The Genesis of the Embraced Project
“Our family’s story is not an uncommon adoption journey within the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) community. Families struggle for years before discovering the direct link of prenatal alcohol exposure to our child’s disruptive behaviors as they fall short of developmental milestones.
My wife and I had the privilege of bringing our son directly home from the hospital. Our birth mother gave full disclosure of her extensive alcohol use during the pregnancy and it still took fourteen years to understand the complexity of this issue and to get the correct diagnosis. Even though we were told she used alcohol during pregnancy we remained naive in understanding what this might mean for our son and family. We faced stigma, skepticism, and loss of relationships.
We pursued multiple interventions and not one professional mentioned the possibility that these challenges were connected to his prenatal alcohol exposure. This was also the case with educators at all five schools we explored to find the right fit for him during this same fourteen-year timeframe. (It took nine schools and four school programs for him to graduate.)
We became aware of the lack of compassion, awareness, and recognition of its present and lifetime effects. Where was the education, understanding, and supports?
The correct diagnosis has changed everything—personally and professionally. Our son’s journey provided the spark for telling authentic stories for the millions of misunderstood others.
The audacious goal of this film project is to ignite the public into action with small steps we can all take that lead to the prevention of drinking alcohol during pregnancy. We envision the Embraced Movement to initiate global transformed and appropriate interventions for this highly prevalent and completely preventable condition.”
The name for the Embraced documentary comes from how we embrace our son’s unique challenges.
Joel Sheagren — Director & Co-producer
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“In 2001, I had a dream that my wife and I would be handed a blanket—inside the blanket was wrapped a baby boy, as he grew, a little girl joined him. I thought the dream might be symbolic of two parts of our photography business—film and the stills I produced for advertising campaigns.
We threw this idea out the window six months later when asked, ‘out of the blue’, to adopt our son. We said yes, without hesitation. Ten weeks, after being asked, we brought our son, Sam, home from the hospital, with all the legal papers completely in place. (We were not on an adoption list or thinking about adoption.)
We have an open adoption and two years later, the birth mom asked us to adopt our daughter, Mathea. We knew the birth mom drank alcohol during the pregnancies, however, we were naive and unprepared for how prenatal alcohol exposure might affect our children.
We were aware Sam was struggling to meet developmental milestones. We explored a host of professional advice with no one giving voice to FASD. We were exhausted and not getting answers. When our son was fourteen, a more serious incident caused my wife to investigate if and how alcohol exposure prenatally might play a role.
After an intensive neurophysiological evaluation, we had answers to disruptive behaviors and a paradigm shift on how to parent more effectively. For the next year, we dig deep to understand how to better work with our son’s hidden disability, which became the catalyst for this passion project. We are honored to have been enlightened to this prevalent and entirely preventable developmental disability that needs much attention. This is not said lightly. There is a ton of work ahead and there are still daily challenges.
One last note. An important aspect of the Embraced project is justice.
I believe, in Biblical Justice (Yes, I love Jesus — and hate religion). My definition of Justice is to transform a violation of love. Over and over God points out the importance of justice to his people. We discover justice is still an essential topic to Jesus when he tells the religious leaders of his day that they had forgotten about justice, as recorded in Luke 11:42.
I feel called to this important project and believe it’s an extension of what God started through the dream and the critical nature for the awareness and the prevention of drinking alcohol during pregnancy. There is a deep desire to provide better outcomes and solutions for our kiddos who have been affected by alcohol in utero.”
Joel