181 – Don ‘DJ’ Joss of Renton, WA Is The Father Of 21, including 14 Adopted Kiddos & 10 with Special Needs

Transcript:

Tom Couch: Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring today’s Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Working tirelessly to research, develop and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics’ mission at horizontherapeutics.com.

Don Joss: Even little Mercy, I look at her, my firstborn special needs. And I think, my goodness, she’s a hero. She probably saved ten lives, because there’s ten kids here. Nine, eleven—I lose track, whatever it is. All those special needs kids are in my home now, just because she was born. Just because she exists. She was the one that got us over that hump to save all these other kids.

If we’d have never had her, those kids would still be in China and Taiwan now, and probably a lot of them dead. She’s done more for more people than many of us will ever do. She’s an absolute hero.

Tom Couch: That’s Don “DJ” Joss, owner of DJ’s Sportscards memorabilia shop in Renton, Washington. Don and his wife Amy are parents of 21 children. Seven of the children are biological, and the other 14 have been adopted from across the world. We’ll hear Don’s incredible story and more on this Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. Say hello to David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to the Dad to Dad Podcast, fathers mentoring fathers of children with special needs, presented by the Special Fathers Network.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support dads. To find out more, go to 21stcenturydads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we’d be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com/groups and search Dad to Dad.

Tom Couch: And now let’s hear this fascinating conversation between Don Joss and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I am thrilled to be talking today with Don Joss of Maple Valley, Washington, who’s a father of 21 children. Yes, I did say 21 children, and who owns DJ’s Sportscards memorabilia shop that buys and sells autographs, collectible cards, equipment and apparel. Don, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Don Joss: My pleasure.

David Hirsch: You and your wife Amy have been married for 27 years and are the proud parents of 21 children. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Don Joss: I grew up in Renton, Washington, just a mile from where my store is now. I had a very good mother and father, and a brother and a sister, family of five. I was the youngest. I found out later that I was a surprise, but here I am, and I think they’re glad they have me. I had a good, strong family growing up. We were very loyal to each other. We went to church. My dad passed away about two years ago. But he was definitely a good man that I loved dearly, and a great role model for me as a provider and a father.

My mom is still with us. She lives in the same house I grew up in. She still brings me lunch every day. She still keeps moving. She loves to cook and take care of her grandkids. I told her something she really liked. I heard there was a scientific study that said you get nine extra months of life for every grandchild you have. So I told her she would live forever.

And I believe that’s true. She really keeps going, not just with my kids, but my brother’s kids. She really lives to cook and find gifts and do special things for her grandkids. So she’s very involved and still moving around. She learned how to drive. So I still have her. I feel blessed to have her this late in life.

So I’ve never really left the neighborhood. I live in a city a little further away now, but between church and growing up here and my business here full-time, I’ve been in the Renton highlands almost every single day of my life, and I love it. It’s a great, great area.

David Hirsch: That’s fabulous. Well, thanks for sharing. Out of curiosity, what did your dad do for a living?

Don Joss: He was a traveling salesman. He traveled Washington, Idaho, Oregon. So sometimes he’d be gone for a few days. He always seemed to find a way to come home a day early, which was always great. It was always good to see his car pulling up.

He had different lines of things that he sold, lighting to stores, women’s apparel to clothing stores, different things. He never really had a hot line that made us a lot of money. But we always had what we needed. He always provided. I did see him stressing over bills and things, but we always had everything we needed.

He took us on trips with him at times. Sometimes he’d tie in a business trip with a regular trip, but as kids, we just thought we were going on vacation. We never felt like we were deprived of vacations or anything we needed. He was all commission. So no sales, no pay. And both my brother and I now are in fields where we have to sell to get paid.

My brother sells RVs now, and I have my own retail store. It’s hard to believe, because right now the sports card industry is tremendously hot, and it’s just going great guns again. But there were many years, if not a couple decades, where things were very touch and go and very tight.

And I always remembered my dad going through the same things I did. It was comforting to me that he walked the same path, the tight money, and still kept fighting and praying for God to provide for the next round of bills. I remember him telling me that there were times that he was on the road, and he was so broke, he couldn’t buy a pack of gum.

