Disabled girl starts new life with adoptive parents

ST. LOUIS -- Gabby clung to Amy Nicholas from the moment they met.

It was the fall of 2001, and Gabby, who was born blind with spina bifida, was living in a mobile home with her teenage mother and grandparents in Jefferson County. Amy was her state-appointed physical therapist.

"She didn't want to do any therapy," Amy said. "All she wanted to do was hug me."

Now Amy is her mother. Amy and her husband, Greg, also a physical therapist, adopted Gabby four years ago. At the time, the two young professionals from Arnold were just beginning a family of their own.

When Amy met her, the bottom of Gabby's club feet nearly touched her ankles. Her hips popped out of their sockets. She couldn't stand or crawl and barely spoke.

Gabby Nicholas, 7, of Arnold, Mo., worked to load her braille writer during class April 20 at Simpson Elementary School in Arnold. Nicholas is paralyzed from about the waist down due to spina bifida and she is also blind. Nicholas is entering the second grade this school year. (Dawn Majors ~ St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Gabby, now 7, was born prematurely with retinopathy, a disease that robbed her of sight. Spina bifida, a birth defect of the spinal cord, paralyzed her from the waist down.

Gabby's physical therapy appointments were often canceled, and she wasn't making any progress. The Division of Family Services stepped in, asking Amy and Gabby's other therapists to write letters about conditions at Gabby's home.

"It wasn't neglect or abuse," Amy said. "It was more of what they weren't doing to help her. I think they tried to do it, and they did love her. But they didn't have the money or the know-how to do it in the way she needed."

Gabby went into foster care in December 2001. Soon, Gabby was crawling, and surgery corrected her club feet.

"What is going to happen to her?" Amy asked Greg one night. "It would be perfect if they could find a home like ours for her." Greg replied, "Last week you asked me if we could get a dog, and I told you we weren't responsible enough."

At the time, Greg was 27 and Amy, 26. "It wasn't part of my plan," Greg said. But thoughts of Gabby began to consume the couple. On July 1, 2002, Gabby became their foster child.

For about a year, Amy and Greg took Gabby to Hillsboro for weekly visits with her birth mother, but many visits were canceled, and few lasted a full hour.

Gabby made the most of the car rides, memorizing the names of the states and their capitals by listening to an audio game. In September 2002, Gabby showed off her skills to the nursing staff at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital as she lay in a body cast for five weeks after bilateral hip surgery, which prevented her hips from popping out of their sockets.

By December 2002, the couple learned that their efforts to care for Gabby could become permanent because Gabby's birth mother had stopped her visits. Her parental rights were later ended.

On Aug. 22, 2003, the adoption was official, and Gabby became a big sister to Claire, Greg and Amy's firstborn. They renamed their adopted child Gabrielle Adora Nicholas -- her middle name a Greek term Amy found meaning "a gift."