When we tell people we are doing a special needs adoption, especially family, the reaction usually involves some fear for us. Most friends and family, and even strangers, wonder if we know what we are getting into. Honestly, no, we don't. When we first started talking about adopting, we never considered special needs, and when we think about it now, we don't really know when we decided to pursue a child with special needs. But here we are.
In China's program, we were able to fill out a checklist of needs that we are open to. Our case worker, who will place our child with us, has that list, and she will use it as a guide for helping us find our baby. As I've posted about before, after we receive a file from her, we are able to share it with our pediatrician and accept or decline. So in some ways, we do have control over the needs our child will have. However, we have been warned to expect greater or lesser needs than what we think we are getting. We know there is no guarantee.
That checklist is difficult. To complete it, we googled, researched, prayed, considered our lifestyle, and had a long consult with an international pediatrician. Filling it out was a bit of a rollercoaster ride. We started with very, very few needs. But then you start to feel like saying no to certain needs is the same as saying a child with that need is unadoptable. Which is not true. But emotion gets in the way. So our list grew quite a bit. Then we had the consult with the pediatrician, and the list decreased again. Because you have to have compassion, and we want to be open to as much as we can, but we also have to be wise. There are certain needs that are just not compatible with our family right now. For instance, we live in an older home with all bedrooms upstairs. It is likely not possible to add a wheelchair lift. So a child in a wheelchair, or a child with a condition that may lead to mobility issues would not be a wise decision. (And probably wouldn't have been approved during our home study anyway). There are other conditions that are not as easy to make a decision on.
Let me add that the list is very personal. Please don't feel bad if you've asked about our list. But know that the decisions that led to the list were not made lightly, and that prayer and tears went into that list. We feel pain over some of the needs we had to say "no" to. So be aware that many families do not wish to share their list with everyone.
We ended up with a list we feel very confident with. It has needs on it that we knew at the beginning would be there, it has needs that we never thought would be there, and it has some "no" checks that we thought would be "yes". It's been amazing how we've been stretched during the process. How our hearts have changed and how excited we are to bring home our child. How things that seemed like a big deal at the beginning feel like of comfortable to us now and how aware we now are that a person's "special needs" are just one aspect of that person and don't define him.
So, no, in some ways we don't know what we are getting into. But we feel like we have been given discernment and we are as prepared as we can be (for now) for whatever our baby brings. We probably won't be able to handle it alone. But together with God, our family, and our pediatrician, I think we'll all be just fine.
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