So in a way that encouraged me, and I kind of wish he was here now to see how busy we are at the moment. We just expanded the store, and I think he’d just be so happy to see how things have turned out. But even before he passed away, he was seeing the business pick up.

Again, he was a great dad. I loved him dearly. He struggled with Alzheimer’s the last ten years of his life or so, but he could always make conversation with people. And after he died, when my mom went around to the grocery stores and places she would visit with him on a regular basis, people were shocked that he had Alzheimer’s. He was so good at just making chit chat with people. But that was my dad. My friends all loved him. He was just a great guy.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well thanks for sharing. What a great role model. And what I think I heard you say is he had a good work ethic. And he was honest, and he was present in your lives. And you know, at the end of the day, what more can you ask for really?

Let’s switch gears and talk about your career. From what I remember, you got involved in the comic book and card store when you were a teenager. I’m wondering, how did your career transpire from there?

Don Joss: As a child, I was a really big comic book collector and I kind of dabbled in baseball cards. My brother had a collection, and he was really good about letting me play with and sort the cards and do whatever I wanted to do with them. He ended up giving it to me eventually. When I was probably 12 or 13 years old, a comic and card store opened about a mile from my house, and that was a dream come true. Even better, he used to hire young kids, kind of under the table for cheap, to run his store.

And I got hired. I had a good aptitude for it, and I eventually got paid better as I worked there longer. I became good friends with the owner and had a lot of good times with him. But when I turned 16 and I had an opportunity to actually work for minimum wage and make more money, I jumped on that.

So I quit the card store at that point. I had worked there probably two and a half years, but I still remained friends with the owner and went in there to buy comic books. I made a decision at that point. I was 16 years old, I had a job, and I decided I wasn’t going to collect baseball cards anymore.

So I went to a local baseball card convention that was being held at a little rental hall not far from my house, and I sold a lot of what I had. I made 500 bucks. I was back at the comic store and told my old boss about this. “Hey, I made 500 bucks at the card store.” A day or two later, he tracked me down at my girlfriend’s house, called me up, and said, “How would you like to buy out the baseball card section of my store for 500 bucks? I’ll charge you 250 bucks a month rent, and you can have all the baseball cards.”

I didn’t think about it very long. I jumped on it. I was still in high school. I wasn’t going to go broke and be homeless if things didn’t work out. And I still had a job at the grocery store. So it was a very low risk way to kind of get my foot in the waters of running my own business. And pretty quickly I was making good money.

I was going to keep doing both the grocery store and the card thing. But the grocery store went on strike, and then I graduated from high school. I ended up going full-time with sports cards. Unfortunately, within a couple years the owner and I started to have a lot of conflicts. Even though it wasn’t a partnership, we were just sharing space, there were issues over different things.

So he and I split up. I moved to my location where I am now in 1990, and I’ve been here ever since. I opened a full-time comic and card store. About four years later I got out of comic books. I felt they were just getting really kind of trashy content wise, and I didn’t feel like, as a Christian, I could keep saying, “Oh yeah, I’m a Christian,” and then sell this stuff. It was just getting out of hand.

So starting in 1990, I had my own store. And from 1994 on, I was pretty much just a full-time baseball card store. That was right at the time when baseball went on strike, hockey went on strike, and there was a card market crash. Things got really horrible.

So I used to joke to people that one proof that there is a God is that I survived in this industry for so many years feeding this many kids, because there was no logical explanation. Business was so bad, it was crazy. But that’s how I got into business and that’s where I am today. Been in this spot for 31 years now.

We just expanded recently, and at the moment, the industry’s great again. And I always wonder if it’s going to crash like it did 30 years ago. But I think things might be a little different this time. I think it might be a little more long lasting than before.

There are a lot of people who collected during that boom 30 years ago when they were kids. Now they’re adults with extra spending money, and the cards are so much nicer now. You can get certified autographs of your favorite players right in the pack. You have pieces of jersey that they wore in a game. So I think the market’s going to be stronger than it was. And I’m hoping we have another good ride for a while.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well thanks for sharing. It’s a very inspiring story, and as somebody who collected baseball cards when he was in his youth—I think I was 12 years old—I have a full set of Tops baseball cards from 1972. I’d have to double check the year just to be sure. I mean, I’ll be sure to follow up with you separately about that.

