Questions answered.
We've had a lot of people asking why we're going with special needs this time. Thought some of you might also be curious but too polite to ask.
First...any parent of any child can become a parent to a special needs child at any time.
Next, it's pretty much the only reasonable way to adopt from China any more. Their are families still waiting in the non-special-needs line up, China has matched up to Oct 2006. We adopted Jia 2 1/2 years ago from this line up, she was a May 2006 kiddo. In two and half years the line up has moved five months. There aren't any agencies left in Canada that are taking applications for this line up that we know of. The NSN line up doesn't guarantee a child with out needs anyways. We do consider ourselves pretty darn lucky with Jia. She hasn't presented any medical needs. She is however very intense, full of drama, extremely demanding, loud and quite difficult in personality often. We laugh daily and say 'thank goodness she's so cute'.
We have three children, two of them have special needs. Going by the special needs list, Lili and Fei both have a few. They each have a label that would have made us seriously consider adopting them had we known. Of course now that they are ours we have no issues with the needs and we all just deal daily. No big deal in our world.
We have requested that what ever need our son has not be life threatening or life shortening. We have requested that he be healthy with a need that can be corrected or managed fairly easily. Neither Eric, Lili, Fei or I have any reserves about adopting special needs. We have NO idea what need our son will have, we are anxious to learn everything about him, where he is, how old he is, what he looks like, what his needs are and how soon we can go get him.
A lot of people in China adoption fight for the term 'waiting child' but I prefer special need, all children waiting for families are 'waiting children' in my opinion.
I'll also say that I do believe that all children being adopted internationally are special needs to some degree.
Why not another girl? or Why a boy? Really funny. We've spent years trying to say we didn't ask for 'not a boy'. Now our answer is the same, we haven't asked for 'not a girl'. You just can't win with this debate in adoption.
Oh, and why China? because it makes the most sense to all of us for many reasons but mostly cultural celebrations will just be easier if our children are all from the same Country.
Next issue that needs a bit more clarification, I've had a few Mom's from the China adoption circles want us to fight harder for Little Guy. We've done that. We've had three different contacts in China try to get him paper ready. The Director of his SWI has been firm all along, since the beginning that he can not be adopted internationally. It's been eight months. The very last thing Eric and I want is an unethical adoption. I've had lots of people suggest reasons why he might not be adoptable. We don't know the answers and will likely never know with any certainty. We have our own suspicions about what is happening. I've read that 80% of children world wide in orphanages are not really orphans. Hague rules dictate very clearly that a child moved internationally must be a legal orphan. Little Guy is missing paperwork. He can not have a file sent to CCWA in Beijing. He can not be adopted internationally. Even if we moved to China, we couldn't adopt him without being citizens. Some SWI's raise children and then have them stay at work at the SWI. I actually hope this is the case, it's not ideal by any means but it would mean he is in a place that accepts him and he'll have a future there. We are extremely sad that he isn't joining our family. I read sad stories about orphans every day, he isn't alone in his plight. I do feel comfortable knowing I've done all that we could reasonably do for him. For everyone who knows me, you know I can be pretty pushy when I need to be :) In this case, we are bowing out as gracefully as possible. Secure in the knowledge that every child with paperwork in at CCWA needs a family and one of them will be our son.
