How do you make the decision to adopt a child with SN?

[LessTraveledBy]

After looking at a website with SN children waiting to be adopted, I would like to hear your story if you have adopted or are open to adopting a special needs child. While I am thinking of something like DS and FAS, I would be interested in all thoughts.

[carol7906]

You may want to read some about FAS to become more familiar with it. There aren't a lot of books but Diane Malbin has a couple that are very informative. She also has a good webpage that gives good information. Hope that is helpful!

[Whistler]

We're adopting a SN child. I'm not supposed to share medical info while we're in process, but we researched her condition and decided it was one our family could handle. Not every family can handle every type of need. For instance, FAS is one I do not feel I could deal with, but other families do great with kids who have that.

Hubby used to not be open to SN kids. I asked him what changed his mind. He said that the three we have are so much work already that adding a SN kid can't be too much worse! *lol*

[pumpkingirl71]

My daughter has special needs. Her adoption was a kinship adoption. We knew that if our daughter was placed with another family, we would lose touch with her. I am a huge advocate for adoption and special needs adoption, but I also know that I went into the process thinking I had educated myself. Then I realized that I so was not ready for the challenges we face on a daily basis. It is very hard to take the rose colored glasses off when goign through the adoption process.

[Whistler]

Originally Posted by pumpkingirl71

My daughter has special needs. Her adoption was a kinship adoption. We knew that if our daughter was placed with another family, we would lose touch with her. I am a huge advocate for adoption and special needs adoption, but I also know that I went into the process thinking I had educated myself. Then I realized that I so was not ready for the challenges we face on a daily basis. It is very hard to take the rose colored glasses off when goign through the adoption process.

One thing that helped with our decision is that I have the same issue as our child... so a little bit of experience in dealing.

[LessTraveledBy]

Thanks, everyone!

This is such a difficult, big question. It will probably take me a loooong time to find the answers that are right for our family. Yet, I find it important to at least ask the question.

[excitedtobeamom]

Over time we have become more and more open to special needs. We have read a lot more about them. FAS is not one I would consider but I think as you learn from others and read you and your husband will get a good "feeling" about what is right for your family. I definately think a lot of time thinking and researching really helps. I just read in one of my adoption books that special needs adoptions, where the family knowing adopted a child with special needs, have some of the high rates of satisifaction. I found that interesting.

[LessTraveledBy]

Thanks, everyone!

A relative has fostered (or adopted, not sure) 5 kids with SN, including FAS. However, you would not know that they are SP by talking with them, so it is quite different than what I am thinking of. They are all teenagers by now, so it is interesting to see how it all worked out. I think I will try to talk with the mom some time. They did not have biological children, though, so it is a bit different that way. I am trying to figure out what would be ok or even good for our dd.

[Sierra]

In our case, we felt best suited for some special needs and not others. However, we received inaccurate information with the placement of my dd, and over time we've discovered her needs to be different than anticipated. In that way, we didn't so much choose as we stumbled upon this special situation. I am so thankful everyday that we didn't know what we know now about dd's needs, as I think we would have felt unable to accept her placement with us. It's been rough on occassion, but in other ways it has taken us by surprise how well she has done...and how well we've done too. With ds (who came first), we had known about his special needs from the get-go, but because of his age (newborn), there were so many uncertainties about what they would mean over the longterm. Actually, he's five and there are *still* uncertainties. What will his future be like? I have no idea. In some ways I can easily see him growing into a fully independent life in which he is able to do things that he wants to do (jobs, etc.). In other ways I can see him needing assistance as he ages into adulthood, and that some things he wants to do will be a struggle. At this point, I don't worry about it. We just enjoy being family.

[Polliwog]

I would talk to as many people as possible who've parented, fostered, taught, etc a child with a particular special need. Either people you can meet IRL or on various message boards. I haven't parented a child with FAS or FAE but I have taught some. I don't that parenting a child with FAE or FAS would be a challenge that I would likely take on unless that child came as a regular foster placement and I knew that child (and his/her likely prognosis) very well. It's a really rough road much of the time and it's not something that a teenager would outgrow.

I started fostering my son when he was two and adopted him right before his fourth birthday. Although he was receiving speech therapy (and behavioral therapy) when I first met him, those weren't needed after he aged out of early intervention. But, in kindergarten school-related issues cropped up that weren't apparent in his child-centered preschool programs. What's more scary is his family history of severe mental illness. But, we don't know if he'll develop anything until he develops it. Hard to predict.

My soon-to-be-adopted daughter came to me at nine months and I'm adopting her next month. She'll be four this winter (eeek.) She's developmentally typical (to possibly a bit advanced) but she's got HUGE risk factors from her birth mother's pregnancy and mental health and developmental issues. Again, there's no way to predict what may crop up for her but thankfully she doesn't have any alcohol-related problems. Which is is really lucky in her case.

[sbrinton]

My husband and I have just gone through this. Today we submitted our special needs "form" to our adoption agency. As a part of a homestudy for international adoption, you have to be very specific about the special needs you would consider.

Two of our older bio kids have had special needs. Both were born prematurely and are very small for their ages. One had a heart defect that required surgery. Another has hearing loss and was in an accident where his finger was crushed. As a result, we have spent about six weeks inpatient in the hospital with them and have been to dozens of clinic appointments at Childrens. We also have had kids in therapy and generally know our way around our local medical system. For us, this meant we feel well prepared to parent a child with some medical needs.

For our family, given that our bio kids are not much older that our adopted daughter will be, behavioral or severe developmental problems seem much harder. So for example, we're open to heart defects, HIV and hearing loss, but not to drug or alcohol exposure.

I found that spending time learning about the resources in our community as well as talking with adoptive and biological parents who have kids with whatever special need we're looking into was very helpful.

As I've talked with mroe families, we've found that nearly 1/3rd of the children we know have some sort of special need. When it's actually a child we know, we don't see them as just a diagnoses, if that makes sense. Whether the child as autism or requires 24 nursing care, the child is a part of a family and the parents are our friends and it doens't seem nearly as scary as a diagnoses on a piece of paper.

We're currently considering adopting a toddler who is HIV+. We have not seen her full history, but anticipate growth issues and developmental delay as well.