Special Need?

As all of you know, we adopted a child with the label special needs. Those can be two very scary words for expectant parents. With adopting from China, however, this term can mean a wide range of things, many of which aren’t so scary after all.

We chose to go the special needs (also known as waiting child) route, rather than request a healthy child because of the wait time. The wait for a healthy child from China is currently 6 years, and it seems that the wait time just keeps getting drawn out more and more. We didn’t feel that a 6 year wait was the right choice for us at our age. I believe the wait for a healthy child is so long because there just aren’t that many healthy orphans in China, most of them have some type of need. The wait time for a waiting child varies. Our agency, Children’s Hope International, told us that the wait for a special needs would be 16-18 months, and our wait was in that range at 17 months.

If you are thinking about adopting and are over come with fear of adopting a child with a special need that you aren’t prepared for, let me assure you that important decisions will be put into your hands. You will chose from a checklist of special needs those that you think you can manage. You also don’t have to take the first referral you receive if you don’t feel like the child is right for your family.

Filling out the checklist was not an easy thing. It took a lot of thought, discussion, and prayer. We believed from the beginning that God would match us with the child that He wanted us to have, so filling out a checklist that could hinder His work required a lot of thought. Most people check cleft lip and palate because it’s repairable. We checked that as well. We also checked club feet, because Brent’s brother was born with club feet. His was repaired successfully, so much so that he went on to set track records in high school. We also checked birth marks, hemangioma, webbed toes, extra fingers or toes, and we wrote in hernias and heart murmur. The last thing we decided on after much discussion and struggle was VSD (a hole in the heart). We decided to accept a child with VSD after finding out that Brent’s dad has a hole in his heart that he has probably had since birth. It was just found last fall, and it has never caused him any problems. Had the doctors not found his, we would most likely not have checked VSD on the list.

The day we received our referral was one of the greatest days of our lives. I had set up a special ring tone just for the lady at CHI that would be making our referral. Up to this point it was always me calling her to see if we were any closer to getting a referral. She had never called me. Anyway, the morning of the referral, about 20 minutes before the call, I was hearing that special ringtone in my head. I told myself that when I heard it for real, it would be Mary calling with a referral. Then I heard it for real, and she began telling me all about our little girl.

The first thing that she said was something like, “She’s a real cutie. I’m sure you will accept the referral.” Then came the words, “She’s a heart baby.” I took a deep breath with that statement, but in my mind I already knew this was the child for us. This was the child that God knew would someday become part of our family. We both felt that regardless of any details we would find out in the email to come, we would accept her. She was our daughter.

The months after our referral, I prayed daily for Mia’s 

healing, and I know that others were praying too.

While we were in China, we took Mia to the required medical exam. (Note to other adopting families – we submitted an international claims form to our medical insurance provider, and they refunded the cost for the exam 100 %.) The doctor there looked her over briefly and said, “She has a murmur. She may need surgery when you get home.” This was not what we wanted to hear. I was hoping that the murmur would be completely gone by this time. Mia’s murmur, however, is so loud that we can hear it when we put her chest up to our ears.

When we got home, we took Mia to our pediatrician because she was teething and not feeling well in general.  We thought that she might have an ear infection. Anyway, the doctor diagnosed her with infantigo.   Mia had been scratching and making sores on herself since we got her in China, but we thought it was a nervous condition. It turns out it was a treatable condition that needed antibiotics. The doctor also listened to her heart. Her comment made us feel hopeful. She said that sometimes small VSD’s cause louder murmurs. This makes sense.

The next week was Mia’s visit to the international adoption doctor at Cardinal Glennon in St. Louis, MO. On that day we had Mia tested for a whole list of stuff. There will be more tests this month, because they weren’t able to draw all the blood they needed for the tests due to her small size. Mia also had an echo done that day. This would be the real determiner of her condition. All that we found out that day was that she is underweight and still needs to gain some weight for overall health and brain development. The doctor told us to give her one Pediasure a day for now.

When we got the news on her first round of tests, we found out that she had a vitamin D deficiency and that the antibodies for the DPT vaccine weren’t present. She would be given a mega dose of vitamin D for four weeks, and the DPT series of shots would be started again.

What we found out from the echo is that the VSD that was determined as small to medium from an old echo done in China is now tiny. The thickening of the walls of the heart suggesting heart damage, also found in the test done in China, is no longer there. There is no damage, and the VSD is so small that it should never cause her any problems. Mia is a healthy child!!! Praise God. I really believe the VSD will close entirely within the next year, and the murmur will disappear. With God, all things are possible.

                              

                                                                  Lori