Reece’s Rainbow Report #58: Redden Family

“Some people just don’t understand why we would choose something that most see as a hard life,” says her adoptive mother Brittany. “But then they see what joy she brings and quickly understand in most cases.” 

That something the public views as hard is, in Lucy’s case, Down syndrome. It’s why she no longer lives in Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian land of her birth, and is instead a Texas farm girl, imitating sheep calls with a goofy grin and cavorting with canines whenever possible. 

As a native Kyrgyzstani, Lucy is part of a fairly small club. There are only five and a half million people to populate its more than 77,000 square miles, with over 80 percent of those miles being stunningly mountainous. Perhaps that’s why the nation, bordered by China and the “stans” — Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — has a mere 260 miles of railroads, yet boasts one of the largest gold deposits in the world. 

“We had never heard of Kyrgyzstan before we found Lucy’s listing on Rainbow Kids,” Brittany says. “We just knew she was meant to be ours, so that’s where we went.” 

Brittany, a 35-year-old mother of three, including Lucy and two homegrown Redden children, had been intrigued by international adoption since high school. A biology teacher had adopted from China, piquing her interest. After she and her husband Joseph, a 35-year-old chemical specialist, married and had a son and a daughter, they knew it was time. 

They started the two-year process, knowing they wanted Lucy from the start. Kyrgyzstan is a three-trip country for both married couples of at least a year and single women. Both groups need to be in the 25- to 60-year-old category in reasonably good health, with no criminal background and at least 16 years older than the child they are hoping to adopt. 

Brittany and Joseph brought Lucy, almost three, home from the mountains of Kyrgyzstan to the upland prairies of Texas in 2022. The transition, helped in part by fellow international special needs adopters on the Reece’s Rainbow Facebook page, was delightfully successful. The Reddens had suspected before that Lucy had quite the personality — but the fact was confirmed in spades once she settled in.

“Lucys is just a ball of sunshine with a lot of sass!” says her adoptive mother. “She’s pretty bossy but has grafted in so well to our family.” 

That includes with big sister Lena, now age 10, and big brother Harrison, age seven. Lucy has learned a vast amount of American Sign Language signs since becoming a Redden and continually amazes her forever family with the knowledge she soaks up on a daily basis.

“Lucy has changed so much since coming home,” says Brittany. “She just blows us away every day!” 

It may be “a big circus” with “constant chaos,” as Brittany describes it. And chasing a toddler around in your mid-30s, as the stay-at-home mom will attest, is an entirely different ballgame than in your mid-20s. 

But it’s their circus and chaos, often with a dark-eyed, dimpled-cheeked preschooler at the center of it all. Maybe, the happy parents muse, they will say yes again someday to someone just like her.

“Seeing the small wins each day has been the best part,” Brittany says. “Seeing what love does to a child has been really sweet, as well.” 

If what circus master and humorist P.T. Barnum said is true — that every crowd has a silver lining — then the Reddens have fallen in love with Lucy’s: whether amongst no one else or dozens, she isn’t just the silver. 

She’s the rainbow.