Who could blame her?

See this picture? This is what our daughter's adoption looked like one year ago today. This sweet little girl was scared out of her mind.  She didn't want to leave the only caretakers she had ever known and live with complete strangers who spoke a different language.

Who could blame her?

She had been screaming and writhing for at least 10 minutes in my arms. She had the inhuman strength of a toddler in full tantrum. I could scarcely hold onto her. Sweat was dripping down my back.  If I put her down she would run away looking for her "aunties" (that's what she called her former caretakers.) If she found them we had to separate her from them all over again. It was unimaginably heartbreaking.

We were not allowed leave the civil affairs building with our daughter that day until we took a family picture to be printed for our adoption decree (a legal document proving our status as her parents.) "Say cheese!" This was the best picture they could get.

Before traveling to China, I read the books, listened to the podcasts and took the webinars. They all said to be prepared for your child to not want to come with you, especially a toddler in a foreign country. I was not prepared for this. Nothing could ever prepare anyone for a day like that day.

Remembering this day doesn't make me feel like celebrating. It makes me want to cry. This is the ugly truth that nobody wants to tell you:

Adoption is pain. Adoption is tragedy. Adoption is harder than you can ever imagine.

But it's also totally worth it.

Top row: Her second day with us, showing her defiant side, at the playground
Middle row: First pic of all three siblings together, at the playground, in China after a week with us
Bottom row: Getting to know big sister, showing her silly side, soap mohawk in the tub 

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.