Don Joss: Absolutely.

David Hirsch: Because what I heard you saying is it might be a good time to monetize my baseball card collection based on all the ups and downs over the years. I’m sort of curious to know, how did you and Amy meet?

Don Joss: It was at church. I started going back to a youth postgrad group again. I kind of missed a little bit of church between work, and just kind of lack of interest for a while, which I hate to say. But I always knew I needed to get back to church. I needed to be hearing the Word. I needed to be following Christ.

And I finally started going back. I met her, and I just really liked the way she had some spunk. She was very pretty. But to watch her banter with people and kid around, kinda like her father does, really caught my attention. I really liked her and that helped keep me coming to youth group too for a while, because I just liked to see her.

David Hirsch: That’s fabulous. Well, thanks for sharing. I appreciate it. And we’re going to switch gears and talk about your family. And we’re going to talk about special needs. I’m sort of curious to know, before Mercy’s birth, who was your ninth child, and her diagnosis, did you or Amy have any experience with the special needs community?

Don Joss: Not much. When I was a kid, I always had a heart for special needs people. When I would see one, my heart just felt kind of drawn to them. I don’t know if it was sympathy or things like that. A lot of times now, I can tell people feeling that way, looking at my children, like feeling bad for them. I want to say, “No, they’re really happy.” But there was something that drew me towards special needs kids

David Hirsch: Okay. Thanks for being so authentic and transparent. You have 21 children, and I’ve tried to put a brief summary together because I didn’t know how else to put my hands around this.

So they range in age from three to 23 years old. You have like a little mini United Nations. They come from six different countries, including Guatemala, Ethiopia, Taiwan, Bulgaria and China. You have 12 girls and nine boys. Seven are your biological children, and 14 have been adopted. Sadly, one of them, Brooke, who was adopted from China at age five and who had Down syndrome, passed away shortly after arriving in the US.

And regarding special needs, three have Apert syndrome, three have Down syndrome, two have autism. And the other special needs include cerebral palsy, diabetes, frontonasal dysplasia, schizencephaly, blindness, and a rare chromosomal deletion. I’m sure I’ve missed something, Don, but I am just sort of in awe about what you and Amy have done.

I have 101 questions, as I’m sure our listening audience does. So I’ll just jump right into it. Before starting your family, did you and Amy ever talk about how many children you wanted to have?

Don Joss:  Yeah. I didn’t want to have that many, and I wanted to wait five years, and I wasn’t that interested in kids. I’m shocked now that I ever felt that way, but again, I think I kind of grew up in a culture that sent a message like “Don’t grow up, be a kid forever, have fun, do what you like to do, whatever.” And I probably bought into that a little. I don’t know. There definitely weren’t any voices saying, “Kids are a blessing, get married, settle down, this is great.”

So I wasn’t that interested, but she definitely had a strong desire to have kids. I thought maybe we’d have three. And once we began trying to have a baby, we found out we couldn’t. My wife had endometriosis. We couldn’t get pregnant. She had a surgery to have it removed, but we found out later that the surgery really didn’t work. It just kind of made it come back smaller and more painful.

Since she was not able to get pregnant, she started looking into adoption. At that time I don’t think I was crazy about it, but I’m like, “Oh, yeah, we can do that.” And we found a neat program at the time through Lutheran Social Services. They had a little different concept that kind of combined foster care and adoption.

The idea was that instead of bouncing a kid from foster care home to foster care home, and then now here’s your adoptive home, this program tried to find a family that would take the foster child and be willing to adopt it if the child became available for adoption. They would try to find children that were likely to become that. But there was still a risk that you would take this child into your home and have to give it back.

But we went through that program, and we got a beautiful little girl, Rebecca, when she was ten days old. She had a situation where she probably wasn’t going to go back home, and it should all be wrapped up in nine months. But it dragged on for two years before we finally got her. But it was a long process and brought a lot of fear that we were going to have to give this child back to a situation that wouldn’t be good for her. Plus we were her parents now. We loved her. We’d had her since she was ten days old.

