‘We’re all different’: Horry County family makes difference with special-needs adoptions

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - For two hours every Monday afternoon, Pedro Whitten and Tinka Whitten spend time on the floor of Connections Pediatric Therapy.

The room they work in is covered in mats and has a variety of toys and tools.

Eight-year-old Pedro and 7-year-old Tinka have different needs, but they both need their mom, Julie Whitten. Julie met Pedro first, when he was just a few weeks old, in Haiti.

Born without a roof over his mouth, no top jaw, and a deviated nasal passage, Pedro required a lot of medical attention. Julie didn’t know when she met him she would get to help Pedro, but said she believed she was called to help kids like him.

“God was just saying, this is a time that you need to start taking care of others and quit just taking care of yourself and your family and your children. I’ve got more things for you to do. Not that it would be taking care of Pedro, but it just opened my eyes to needs outside of us,” said Julie Whitten.

Those needs, both in South Carolina and across the world, are plentiful according to CDC data, that birth defects are the leading cause of death among infants in the Palmetto State.

Those troubling numbers recently prompted Governor Henry McMaster to once again recognize January as “Birth Defect Awareness Month.” This serves as a way for the state to disseminate information on how they can support families that have kids with birth defects.

Currently, the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs and BabyNet, a program under the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, serves more than 11,000 infants and young children statewide.

“I think it’s important to make it normal, and comfortable, and let people know it’s ok to ask questions,” said Julie Whitten.

Julie also hopes the new designation will inspire other South Carolinians to seek out medical visas, which she said helped their family bring Pedro to the United States.

”I mean he was so teeny and now he’s almost 50 pounds and doing so great here.”

But Pedro isn’t the only kid the Whittens get to love with birth defects. Julie said he just helped the family’s decision to be open to more.

Three years ago, Julie traveled to an orphanage in Bulgaria to adopt 4 ½-year-old Tinka.

Born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, or a rare build-up of fluid in her brain cavities, she wasn’t getting the care she needed.

Once Tinka saw doctors back in South Carolina, the number one thing they told Julie her family could do for her, was to love her.

”She actually soaked it in and accepted us, she’s a different kid, life of the party, mayor of the school, she’s got friends everywhere,” said Julie Whitten.

On Mondays one of the therapists Tinka works with is Lindsey Chappell. Chappell has watched both Pedro and Tinka grow, and she knows firsthand how difficult birth defects can be.

”Every child is different so I think it’s hard to say because your child is going to be born with Down syndrome, or spina bifida, or cerebral palsy anything like that, I think it’s hard to say this is what you can expect because kids are so different,” said Chappell. “So giving them some hope that life isn’t going to be as perfect as they wanted it necessarily, but that doesn’t mean life can’t be great.”

And that’s how the Whittens see life, as being a great opportunity to embrace different, as one big, beautiful family.

”And we’re all different. We’re all a mess, we’re just a mess a little bit differently,” said Whitten.

To learn more about Birth Defect Awareness Month, you can click here.

If you’d like to see updates on both Tinka and Pedro, you can click here.

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