Why adopt a Special Needs Child?
For anyone considering adoption, you have the choice of a healthy child, or a child with special needs. When we first started the process to bring home Emma, we would have never considered adopting a special needs child. As we became familiar with the process of the "regular" China program, we heard about children being adopted with special needs. Interested, we joined the Waiting Children China yahoo group to get more information on special needs children.
China calls these children handicapped, and we were shocked to find that many of these children had very correctible and minor needs! Many of the children have needs that can easily be corrected or repaired through surgery or treatment like cleft lip and/or palate, heart defects, birthmarks, loss of sight or hearing, missing fingers or toes, limb differences, droopy eyelids, etc. Our daughter Elena is what you might call "special needs" because she has a large hemangioma on her arm. We barely even notice this and it isn't a big issue at all. So while we were waiting for Emma's referral, we started looking into the waiting child program. We were a bit hesitant at first, but our daughter Sera was the one who had the application all filled out and ready for our agency! We decided to take a step back and see what God had in store for us. Obviousley, Emma was meant for us, so we are glad we waited! But while we were still waiting, we came across a website called The Philip Hayden Foundation. PHF is a foster home in Langfang, China that cares for orphans who have special needs. They take in orphans from many overcrowded nearby orphanages and get the children any kind of surgery or rehabilitaion they might need before finding loving homes for the children. (Note: PHF is not an adoption agency!) We became especially drawn to a sweet and beautiful little girl on their website who had a repaired special need. We asked PHF about her and if she had a family, and were surprised she didn't! Her paperwork had been lost, so we asked if they could contact her orphanage and get her paperwork sent to the CCAA for adoption. Meanwhile, our referral from China arrived and we got ready to bring Emma home. We flew to China a few days earlier than our travel group because we wanted to tour PHF's Langfang Children's Village. We were able to and couldn't believe how these children stole our hearts! We were able to meet the little girl we were interested in and were able to spend time with her and some of her friends. We didn't even notice that one of the little boys we were playing with was missing three fingers on his hand! When you think of a special needs child, most people think of a child who might be mentally retarded or handicapped. These children were in no way handicapped at all! They were normal, active and adorable little kids! After meeting them, we knew we had to adopt a special needs child! While we were in China, we talked to many other families adopting a child and talked about our journeys. We even "caught" Claudio saying to another family, "Oh maybe we should use that airline when we come back!" Our trip was long, so we were astonished to see a family that had only been in China 8 days... while we had been there almost 17! It was decided that if we couldn't adopt the little girl we were interested in, we would adopt a child from Guangdong province with a special need of either a heart defect or cleft lip/palate. We also wanted to adopt a toddler, preferably older then Emma. In November 2004, Lifeline Children's Services recieved their new special needs list. A friend of ours e-mailed saying that a little girl on their list looked just like our Emma! We hurried over and looked at her profile and pictures. At first, we didn't think they looked alike at all. But as we scrolled down and looked at a few more pictures, there was a picture of her that looked EXACTLEY like Emma's referral picture! The girls were only a month apart and instantley thoughts of them being twins popped into my mind! But then I saw this little girl was from Guangdong province, in southern China near Hong Kong. Emma was from Beijing, in northern China. The fact that they were born thousands of miles apart from eachother, made me disregard the fact that they could be related.
Anyways, this little girl was just so cute, and we knew she would find a family! We continued on, looking for the little girl we wanted to adopt. Within a month or so, we found out that her paperwork had arrived on an agencie's special needs list. We quickley contacted the agency, but they could not accept us because we had five children already. Another family was interested in her, so we had to leave it at that. But just because God closes one door, doesn't mean he can't open a window!
A few days after hearing that we could not adopt her, we got an e-mail from Lifeline. They had a few children on their waiting child list still in need of homes. I went to the website to see if Emma's "twin" had a family yet, and could not believe she didn't!! There were updated pictures of her, and when I saw them, I still couldn't get over how much they looked alike.
This little girl (nick named "Brittany") was just 5 weeks older than Emma and had a repaired cleft lip and palate. She was fron Guangdong Province. She was the right age we were looking for, had a special need we knew we could handle and was from the province of our choice. We e-mailed Lifeline (knowing that they probably wouldn't accept us because we had five childen) and asked if they would let us pursue adopting her. The next morning, we got an e-mail from Dustin at Lifeline saying he would be willing to ask the CCAA if they would accept us. We quickley filled out the required information and waited to hear CCAA's answer. About a week later, the e-mail we had been waiting for, arrived. "YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ADOPT BRITTANY!!" Those words made my heart melt!! Knowing that we would be able to adopt her, we had to seriousley discuss "Brittany" as a family. When we inquired about her, we were almost positive CCAA would say no. It was quite a surprise to hear them say yes! I knew that Claudio was not 100% on board with the idea of adopting again. He felt that our plate was full with five children and that we should just be happy with the children we have. In a way I felt that yes, we should be happy, but on the other hand this little girl's paperwork was about to be returned to China. The chances of her being adopted would now be small, since her paperwork may not return to another agencies special needs list. I thought about the kind of life she would have if she stayed in China. Orphans, are often looked down on in society, but an orphan with special needs? What would her life be like? These questions filled my head and I didn't know the answers. But somehow, I felt that God was slowly answering them by saying, "Maybe this IS your daughter??" Finally I brought it up to Claudio. I had told him about her before, but he simply disregarded it. We talked long and hard about the pro's and cons of adopting again. We had wanted to adopt once more, and Claudio felt this was too soon, since we had only been home 6 months with Emma. But I felt this was the perfect time to adopt again. Over the past few months, China had started to get stricter with it's rules, including not allowing families with 5 or more children to adopt, and rumors had started about the age limit being decreased. If we wanted another child, we had better do it now while we're able to squeeze in through the family size issue, or wait till our oldest turned 18. Three years seemed like a long time and we really wanted Emma to be the baby of the family. We weren't sure if we'd be ready to adopt a five or six year old. So, this seemed like the perfect time. And, ultimately girls have their ways, so we were able to persuade Claudio into adopting one more time! We called Lifeline just two days before her file would go back and said, "WE WANT HER!" And so the journey to our next daughter, Esther Joy XiaoTian BEGAN!We are pretty sure Esther will be our LAST child! I have promised Claudio that 6 is our number. However, maybe Ian can persuade his dad into a brother!
Feel free to e-mail us with any questions you have regarding Special needs adoptions!!!