But after that, we liked the adoption process so much that we decided we still wanted to adopt, and we were still going to try to have children as well. We stayed away from the foster care route and started looking into international adoption, which has its own problems and challenges like everything does. But in general, you’re not going to have to worry about giving the kid back. That’s the route we took after that.

David Hirsch: And then I think you went on to have two more children biologically, Lizzie, who’s 20 now, and James, who’s 17.

Don Joss: Yeah.

David Hirsch: And my recollection was Juan and Rudy, who are now 18, are twin brothers who you adopted from Guatemala.

Don Joss: Exactly. We got them at 13 months old. We flew down to Guatemala when Guatemala was still open. One nice thing about adopting from Guatemala is it was a very quick trip. It was about three days and one trip. That was it at the time.

We found out later the program was shut down. There was a lot of corruption and things going on, people being paid to have babies, things like that. So you can no longer adopt from Guatemala as far as I know. But for us, it worked out very well. We got the two children.

One of them was very unhealthy when we got him, and he had to have a lot of medical procedures done right away that did save his life. If he had remained in Guatemala, he wouldn’t be alive today. Then the other child turned out to have a little bit of autism, but he’s learned to deal with it very well. He’s an excellent worker. He is a good thinker. He sits me down a lot to have conversations about politics or religion or all kinds of things. They’re just both tremendous boys.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing. And then if I’ve got the situation correct, you had Rosie, another naturally born child, who is now 15 with no health issues. Then you adopted Jeremy, who’s 14, from Ethiopia. That seems way off the beaten path.

From what I recall, after Jeremy is Mercy, who’s a naturally born child. She’s 13 and is one with the rare chromosomal deletion. And I’m wondering, how did that transpire?

Don Joss:  She was just another normal pregnancy, but a few days before she was born, my wife just felt like things weren’t right. So we went in to get checked, and that was the first time I’d been in a NICU. We spent some time down there one evening, kind of getting her checked out and everything, and everything seemed fine. Baby was alive.

But she hadn’t been moving, so my wife was concerned something had happened. But the baby was alive, so we came back. I think it was a few days or a week later that she was born, and it just seemed like another normal birth. But my wife noticed that when the doctor came in and took the skull cap off the baby, she kind of looked a little shocked. It turned out that her head was very small.

So right away they started running tests and doing all kinds of stuff. My wife never even got to hold her. All of a sudden they rushed her out to the NICU, and we had no idea what was going on. My wife told me later, “I thought, oh my goodness, I just had this baby, and it’s going to die before I even had a chance to hold her.”

And I remember praying at the time to God, “If you don’t take her, I’ll do whatever I have to do to take care of her. Just don’t let her die. I’ll take care of her. I’ll do whatever I need to, but please let her stay.” We didn’t know if she was going to die, what was going to happen. And it was really touch and go. They were barely able to get an IV into her. But slowly they figured out what was going on. It was a real mystery.

When I tell this story—and I hate to even admit it—one of the first things they told us was, “It’s not Down syndrome.” At the time, my wife and I both went, “Whew, thank goodness it’s not Downs.” Well, now we adopt Downs children, and we love Downs children.

Again, I don’t know where that came from again, other than we live in a culture that looks at people as flawed. But that was our reaction at the time. I hate to even say it, because we love Downs children so much. But that was our reaction at the time, “Thank goodness it’s not Downs.”

Actually, she would’ve been better off with Downs. She has a very rare chromosomal deletion. We’ve heard anywhere between only three and 15 people in the world have it. And she could have been very malformed, but she’s a beautiful child. She’s 13 years old now, but she looks like probably a two and a half year old.

And she’s not verbal, but she can communicate exactly what she wants, if she wants you to change to a different program. She has a little musical toy, and she knows how many times to hit the button to get to the song she wants. I mean, she’s in there. She’s a beautiful kid, and she was really the one that just totally opened up our world to special needs children.

Like I said earlier, we’d sort of talked about adopting special needs kids, but we always chickened out of it. I’d hear parents talking about their special needs kids, and how much they loved them just the way they were, and that they were so special. And in the back of my mind I really kind of thought, “You’re just saying that because you have to, because that’s what you were given.”

