real interested. And I don't think birth mom is still real stable, and I think that.

[06:23] Jan: Kind of scares them a little bit about doing that. When our son graduated from high school, he wanted to connect with his mom and he had been still connected with his aunt and uncle and so through the aunt and uncle, they contacted the mom to see whether she wanted to have a contact there. It opened some doors that in hindsight, our son almost wish she hadn't opened. So the mom and her new husband came to his graduation and had a couple of other kids, which was kind of like, oh, I didn't know that was going to happen and be there. But he realized afterwards.

[07:21] Jan: Where he came.

[07:22] Jan: From and was relieved to not be a part of anymore. So there was some eye opening things and some kind of.

[07:35] Crissy: His sister did.

[07:37] Jan: Not want to have anything to do with her or to, you know, was very nervous about having her in her life again. And other than that, then coming to the graduation, that really there wasn't any other with them. But because our son is so in contact with the aunt and uncle and there that's been an interesting yeah, that would be interesting conundrum that happened there.

[08:05] Crissy: Yeah, yeah, there are some extended family. It was interesting because when Elijah was born in the hospital, grandpa showed up, birth mom's, dad, drunk as a skunk, 10:00 A.m. In the morning. And I remember we're in the room and the birth mom was holding Elijah is brand new little baby just born and she looks at her dad, she goes, this is your first grandson, isn't it? And you know, the adoption isn't final yet. And I remember just panicking, she's going to change her mind.

[08:37] Jan: Yeah.

[08:38] Crissy: And my husband and I were just oh, beside ourselves and she, she held true to her word and she did not change her mind. But I will never forget that moment.

[08:46] Jan: Little of panic.

[08:47] Crissy: You know, grandpa never came to see Em. I hear she's two years old and at that point and he never even once came to see her. But he showed up the second his grandson was born and yeah, that definitely scared us.

[08:58] Jan: But there wasn't any further contact.

[09:00] Crissy: No further contact, no. And that was kind of a funny story. So my husband was on a ship and what happened was the birth mom was going to be induced. She was overdue and so she went in to get induced. So she's in the hospital, I'm with her and she's being induced. She's dilating and all of a sudden, she gets a phone call. She's still homeless. She's not homeless. We got her in an apartment, but she's got a lot of homeless friends, one being a boyfriend, and she gets a text that he's cheating on her with some other homeless girl. So she rips all of the things off of her, and she's like, you have to take me now to him. And I'm thinking what? I'm here to watch my son be born. And now we're leaving the hospital. And she went from not being able to move to running like an NFL quarterback. Has me take her to the soup kitchen. She lies out of the car. She's going to go beat the **** out of somebody, all the while pregnant. And, like, oh, my word. I'll never forget. They didn't take her back to the hospital, so then it was another probably a week later that she finally went in and had Elijah, but it was a crazy road. Oh, my goodness. But it allowed my husband to come home off the ship, so he was there. So that part was good.

[10:16] Jan: It's just hard sometimes to realize a different perspective of people going through things that maybe haven't had learned the life.

[10:29] Crissy: Skills yes, yeah, absolutely.

[10:32] Jan: About how to interact and how to make it. So then as an outsider coming in, it's like, what are you doing? That's perfectly natural response for her. For some people.

[10:44] Crissy: Yeah, absolutely. I remember I was just beside myself, and I remember my sister-in-law saying, someday you'll laugh about all this, because I just thought, I remember leaving my home, going, next time I come back, I'm going to have a baby in my arm. But I didn't because all this chaos happened. Yeah, I was mad.

[11:02] Jan: What have you found to be some challenges with parenting your kids? Not necessarily on the adoption level, but just as parenting.

[11:12] Crissy: Yeah, I know. It's true because we always say at the **** shoot, like, you could have your own kids and have problems with them. Right, exactly. So we have a lot of people like to say genetics, and I'm sure that has a play in there, but both our kids have their issues. Emma, unfortunately, is very distant. It's really hard for me. We're very affectionate family. We hug strangers, and Emma doesn't want to hug anybody, not even us. And so that's been really a challenge for me.

[11:39] Jan: So possibly an attachment disorder, for sure.

