YouTuber Myka Stauffer has faced severe backlash online after she announced that she and her husband, James Stauffer, have decided to “rehome” their adopted 4-year-old autistic son.
For those who don’t know, Myka is the mother to four other children, and the social media star has gained more than 700,000 subscribers on the video streaming site for posting videos of her daily life with her kids. But in a new video posted on Tuesday, May 26, she explained that her son Huxley has found a new “forever family” that’s better equipped to handle his special needs, more than two years after she and her husband adopted him from China.
“With international adoption, sometimes there are unknowns and things that are not transparent on files,” James explained. “Once Huxley came home, there was a lot more special needs that we weren’t aware of, and that we were not told.”
Previously, Myka said that Huxley “was profoundly developmentally delayed,” after he “had a stroke in utero.” It was later determined that he had “autism spectrum disorder level three.”
“Over the years, Huxley has been in numerous therapies to try to help him with all of his needs. Over the last year, he’s been in more intense therapy to try to help him as much as possible with his severe needs. For us, it’s been really hard hearing from medical professionals. A lot of their feedback has been really upsetting for us. It’s not what we wanted to hear,” James continued. “We never wanted to be in this position. We’ve been trying to get his needs met and help him as much as possible, and we truly love him.”
“There’s not an ounce of our body that doesn’t love Huxley with all of our being,” Myka said, while breaking down in tears. “There wasn’t a minute that we didn’t try our hardest and I think what [James] is trying to say is that after multiple assessments, after multiple evaluations, numerous medical professionals have felt that he needed a different fit [for] his medical needs. He needed more.”
The vlogger added that giving up Huxley was “the hardest thing I could have ever imagined choosing to do.”
“Do I feel like a failure as a mom? Like, 500 percent,” she added. “He is thriving, he is very happy, he is doing really well. His new mommy has medical professional training, and it is a very good fit.”
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