But when we gave birth to our own special needs kid, then I understood what they were talking about, that this is a unique child. This is a special child. And yeah, you’d change it if you could—but you can’t. But the very things that we would change may be the things that really make them special and make them who they are.

We don’t need to change them—we just need to take care of them. We need to provide what they need. We need to make their lives good. We need to keep them happy, enjoy their company. They’re such a blessing just to be around. I can’t believe, too, just how happy our kids are. They love being together. They don’t even notice each other’s issues and things.

Anyway, after she was born, I got it. I got what the special needs parents were saying. And after that, we only adopted special needs children. Not that we had anything against children with no problems, but there were just so many children out there that weren’t even considered for adoption, because they had a cleft palate, or because they had whatever—some serious issues and sometimes things that could easily be corrected in an American children’s hospital. But people wouldn’t even consider them because they weren’t perfect.

So from then on, we only got special needs children, and a lot of times we tried to find ones that, honestly, nobody wanted. And I’ve thought this so many times with my children, looking around my family, I love these kids. And they’re kids that people literally didn’t want, people that our societies would frankly say should have been aborted. But they’re beloved members of my family now, and I’d do anything for them.

I feel like it’s like someone walking across a dirty field, and there are all these kind of gemstones just hidden under the mud and the dirt. And if you bend over and pick them up, you’ve got a treasure. But people are just walking right by it, and they don’t even notice, and they don’t care.

That’s how I feel about my kids. Like I found these treasures that people didn’t know they had, so they gave them to me. They’re just a huge blessing to me. I kind of feel bad more people don’t participate in that, because again, they’re like I was years ago. They’re scared, or they weren’t encouraged to do that, or they didn’t know the blessing of taking in these kids

But they’re beautiful kids, and it just kills me that there are millions of them around the world that would be a blessing to so many families, and they’re just languishing in an orphanage somewhere.

David Hirsch: Well, thanks for sharing. So just to paraphrase, Mercy, who’s naturally born with the rare chromosomal deletion, was the turning point for you and Amy with regard to your adopting, and not just adopting, but adopting with a focus on special needs. You went on to have William, who’s a naturally born child, and then you adopted Uchi, who’s now 13, from Taiwan. She has cerebral palsy or something like cerebral palsy.

Don Joss: And she also has a very serious brain injury. Her parents tried to kill her and injured her head. And they estimate she’s 70% brain dead. She’s non-verbal. She can kind of make a little noise, and she can smile and laugh. She tries to sing a little bit. She can barely move. She’s mostly paralyzed.

But she is such a happy kid, and I know she’s in there. When I pick her up to hold her, she’s giving me smiles. She’s laughing for me. When I get her outside and the sun hits her face, she just lights up. She is just so happy out there. She was the first special needs child that we chose to adopt.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing. It sounds like a hand of God type of moment. That’s what I heard you describe to me.

Don Joss: It was really different.

David Hirsch: So from there on, after Uchi, you adopted Serenity, who’s now 11, from Bulgaria, and she has Apert syndrome. From that point going forward, you were sort of looking for how to leverage the time. If you’re going to be going someplace else in the world to do an adoption, as opposed to doing one, you could get two for one. Not two for the same price, but two for the same trip. That would obviously keep the logistics lower, and I guess the overall expenses lower for that matter too.

Don Joss: And resources. Exactly.

David Hirsch: So Serenity and Hope came into your family at the same time. Your son Donald was a natural birth, and then you adopted two more children, Jillian and Brooke. Were they adopted at the same time from China as well?

Don Joss: Yes, both are from China. Jillian also had Apert syndrome. Brooke had Down syndrome. That was my first time to. I absolutely loved it. It was a beautiful country with big parks, lots of little retail shops, which as a small business owner I enjoyed that aspect of it. I loved the food.

I had a great time with Brooke in China, being her daddy and spoiling her, and buying her toys and feeding her good food for the two weeks we were there. She had a medical check checkup. All the children were checked for their health before we came home.