[11:42] Crissy: I think that rapid attachment disorder. Yeah, I think that is definitely her issue. She's a little bit sensitive to, like, when she brushes her teeth and that kind of thing. So that's been our main struggle with her. We just felt we're very worried about her emotional state. She doesn't really cry. Things don't upset her like they should. Like sad things. So we're always worried about that. So always working on that. But she's a good kid. She gets good grades. She's got a job now, and she's 17. I can't believe it. She'll be a senior next year. And Elijah. Elijah. That kid's been feisty since the moment he was born. I swear. He's a handful. He's actually at a great ranch right now. He'll be 16 this month. And there's a place called Flying H Youth Ranch. It's over in Eastern Washington. It's a working ranch, and it's a great spot for him right now. It's an 18 month minimum program, and we're just seeing great progress with him. And we get to see him actually, he'll be home here for Easter, of course, for a week, so that'll be great. But we talk to him several times a week. He writes us every week. And he's so loving, and that's what makes it even though he's challenging, he loves us so much and he's so cuddly, and he just loves mom and dad. So that makes it easier to put up with his bad behavior, for sure. Yeah. And he's great. I have to say, this kid is great. In a crisis. Like, anytime we're in, like, we've had a dog fight happen or some situation like that, that's high intensity. We always say he should be a rescue worker because he is so calm, cool, and collected in those situations. It's impressive. He calms me down. Yeah. Which is amazing.

[13:24] Jan: That's neat. Tell me about you do rescue dogs, too. Yeah, tell me about that.

[13:31] Crissy: Yeah, I love that. Actually, that the three we have right now are all our dogs. I haven't had the last foster dog we have. We adopted, but yeah, we love rescue dogs. I was volunteering at the shelter for a long time, and then COVID kind of put the brakes on that. And I have not gone back yet. But we fostered since then. We thought, well, at least we can foster dogs. But yeah, I fostered dogs for years. My favorite thing in southern Oregon when we were living down there was the first dog just wandered up our driveway. It was this sick little mangy thing. And that started my foster career. And I just took that dog in and then found it a great home and just kept doing that. And then partnered with the Humane Society and they would give me their worst dogs, which I loved, and I would train them up and get them just ready for adoption. And then I would get them adopted. So that's one of my favorite things to do.

[14:18] Jan: We've got this we live on a ranch or a farm with a sheep. And so my husband has had border collies.

[14:28] Crissy: Oh, yeah.

[14:28] Jan: One of them. That's getting older now. But it's pretty good about rounding them up. We used to have all of the kids get on the field and arms escaping. It was not ever very fun.

[14:42] Crissy: I remember doing that with cows growing.

[14:44] Jan: Up, always like that. But the board of colleagues are pretty good. So my husband got a new puppy about a year and a half ago. Whatever. And this is a rascal dog that just does not want to behave in any manner of being. He's been taking it up to battleground someplace with a training there. He tried with his regular trainer, and he says, yes, this is like a little bit too much for me. Whatever. So now he's got the big guns going. We'll see.

[15:15] Crissy: Sometimes it's just that dog.

[15:18] Jan: That dog, yeah. How do you end up getting dogs that the pound just caused you the shelter?

[15:29] Crissy: When I was volunteering there a lot I would see the dogs that would or with the humane society, the dogs that kind of crumble in that situation that just don't do well, and it kind of feels like prison. They don't have the human loving on them every day. And some dogs just don't respond well. They get aggressive or they almost act like they're going to die. They stop eating and get really nervous. Yeah, they're very depressed. I would just ask for the dogs that they saw that were crumbling and that needed extra attention and bringing them into a home. You just see the life come back into them. It's really amazing. Yeah, it's so rewarding. We joke, we joke joke that we should have stuck with dogs, but it's just a joke. We love our children, of course, but dogs are much easier unconditionally. You can do anything to your dog. You can beat the **** out of your dog and they still love you, which is sad and terrible. We would never do that.

[16:32] Jan: So then do you look for homes? Do you look for homes or other people?

[16:35] Crissy: Yeah, no, I look for homes. I get on facebook, I talk to people, and most people just kind of know I'm that person. If they're looking for a dog, they often come to me and see if I know of any dogs. Yeah, that's great. I love it.

[16:49] Jan: That's cool. So we have a bunch of merremas, but they're excellent guard dogs.

[16:56] Crissy: It's amazing how many pyrenees end up at the shelter constantly. I know, I was shocked. Constantly. Pyrenees at the shelter?

[17:03] Jan: Well, they want to wander.

