The Face of Waiting Child Adoption: Spina Bifida

We adopted Grace through China's Waiting Child, or Special Needs Adoption program. There are thousands of waiting children in China. Needs range from mild and correctable to much more severe. I don't often talk about Grace's "special need" of Spina Bifida, because it has been a total non-issue.  She has a milder form of SB (meningocele) which required major surgery at one time, and could cause problems later on in life, but has required very little from us.  When we had our final homestudy on Tuesday our social worker told us that unfortunately she sees too many adoptions end in disruption. She feels that parents are going into adoptions hoping that everything will turn out perfect, and often times it doesn't.  We made the decision to adopt Grace no matter what we found her condition to be once we got to China.  However, we also did our research.  We knew that Chinese health records are often not entirely accurate.  While her prognosis appeared to be very good, spina bifida can range from very minor symptoms to complete paralysis from the waist down, incontinence and several other issues.  We are grateful that Grace has been so healthy, but we believe that she would be every bit as much of a blessing to us had her special needs been more severe then they turned out to be.