And sadly, four days after we got home, she died in our house suddenly. It turned out she had had pneumonia. And we didn’t know what happened. We called 911. They couldn’t revive her. The medical studies showed later she had pneumonia. Because I guess for some Down syndrome children, there’s something in their brain that’s supposed to fire up a defense mechanism or something and start giving you fevers, so you know to fight infections and things. And that can be underdeveloped in some Down syndrome children.

So basically this went undetected even by the doctors that had checked her out before we left, and we had no idea. And by the time she died in our house that day, I believe she’d gone septic. So there was nothing they could do to bring her back. We had no idea. The day before she was kind of lethargic and feeling sick, so we kept her home from church. We just figured she was tired from the travel, or maybe we got something on the plane or whatever, but she never got better. So that was hard.

David Hirsch: Yeah. I’m sorry to hear that. That sounds like it was very difficult—all the energy and enthusiasm of bringing two girls into your house, and then getting thrown this dramatic curve ball, not to minimize the situation. But that must have taken a while to recover from.

So from there you had three more adoptions from China. Lucy, who’s now 17, Peter, who’s 12, and Jesse, who’s 11. What Lucy and Peter have in common is they both have Down syndrome, and then Peter also has autism. And they’re not related, right? They were not siblings.

Don Joss: No.

David Hirsch: Okay. Well, we’re getting down to the bottom of the list, at least as I understand it. Sparrow, who is four, was adopted from the US and is from East Indian parents and has Apert syndrome.

Don Joss: Yes.

David Hirsch: Then you have Gloria, who’s the caboose, at least the current caboose, who is adopted from the US. Gloria has schizencephaly. I was wondering, how did those two adoptions come about, because they were domestic adoptions?

Don Joss: Well, with so many children in the house now, and with the rules changing so much for international adoption, it usually takes two trips, long periods away, and sometimes families get stuck there much longer than they anticipated. I don’t mean to discourage anyone from adopting internationally by saying that. Please, there are always challenges to anything good in life. So don’t say, “I don’t want to do it now because DJ said something bad about it.”

But in our situation, we weren’t in a position where we were going to be able to be gone that long, so we started getting opportunities for United States adoptions for special needs children, where we could make the trip and get home in a reasonable amount of time to continue taking care of our other children.

And Sparrow came along, another Aperts child that needed a home. And we had plenty of experience with Aperts at this point, so we took her, and she was just a teeny little thing. They put a feeding tube into her probably way too early, and that caused a lot of problems that we had to work on. Her food would just blurp out of her stomach, because the hole was too big, and all kinds of things.

There was a lot of time at the children’s hospital for that, even before we started dealing with the Aperts. But my goodness, she is just such a beautiful little child. I think she’s five now, four or five, I forget. And she’s still a pretty tiny thing, but she’s got big, beautiful black hair that goes all over the place, and that beautiful Indian skin.

She is such a little dolly and just full of personality. Another Aperts, you know. “I’m going to climb up on this and do whatever I want to do.” But she teases with the older kids and gets everybody smiling. She’s one of the ones where I really feel like that’s a jewel where they have no idea what they gave up with her. I don’t say that to be mean to the family either,

But I do say it because, again, so many times our news reports when dealing with issues of life and choice and all these things—if you looked at her diagnosis, there’s many people who would say, “Don’t follow through with this pregnancy.” But she is the most amazing kid. Anybody that met her would just be blown away with how much fun she is. Yet from a medical standpoint, it looks something like something very scary. But she has just been an absolute jewel.

Our second child there is Glory. Glory was diagnosed as terminal. My wife approached me wanting to adopt this terminal baby that had just been born, with the idea that we’re going to take care of her and give her a comfortable place to die, and let her die in a family. And I think another good thing that sort of came from Brooke dying was we’d kind of been through that. That made me more willing to take on a terminal baby, to be her daddy, to take care of her as long as she’s going to be here, and make her life good until it’s over.

Well, now she’s four years old, and she’s had very good medical care. They’ve learned a lot of things about her, and she’s doing very well. She’s missing some brain parts, and she still looks like a baby, and she doesn’t do a lot other than coo at you a little and look very beautiful. Everybody loves to get a turn holding her and talking to her. She’s definitely a very special needs person, but we love her and we love having her there.

