Lou and Joan Andrego are a Catholic couple who are members of Holy Spirit Parish in
Fremont,
California. They have been married just over 40 years. After all five of their children had
reached adulthood, Lou and Joan made the momentous decision to open their lives and their
homes as foster parents for medically fragile infants and children. Over the past eleven years
they have taken in thirteen foster children for varying lengths of time. After caring for one little
girl, Claudia, for four years, Lou and Joan decided to adopt her. For the past two years they have
given long term care to another infant girl named Heather, whom they are also planning to adopt.
The California Mission conducted the following interview with them.
CM: Lou and Joan, you're both over 60 years old now. You spent the better part of your
married life raising your five natural children. And then when they became adults you started a
"second life" as foster-parents for medically fragile children. How did you come to make such a
decision?
Joan: I was working half-time in the intensive care nursery at Kaiser Hospital and at times saw high-functioning kids going into the custody of institutions because there was no place else for them. That got me thinking about foster care. At the same time, our daughter Joanne was in nursing school and working as a nursing assistant at Stanford Hospital. She had cared for a little boy named Tony who was three and half years old. He had been sick his whole life. He had a tumor on his shoulder and a tracheotomy. He had been bounced from one institution to another, but he was such a loveable little boy. He was a favorite of the staff at Stanford Hospital. After much deliberation we decided to take Tony into our home and care for him.
CM: Tell us a little more about how you reached this decision?
Lou: When I began to get involved in the discernment process, Joan was taking a French course with one of our daughters, Barbara. One day at class the two of them were sitting next to a person who turned out to be a respiratory therapist from Stanford, and this person knew Tony. We all saw that as a very unusual coincidence. At that time we were already seriously considering taking Tony into our home. That was such an unexpected coincidence that it helped me to believe that taking Tony in really was a call from God. The whole process of deciding to be Tony's foster parents also forced me to take a good look at my life and to see how much I had been set on my own interests. That had to change. We have to sacrifice much of our personal time and interests to take care of the children.
CM: What happened when Tony came to live with you?
Joan: Tony was with us for six months. During that time, he became such a part of our family that we were planning to adopt him. It was very painful for us when Tony died of meningitis. He had blossomed so much while he was living with us, learning to walk; he was very happy. At the funeral Mass for him, a couple dozen members of the staff from Stanford Hospital came over.
CM: What did they have to say?
Joan: One of them spoke about the impact Tony had had on them. They were very, very grateful that Tony was able to experience a normal family life for six months. Some of the Stanford staff have also told us that they believe the only reason that Claudia is alive today is because of the care we've given. We went back to Stanford once several years after we began caring for Claudia, and one of the doctors was amazed to see how healthy she was.
CM: You didn't wait long to open your home to another child, Claudia. It seems that Tony's death didn't give you second thoughts about what you felt God was calling you to.
Joan: Actually, while we had Tony, Stanford hospital asked if we would take Claudia. She had been born with many congenital problems. She weighed 11 pounds at age one, had to be fed with a feeding tube, and could not sit up from sheer weakness. Claudia's early years involved lots of struggle, lots of time in the hospital. She had a hole between the trachea and esophagus, and due to scar tissue her esophagus was completely closed at one point. Thus, it was impossible for her to eat anything because she couldn't swallow. She wasn't able to swallow from birth to age three—even her own saliva. She was fed with a feeding tube. She couldn't talk because of the build-up of her own saliva. After age three she was able to eat a little. Her esophagus had to be stretched repeatedly. The opening in her esophagus is very small still, she has to be careful. We still tube feed her. Claudia has had a lot of surgeries. She almost died at age three. After one surgery, the area around her heart filled with fluid so her lungs and heart stopped functioning. The doctors opened her chest and a quart of fluid gushed out, they then drained out another quart of fluid. She had so many surgeries that the doctors put a permanent shunt into her heart for mainline IV medications.
CM: How is Claudia doing now?
Joan: She's eleven now. She gets along very well with other kids. We belong to a prayer group that has weekly meetings and also provides regular ministry to the children. Claudia loves to go there and be with the other kids. She has some learning disabilities, which requires a lot of individual tutoring. So we homeschool her. Claudia is a very loving child. She loves little Heather, whom we been caring for the past two years. She regards her as her sister. The moment we began caring for Heather, Claudia wanted us to adopt her. We told her there were issues with the courts and that we also had to pray. So Claudia came back to us a little later and said that God had told her that little Heather should be part of the family! She helps care for Heather and is very devoted to her.
CM: Tell us about Heather.
Joan: She is two years old right now. Her main problem at birth was cardiac; all the vessels from the heart to the lungs were blocked, so they put in a shunt. This was the first of the two open-heart surgeries she has had. She outgrew the shunt and had another surgery to rearrange blood vessels to flow to the heart. She also had surgery on her spinal cord at four months. Cognitively, she's very bright, talking, counting, doing things at two that kids don't usually do until two and a half. But from her spinal problems, she has club feet.
Lou: It's a miracle she is still with us. Last April she was in an operation to have her club feet repaired. While they were starting her on anesthesia she had a cardiac arrest and it took ten minutes to resuscitate her. In November, during some dental work, her lungs shut down. She was diagnosed with tracheal-bronchial malaysia and it was recommended that no further surgeries be done for a year. So Heather is stuck right now with bad teeth and feet that don't allow her to stand up. But she is the happiest, most loving little girl. She is very smart. She keeps all of us busy following her around, and entertains us with her chatter and singing.
CM: How have others reacted to you being foster parents?
Joan: They either think were crazy or saints; not much in between.
Lou: But this is our decision; we see it as a calling from God. As senior citizens, it seems counter-cultural to be raising young children, but we have scriptural examples of senior parents in Abraham and Sarah, and Zechariah and Elizabeth. We're in this together. When one of our daughters was sick with leukemia, we pulled back from the foster care (we already had Claudia) and stood by her. Later, when the daughter recovered we felt called again to open up our lives to foster children. Of course, by then we knew the sacrifice that would be involved. We prayed a lot. And we had a little hesitation in making the phone call to the Social Service Department. But soon, we were receiving foster children again.
CM: Can you explain why you feel this is a call from God. In what ways did you think God spoke to you about this?
Lou: That's tough. What it comes down to is that there's a need, we're Christians and we have empathy. Our hearts go out to these kids. But then there are also specific ways that God works and seems to set things up so theres an obvious "fit". The Lord sets things up so this particular unique child works his or her way into your heart. It's a great chore, but it's very fulfilling. Little Heather, only two, scoots across the floor, and says "hi, daddy". We pray with them and bless them with holy water and holy oil. Once you work with the kids, the love grows. The kids have had a great impact on me, changing us, helping us to love more. You have to spend a lot of time with them. You have to sacrifice your own personal time. One more thing—it may sound strange, but one of the ways I see this is a "Purgatory by-pass". I believe my response to the Lord's call to care for these kids helps to expiate my sins. Anyway, we are doing what we're doing because we want to and we also feel it is our ministry—a special gift from God. Through our two youngest charges we are experiencing God's unconditional love.