A Waiting Child

In the traditional adoption program, which we are in now, we are expecting a healthy baby girl, somewhere between 7 - 11 months old. But we have also been giving a lot of thought to the Waiting Child, or Special Needs program and are in the process of applying to this program as well.

The more we got involved in this process, the more it seemed to us that there was a much greater need for adoptive parents of special needs children, rather than healthy children. At first this was a little intimidating to us, but the more we researched, talked to families of special needs children, and prayed about it, the more open we became to certain conditions and the more they didn't seem like such a huge deal. Specifically, we have been learning a lot about cleft and lip palate, but are also open to a few other conditions as well.

It's an interesting thought process, learning about all kinds of issues you never thought about, imagining a child with a physical deformity or other challenge in your family - but the more I think about, the rest of us aren't so perfect and normal anyway : ).

Chances are, a waiting child would be a little older, maybe even closer to two or three. The weirdest thing about that for us is that that means our child could already be alive, and maybe has been for some time. It's a very strange feeling - to think you have a child on the other side of the world and you have no control and you just have to trust that someone is taking good care of her or him.

Anyway, there is no guarantee that we will find a waiting child for us - in that case, we would still be given a healthy child if we haven't found a waiting child by the time they get to our dossier. For now, they will send us a profile of a child (girl or boy) that have a condition we are open to. It's a pretty surreal thought - almost as if you are shopping for your child over the internet.

When you get pregnant and have a baby, you just receive the baby you get as a gift from God. Same thing I think if you're in the traditional program and China assigns you a child. I have no idea how you know by looking at a little picture and reading some medical information if this is going to be your child forever or not. We are praying that God would make it very, very clear to us if a particular child is the one for us.