[17:03] Crissy: They want to wander. So here's a funny story. So this one, pyrenees got adopted probably a mile from the shelter, and one Saturday the shelter is closed until later in the day. Well, when Linda the gal comes to unlock the door here sitting the great pyrenees, he escaped. He got out of his owner's, new owner's house and went right back. He went back to the shelter and like, wait, you're free. Why would you come back here?

[17:25] Jan: Yeah, I mean, they're big and they are super or sweet dog. A number of litters now, whatever. I don't know. I worked your thought, but we've got one that was out with the sheep and now thinks that it just wants to be a pet up the house. They get this little some of them get this kind of a smile, whatever, and they whistle. So there's a funny little whistle that they do, kind of thing that are funny when they're happy. And that's great.

[18:00] Crissy: Those are neat dogs.

[18:01] Jan: Yeah. Oh, tell me about the story with the dachshund that you went on the.

[18:05] Crissy: Walk with Troy, the neighbor. Okay. This is a sweet story. So we have this little dachshund that we adopted from the shelter. She's twelve and a half. And I joke that I want to look as good as she looks when I'm her age, because she just looks so great. We have a nearby logging road that we walk constantly with the dogs, and so they're in really good shape. But so our neighbor, Troy, his wife, just passed. She just died just about a month ago. And one day Troy came to the door, and I didn't know that Minnie had escaped, and she followed him right next door to his house. And this is highly unusual. Like, Minnie's favorite spot is to be next to me in my lap. And she followed him home, and we sat down and ate dinner, and we didn't even realize she was missing, which is terrible. And about an hour later, Troy comes back with a mini in his jacket and said, hey, are you missing a dog? And she followed him home, went into his house and sat on his lap for like, 45 minutes just to comfort him.

[19:00] Jan: And I just thought that was the.

[19:01] Crissy: Neatest story because it was so unusual. That was completely out of her behavior.

[19:06] Jan: But now maybe he would like to be the owner of that dog.

[19:10] Crissy: I think he would. We're going to find him a dog, too.

[19:14] Jan: You're not ready to give that one up?

[19:15] Crissy: No, she's ours for sure. But yeah, he would like a dog. He travels a little bit, so he was concerned about that, but we put his mind at ease and said, well, Troy, we'll watch your dog when we travel, we'll babysit 100%.

[19:27] Jan: Yeah.

[19:27] Crissy: So he said, oh, okay, that sounds good. We'll get him a dog soon. Yeah, I think a herding dog. He likes the border collies and stuff. Does high dog, high energy dog. Yeah.

[19:39] Jan: But a border cut it. You got to have room for them to run, and they really need something to hurt.

[19:44] Crissy: They need a job. Some of those dogs need jobs, for sure. Yeah.

[19:48] Jan: They're just not a lay around the house. Not at all kind of dog at all.

[19:52] Crissy: Actually, a Great Dane is a good lay around the house dog. They say those are even good for apartments. Yeah, they don't need that much. Really. Yeah, they just are happy laying around.

[20:02] Jan: Fun. Yeah.

[20:03] Crissy: Okay.

[20:04] Jan: Well, Christie. Thanks. This has been fun. Thank you for two adoption stories. Kids and dogs.

[20:10] Crissy: Yeah, kids and dogs.

[20:11] Jan: Right.

[20:12] Crissy: Two legs and four legs. My favorite.

[20:15] Jan: Thanks.

[20:19] Jan: Thanks for listening. Before you go. I wanted to share with you that my latest book, My Hearts for you, is now available on Amazon. And I just sent the audio recording of I will enter his gates to audible, which should be released soon. The thin thing about that audio is that my son, Kyle, created it with me. He read his dad's voice, giving him an opportunity to know his dad in a way that he never had since Howard died when Kyle was three. Not to brag, but I think it turned out pretty great. I also wanted to update you on Monica Seidel's work in Belize. She had begun her vision by finding people to tutor students, creating a learning space with WiFi and computers. She has moved on to building an amazing playground, a library, and has begun work on a medical center. She even found an ambulance, which she will deliver to the border of Mexico, where she will meet someone to deliver the rest of the way to Belize. You can find her interview, which is episode 39. That's all for now. Have an amazing week and we'll see you next time. If you enjoyed this or any other.

[21:33] Jan: Of my podcast episodes, it would be amazing if you would take a few.

[21:36] Jan: Minutes to leave a review so others can find it. Transcripts are available on my website at jan-johnson.com.