And it’s another reminder to me when these conversations come up. One argument you’ll hear a lot from people who are not pro-life is that these  terminal children shouldn’t be suffering. You’re just keeping them alive, and they’re miserable. They’re not miserable. She’s a happy little girl. We’ve made her life better. She’s doing great. She’s not suffering, and the doctors were wrong. She’s not dead. She needed some love.

Just like Uchi and I kind of have that bond, my wife has an absolute bond with Glory. She’ll know something’s wrong when everything looks fine. She’ll say, “Don, there’s something wrong. She’s too still.” And we get her to the hospital, and it was just in time to prevent something from happening. She has seizures. My wife’s on top of it. She knows what to do. She knows when to call 911 and when we don’t need to.

Glory just needed a mom and a family that would love her and take care of her needs, and some doctors that would take the time to find out what’s wrong and get her some medicine and figure this out as we go. So she’s just a good reminder to me that doctors, as great as they are and we love them, but they don’t know everything.

And honestly, there are some doctors that are more encouraging than others. There was one doctor who pulled my wife aside when she was picking up Glory to bring her home, and said, “One of the first things you’re going to need to do when you get back home is get in touch with your local fire department and get to know them.”

And my wife thought, “Yeah, that’s good. We may be calling them for help once in a while, you know, it’d be good.” And then the doctor told her, “Because you’re going to need to sign a ‘Do not resuscitate order’ right away, because you’re going to get all emotional the first time you have a problem with this child, and you need to just let her go.”

David Hirsch: Wow.

Don Joss: And that was the encouragement from a doctor. You know, I just believe life and death are in God’s hands. And I feel like I’m not going to give up on a child and just write them off, and say, “Oh, the doctor says this. Okay. That as far as they’re going to go, or they’re going to die.” You don’t know. You take care of what you got. You help others. You let God be in charge of that.

We should be doing our best to make everybody comfortable, and value every life, no matter what’s going on in there. And even little Mercy, I look at her, my firstborn special needs child, and I think, my goodness, she’s a hero. She probably saved ten lives, because there are ten kids here. Nine, eleven—I lose track—whatever it is. All those special needs kids are in my home now, just because she exists.

She was the one that got us over that hump to save all these other kids, just because she was born and she’s with us. If we’d have never had her, those kids would still be in China and Taiwan now, and probably a lot of them dead. She saved those lives just by being born. And who knows what else God is going to do with her life? Many people would look at her and say, “She can’t talk, she can’t walk. What good is she?”

She’s done more for more people than many of us will ever do. She’s an absolute hero. And who knows what other good things will come from these children’s lives—the things we’re going to learn from the doctors studying them and working to make care better, and being inspired by the strengths and the things they do. You know, we should all just step back and see what God’s doing, and be thankful for these kids, and never just write them off like they’re not worth the trouble.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing. It’s not lost on me that Glory is  child number 21, and I’m wondering, have you decided that 21 is a good number, or are you still open to adopting more children?

Don Joss: I want to be open to whatever God wants me to do. Right now, I feel like every minute of our life is full, and at the moment I can’t picture more. And honestly there have been a few that have come our way that we were willing to look into, but we were told, “You have to be approved by people.” And we were told, “We will not approve you with that many children in the home.” So maybe if some older kids move out—which ironically means we lose more help—but if older kids move out, and we’re at a number where somebody somewhere says, “Okay, we’ll approve that,” we could maybe do that again.

David Hirsch: Well thanks for sharing. Very powerful statement. So I’m sort of curious to know how you and Amy stay on top of their healthcare needs. You’ve made passing reference about going back and forth to Seattle Children’s Hospital. It just seems like most families are totally challenged by having their 2.1 children and feel like their life is super busy and super full, and healthcare is super important. And I’m wondering, how is it that you are able to stay on top of that?

Don Joss: We’re a team. She was told early on to keep a notebook of everything—doctor visits, notes, everything. And she jokes about how she’s learned medical terms that she would’ve never imagined she’d know the definitions for. But she’s the one that keeps track of appointments, what’s going on, all of that.

