Special Needs

I've grown to dislike the term, "special needs." It implies that there is something terribly wrong with you.

Recently, I was speaking with the director of international adoption at a local agency. She had just returned from a trip to China and South Korea. She expressed discouragement over the children in the orphanages in China. She said that the children's needs were much more severe than they have ever seen before.

It bugged me a little. Was she discouraged because knew they'd be harder to place? Was she discouraged because there are less "healthy" children available now? I hope it's the former, because less children being available for adoption is a GOOD thing!

She got me thinking.

When we came home from China I was racked with guilt for taking our daughter away from everything she knew. I wished with all my heart that she could be with the parents who had created her. I wished that I knew something, ANYTHING about why they abandoned her.

Last year China changed their law prohibiting citizens from having more than one child to allow them to have two children. (Still a human rights violation but at least slightly less of one.) Is it possible that if that law had been changed in 2012 our daughter could have stayed with her first family? I guess I'll never really know.

But, maybe, just maybe the explanation for less minor special needs children in orphanages is the change in the law. Maybe their families are deciding to take a chance on them. Maybe it's a sign of social change. I hope that is the case because that would be wonderful.

Autumn is not handicapped. That is the last time you will ever see me use her name and that word in the same sentence. She is not disabled, she is not defective. She is PERFECT and healthy and wonderful and she is as much my daughter now as if I had given birth to her. She is not lucky that we adopted her. A child left on a street corner is not lucky.

We are lucky to have been given the chance to have her in our family.

Everyone has something that is different about them. Everyone has special needs. Sometimes those differences are obvious. Most of the time they are invisible. Don't be afraid to take a chance and help someone.

Everyone has special needs. Every. Single. Person.