Change of heart? Myka Stauffer made some big declarations about her adopted son with autism, Huxley, before announcing his rehoming.
In a January 2017 YouTube video, the internet personality, 32, opened up about choosing to adopt Huxley despite a doctor’s warnings. “If anything, my child is not returnable,” she said at the time. “So when I heard all of the things that that doctor was telling us, it kind of went in one ear and out the other. I wasn’t in a state of denial.”
Stauffer explained that she spoke to her husband, James Stauffer, after finding out about Huxley’s neurological diagnosis. “I accepted and took on everything that she said, and I sat down with Jim and I said, ‘You know, worst case situation, if our little boy at one point in his life, he needs to be in a wheelchair and he needed full on care, would you still love him?’” she recalled. “And we without a doubt in our minds, we knew, no matter what state he came to us that we would love him.”
The YouTube star noted that the news “didn’t scare us” but instead “solidified that this is more our son than he has ever been and we don’t care what’s wrong with him.” She continued: “The only need that our little boy has is, he needs his mama not to be scared but needs his mama to come on and get him home so that he can have a nice family that really, truly cares about him and is not scared of what an MRI or CT scan says.”
Myka then reiterated that the diagnosis would not change their feelings toward Huxley. “He’s our son and that’s that,” she concluded. “We’re not gonna trade him in, we’re not gonna return him. He’s our boy.”
Myka and James faced criticism on Tuesday, May 26, after announcing that they gave their son to a “new mommy” three years after adopting him from China. “There’s not an ounce of our body that doesn’t love Huxley with all of our being. There wasn’t a minute that [we] didn’t try our hardest,” she said. “And I think what Jim is trying to say is that after multiple assessments, after multiple evaluations, numerous medical professionals have felt that he needed a different fit and that [with] his medical needs, he needed more.”
