5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Adopting a Child with Special Needs
Three and a half years ago, my husband and I fell in love with an 18-month-old boy from China.
He was precious.
He was perfect.
And he had medical special needs.
Having two biological children of our own at the time, we had no prior experience with caring for children with medical needs. And although my sweet hubby was a physician assistant very eager to love on a child he could provide for in our home, both of us, at times, wondered if we were really equipped to care for a child who would require multiple surgeries and daily assistance of some sort, especially when we had two other superheroes in our home already.
Distant friends told us this would too drastically change our lives. Acquaintances told us our biological children would be ruined. People who heard our story asked why we would choose to disrupt our comfortable life — the life with two children in a comfortable home and no health issues to worry about. Especially when we had no idea what we were doing.
There were seconds, moments, throughout the adopting process when, even as we LONGED to hurry the process and hold the sweet man we had nicknamed Superman in our arms, we wondered if these people were right. If God really knew what He was doing. If we were really the Kents for the job.
It turns out, we didn’t know what we were doing. And God did. And those people with their sweet protective hearts and their very good intentions — their opinions, combined with our fear, could have robbed us of one of the greatest blessings of our lives.
THIS is what adoptive parent Michelle knows now that she wishes paper pregnant Michelle would have known then. Because the world was very good at preparing us for the HARD parts of adopting a child with special needs … and very silent on the topic of the BLESSINGS.
I invite you to join me HERE at Beautiful in His Time to read the rest of the story.
Read moreYes, He's My Real Son and Other Answers to Awkward Questions
Over the years, onlookers, gapers and completely conspicuous gawkers have asked all the awkward questions — the questions that more people than you believe ask of a family who clearly looks “different” from other families.
Our team, we sometimes stick out in a crowd. One, because our energetic boys are usually leaping and jumping and poking sticks at each other THROUGH said crowd, and two, because one member of our team was clearly born in a different country. Of course, throw in the fact that said member is the most contagiously charismatic creature you have ever met and ALSO dons a wrist brace in the subtle color of construction cone orange, and people everywhere somehow feel entitled to ask questions they would never ask of families with children who resembled their parents and WEREN’T wearing prosthetics that nearly glowed in the dark.
In our two and a half years with Superman in our home, grocery store clerks, Costco shoppers and park patrons have asked if this boy we love so much is our “real” son, if I am “the Asian lady’s nanny” and if we “resorted” to finding a child in China because we couldn’t have our own children. But perhaps my favorite question of all time came from the commissary bagger who, as she helped me load milk and eggs into the back of my car, asked me if I had me an Asian man on the side.
Oh yes, I thought in my head. But shhh, don’t tell my husband. When this one popped out, he didn’t notice. Let’s keep the secret for a bit longer, shall we?
Read moreDJ Changed Our Story
We weren’t planning on hosting a child again so soon.
Our month with DJ, the 10-year-old superhero-in-waiting we hosted over the summer, was truly a milestone in our family’s lives. He wrecked our hearts and opened our eyes, and all of us decided hosting was something we absolutely wanted to do as a family once a year.
We just thought we’d WAIT a year before doing it again.
Until the email arrived in my box.
Read moreAudacious Love: What Orphan Hosting Taught Me About Loving Boldly
It’s been three weeks since I cried my way through the Atlanta International Airport, clinging to the hand of a boy who stole my heart and rocked my world.
Three weeks since that boy placed his hands on my cheeks and beamed as “Ayi ku la.”
Three weeks since we said “zai jian” to the 10-year-old superhero we can’t stop thinking about, reminiscing about, talking about or praying for.
I never knew three weeks could feel like such a lifetime ago and almost yesterday at the exact same time.
That boy, he wrecked me. Utterly, completely, wholly, fully wrecked me.
In the surprise of my life, God used a 10-year-old orphan from China to rewrite my definition of “love.” To turn my world upside down. To reveal my flaws. To shine a light on the dark spots of my heart. And to teach me about a NEW kind of love. A bold kind of love. A kind of love that gives itself wholly and unashamedly and FULLY without reservations, even when the person offering it knows that a 200 percent kind of love WILL end in a 100 percent chance of pain when the person being loved and the person doing the loving have to say goodbye at some point in the future.
Especially when the person imagining herself to DO the loving finds that SHE IS INSTEAD the one 200 percent fully LOVED.
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