I’m usually kind of the gopher, the taxi. I’m usually the one taking them to these doctor visits. And a lot of times when we’ve had a lot of procedures where I’ve had to stay for several days or several weeks—and thankfully because Children’s Hospital is near me—I’ve been able to come run my store, go spend the night at Children’s, and then come run my store.

We never leave our child alone. We have several family friends who will come sit with the child when I’m at work. It amazes me how many children are stuck at children’s hospitals alone. I know there’s sometimes where that’s just required. But we do everything we can to make sure someone’s there with them.

When I’m there for a long stretch, I will try to at least get out once a day for a walk or something, just so I don’t feel like I’m stuck in the building. But I’ll do it when they’re asleep, and I’ll tell the nurse, “If they wake up, you call me. I want to come back.”

But I like the role of being with them. For me, if I’m even with one of my children, it feels like I’m tethered to my whole family. So if I need to be with this one for a week at a hospital and we’re taking care of something, I don’t mind it. I joke that Seattle Children’s is my Seattle condo, because I’ve stayed there enough.

We’ve been in a good stretch lately where I haven’t had to be there a lot, but there are still lots of visits. So I typically do the visits and go there for surgeries and things like that. She takes care of the family at home and keeps track of what’s going on.

And what’s great about technology now is when I’m in a visit with doctors, or a round table where we’re trying to discuss strategies and what’s next for the child, and I don’t know everything going on, I can pull my cell phone out and put her on speakerphone. She’s able to just totally rattle off everything with what’s going on. I don’t even think she looks at her notes sometimes, she knows it so well. She’s the brains. I’m the driver.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing. So I’m thinking about advice now, and I’m thinking about our listening audience who may or may not have thought about adoption, may or may not thought about adopting a child with special needs. I think you’ve been crystal clear about what has inspired you and why you and Amy have done what you’ve done. But I’m wondering if there’s a way to summarize the advice you’d give to a parent who’s contemplating adoption.

Don Joss: If you’re a Christian, pray about it and open up your heart. And the blessings that I have, I cannot describe. There are definitely challenges and hard things, and I’ve walked many scary roads, both with hospitals and not knowing what’s going to happen, and financially not knowing how we’re going to pay for this or whatever. But I always prayed about it. This is what I knew God called me to do, and I knew he’d provide the way.

I heard a great definition about faith being like you’re in a rowboat where you’re rowing across the water. You’re not looking ahead where you’re going—your back is turned to it. You can’t really see ahead, but you can look back and see where you’ve come. And with all the experiences you’ve been through, it comforts you to know where you’re heading.

I just think if you’re being called to that, or you feel like this is something that you should do, please pray about it and look into it and consider it. And don’t be discouraged by the world and its anti-special needs, anti-child, anti-big family message that really comes across right now.

David Hirsch: Well, great advice. I’m sort of curious to know why you’ve agreed to be a mentor father as part of the Special Fathers Network.  

Don Joss: I’d love to do anything to help people hear truthful experiences about the good—and the bad, but mainly the good—the blessings of taking care of these special people. We were helped many times by finding blogs or groups that had been through the same thing and walked these roads and could help us with our questions and our challenges. So if I can help anybody, I’d be thrilled to do that.

David Hirsch: Well, we’re thrilled to have you. Thank you for being part of the team. Let’s give a special shout out to Louis Mendoza at the Washington State Fathers Network for putting us in contact with one another.

Don Joss: Absolutely. He does a great job. Thank you, Louis.

David Hirsch: Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Don Joss: No. Just love your kids.

David Hirsch: If somebody wants to learn more about DJ Sportscards or contact you, what’s the best way to do that?

Don Joss: My website is djssportscards.com. My email address is right on the homepage. It goes straight to me. I read them all.

David Hirsch: Don, thank you for taking the time and many insights. As a reminder, Don is just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father, or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21stcenturydads.org.

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network  Dad to Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads Foundation is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, which means we need your help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support.

Don, thanks again.

Don Joss: Thank you, David.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stcenturydads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com/groups and search dad to dad. Also, please be sure to register for the Special Fathers Network biweekly Zoom calls held on the first and third Tuesdays of every month.

Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story, or know of a compelling story, please send an email to David@21stcenturydads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch. Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics who believe that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at horizontherapeutics.com.