The advertisement in the newspaper tugged at Raewyn Brew’s heartstrings. A toddler with some problems needed care after a tough start in life – would anyone be able to give her a home?
The kind mum-of-three Raewyn immediately wanted to help this little stranger who had gone through so much and applied to Child, Youth and Family to be her foster carer. Raewyn and her husband Ken were thrilled when they were picked out of 160 families that had wanted to foster the girl, who had developmental delays. They were told that the two-year-old was arriving on Christmas Eve and given one key piece of advice – simply love her.
As soon as Natasha Ash arrived at their Hamilton home, they knew this was not going to be a fairytale ending for the wee girl, but the start of the biggest challenge of their lives.
“She had very little hair and only had half of her teeth. All she did was scream,” says Raewyn. “Ken just cried when he saw her. Where were her teddies? Where were her clothes? Where were her books? She had literally nothing.”
Raewyn soon realised that Natasha was so traumatised by her horrific start in life that the only way to help her was to go back to the start and treat her like a six-month-old baby. “The first three or four months were the hardest – she screamed so much that after I got to the point that I thought she would have go to back into CYF care,” recalls Raewyn.
“on the night I hit rock bottom, I had fallen asleep beside her cot trying to calm her. But something happened when I woke – Natasha smiled for the first time and held her arms out to me and cuddled into me.
“She had never done that before and I thought, ‘How could I ever think of giving you up?’ and from that day on the screaming stopped. She became a calm little person.”
Now the family have just celebrated Natasha’s 21st birthday, and they can hardly believe how far she’s come. “She didn’t speak until she was six but that was okay. Now she can read and write and we got her through primary school and in a few years she will move out of home.”
Natasha will never be able to go out flatting on her own. “She can get her own breakfast but she can’t make dinner. For example, she could put the vegetables on the stove then get distracted by birds or animals outside. Even a trail of ants could make her forget the pot was boiling over,” says Raewyn.
Because the Brew’s request to formally adopt Natasha was rejected, they can’t officially call her their daughter. But to them, that’s exactly what she is. “Natasha is a sister, a grandchild and a cousin,” adds Raewyn, who has three older sons.