One of the Blog Buzz questions at Red Letters this week is about adopting children with special needs.....
If you are considering or have adopted a special needs child: Where do you start? What questions should you ask of yourself, of your agency, of others?
First of all- I am no expert in this area. I honestly would not consider any of my children "Special Needs".... What is crazy to me is that in the adoption world ALL of my children are considered special needs. WEIRD!
Kaitlyn is our biological child and was born with metopic craniosynostosis. That means the front part of her skull fused in utero. She had to have one surgery when she was 9 months old. I won't go into gory details but they had to crack her skull apart and reshape it to make room for her head to grow. She was in the hospital for several days and her eyes were so swollen she could not see. You would never know would you???
As I was sitting there rocking her in the hospital room I thought about the fact that if she had not been born to me I would have been scared of her problem.... terrified to take her into my family. Yet, it was so minor. She had one surgery and no one- except maybe a trained professional would ever know she had a problem at all. Yet she was born "special needs" and had she been on an adoption list she would have no doubt waited a while with her scary diagnosis.
Zoe was a waiting child. Her "special need" was that she was older and harder to place. Of course we had some adjustments and transition but WOW! Can you get a cooler kid than Zoe??? NO WAY! She is such an amazing girl. Children who are older often wait for such a long time. Some never find families.
Kaiya is considered "special needs" too. She is a toddler and has a repaired cleft lip and partially repaired palate. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS KID??? She is so amazing. She will have a day surgery or two- all covered by insurance. She is precious and amazing. She waited on a waiting child list for 3 months with no family match because she is "special needs." WHOA!
It just blows me away... I am not saying that everyone should do "special needs" adoption. I am just saying that it's not something you should scare away from so easily. Look into what things are considered special needs. Figure out what your family can handle and get educated. Things aren't always as scary as they seem. :0) In fact I think things are RARELY as scary as they seem.
I am SO crazy for my "special needs" sweeties who really aren't all THAT "special needs" at all. Angel
