Bablee and the bike

In the backyard of her family’s Forest Acres home, 8-year-old Bablee bolts from swing set to slide in her glittery sandals and pink shirt, favoring a prosthetic leg that spans from her thigh to her toe.

But she doesn’t let it stop her from petting her dogs, running to the mailbox and jumping with her 5-year-old sister Sara.

Bablee, which means bubbly, is a common Indian nickname. It’s what Bablee said her mother called her before they were in a train wreck that killed her mother and caused her leg to be amputated.

Her American name is Rachel Crawford and her adopted parents aren’t sure exactly how hold she is. When and where she was born is a mystery too.

But Rachel’s life in America seems perfectly normal. She’s a first-grader at Jewish Day School who likes to dress up and her glittery sandals give away her personality.

“She wants to be a Disney princess,” her dad Mark Crawford said with a chuckle.

And she’ll be getting a new bicycle soon, courtesy of a group of USC students. She’s never ridden a bicycle before.

India

Bablee was about 3 years old when her mother was killed in a Mumbai train wreck. It almost killed her, too.

Her American parents have asked her about the train wreck, but she doesn’t remember the details, and records in India don’t give away much either.

“She was in the hospital for a while with very bad leg injuries,” Mark Crawford said. “They weren’t sure what was going to happen to her.”

Doctors in India attempted to fix her medical problems, but she was incredibly bow-legged in her right leg, leaving her unable to walk on it. Her left leg was broken also. She recovered and landed in a “very nice orphanage” in India where a group of nuns took good care of Bablee, her mom Pam Crawford said.

But when she turned 18, she’d be out on the streets without any help. The Crawfords couldn’t allow that.

The Crawfords

Bookshelves line the Crawfords’ one-story brick home in Forest Acres. Two dogs roam the house freely, and toys litter the ground.

Pam Crawford is a forensic psychiatrist for the state. Mark Crawford stays at home and takes care of the family. The couple had two children biologically, 13-year-old Abby and 15-year-old Ben and decided a few years ago they wanted more.

“It was my wife,” Mark Crawford said with a laugh. “She pushed this through, but I support it too.”

So the couple adopted Sara, now a 5-year-old, and about two years ago, the couple decided they wanted more.

They got in touch with an adoption agency, saw a picture of Bablee online and Pam Crawford read a short biography. She knew Bablee had to be theirs.

All the paperwork and bureaucracy was expedited quickly. The family sent Bablee a scrapbook of her future home and future family.

“That’s me,” she said excitedly as she carried the book around their house one recent afternoon. “And that’s my grandparents. And that’s my home.”

Getting her to their home was a challenge because, the Crawfords said, Indian officials often don’t like American families to take children out of their home cultures. But for special circumstances like Bablee’s, it sometimes works.

It did for the Crawfords and Ben and Mark Crawford went to the orphanage in India to take Bablee home. 

“The nuns weren’t too sure about two men taking her,” Mark Crawford said. “But it worked out and they let us.”

Bablee in America

The first order of business for the family was making sure Bablee was medically OK. They also wanted to figure out her age. The Shriners’ Hospital in Greenville took on her case, giving her free medical treatment. 

She saw a bevy of doctors and was fitted with a new prosthetic leg. Doctors determined she was about 8, and she was given an October birthday. Officials in India thought she was much older.

“They told us she was mentally retarded because she was being tested as if she was two years older,” Pam Crawford said. “But we’ve figured out she’s at least of average intelligence if not more.”

Bablee then had to make an adjustment to American life. It was a drastic scene change from an orphanage full of nuns to a house full of dogs and siblings, but it’s been something she’s seemed to enjoy, her family said. 

She’s very headstrong with a vivacious personality. She seems to like school, and the other children treat her well. 

“She tells us she’d like to go back to India and visit, but she wants to live here,” Mark Crawford said. “Until she gets mad, and then she tells us she’s going back to India for good. But that only lasts a little while and she’s over it. That’s just her being a child.”

Her parents have noticed a few signs of her previous life. She’s still possessive over things she owns, showing a survival instinct she likely learned in the orphanage. She’ll wear a dress three days straight and even a hair band is precious to her. 

The only material Bablee wastes is paper. She likes to draw and doesn’t see the need to be resourceful, her parents say.

They’ve also noticed differences in their other children.