I was asked to share my experience with the special needs program and I readily agreed.  We adopted our son Timothy from China in May of 2008.  We started the adoption process wanting a healthy child and assuming we would probably get a little girl.  After all the paper chasing was done the wait had gone from 6 months to over 3 years for a healthy child.  I had thought about special needs adoption before and was always keeping my eye on the lists.  I talked to my husband about it and we agreed that we would be open to a special needs adoption and started looking for a child.  I tried to familiarize myself with some special needs and some medical terms.  Our agency started a new photo listing of special needs children and I looked on it for a couple of months.  Even though I didn’t see the child I thought was mine it did make me look at some conditions I wasn’t familiar with.  One day when a new list came out I saw what I thought was a baby girl (he was dressed in pink & white).  His special need was deformity of the feet.  Something about this child immediately drew me to him.  I made some calls to get better photos of his feet and then showed the little guy to my husband.  He was about 10 months old at the time and my husband agreed he felt the same draw I had.  We already had our dossier logged in and wanted to try to get this baby boy.  It took all day to do what we needed to do but we got it all done.  I don’t think we ever blinked an eye about knowing we wanted him.  We had already been logged in since Oct. of 2006 and this was Jan. of 2008.  We decided to keep this quiet until we knew we would be granted prior approval.  That wait was agonizing because we were already so attached to this little boy.  In the meantime I tried to gain more knowledge of his condition.  We got lots of opinions but mostly “We can’t really say until we see him.”  Somehow, we were able to take that leap of faith and be confident that this child was meant to be ours.  It didn’t take long for us to get PA and then start getting ready to go get Chu Xin Shun from Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, China.

We were finally ready to travel in late April of 2008 and didn’t know what to expect since my husband and I had neither one flown, ever.  We were so excited but sad we had to leave our then 8 year old daughter at home.  When we got to Beijing it was a strange, new world to us.  All I could think was give me the baby.  We were really ready to meet him by the time we got to Nanjing to pick him up.  The nanny from the orphanage carried him in screaming and it was a wonderful day.  He stopped crying but seemed in awe of his parents.  We asked the director some questions and realized he was still so small at 13 months.  He couldn’t sit up, eat solid food or even roll over.  He was almost like a newborn baby.  We looked at his feet sometime after we got back to the hotel.  He had one toe per foot and was missing a lot of the forefront of his feet.  We were not sure if they would grow or stay the same.  We were in love.  We were also exhausted the first couple of days.  He hadn’t been carried very much so he didn’t hold himself up well.  Mostly ,we were just in awe that this little guy, our Timothy, was indeed ours and would go home with us.  It felt like we had know him forever.  We had told all our family about him and his special need but some of the family were worried how he would really be.  We both knew from the time we got him we made the right decision.  Coming back to the states was a relief and tiring at the same time.  It was a long plane ride.  As the family met Timothy at the airport they were as in love as his parents.  Everyone wanted to meet him over the next few days.  Timothy settled in alright but was not sure about strangers. 

As the next year progressed Timothy got better at lots of things.  I don’t want to say it was easy but it was the best year of my life.  Hearing him say Mama and Daddy and Sissy, learning to crawl, learning to eat and in amazement at it all.  Timothy made a trip to Shriner’s hospitals and we learned his feet probably wouldn’t grow and it was advised amputation would be best.  I can still remember thinking Oh, God, no not that.  We prepared ourselves and him as best we could for surgery.  On the day we went to have him admitted he started toddling around.  We couldn’t believe it, this little guy would not let anything stand in his way.  The surgery went well but it was the hardest week of our lives.  Timothy knew his feet were gone and was in a lot of pain.  We made it through 6 weeks of casts and him being upset daily.  They got in his way but he didn’t let it stop him.  After his casts came off and the swelling went down he was fitted with prosthetics.  He has so much spirit and will that it doesn’t even phase him.  He can even walk very well, even run without them.  Yes, our son does have a special need but we thank God every day we were up to the challenge.  The special needs program may not be for everyone but these children are truly unique and can bring something wonderful into a family.  We are working on our second adoption of a special needs child and feel we can help at least one more child.  You may not realize how strong you are until you have to face a challenge.  In our case, we were willing to take a chance and feel so blessed to have this wonderful additional to our family.  Our entire group that went to China brought home special needs children.  We stay in touch with most of these families.  4 of these families are returning to adopt a special needs child.  We have found that most of the group has had a remarkable experience with the child they adopted and feel like their child was made for their family.  My advice to anyone considering special needs adoption is to find out about what special needs you would consider and talk to some families with experience in special needs adoption.  They will tell you the good and the bad.  For this family, we know it was the right thing for us.  Our entire community sees our child as an inspiration to anyone with an adversity or not.  When you see a child that is happy and healthy that has been through so much, how can you not try to do your best.  Thank you for this opportunity to share our story and experience with Great Wall’s waiting child program. 

– Anita Lee mom to Timothy Andrew Lee DOB 3/26/07 from Xuzhou , Jiangsu , China