[socheltree]

I have been thinking about my initial post in this thread, and thought perhaps I should elaborate a little.

I was a VERY reluctant "DH" (the D stands for "dear", and not another "D" word, right?) regarding SN when we began. On our agency application we put "healthy infant girl, as young as possible". I was very adamant about that. I thought trans-racial international adoption was going to be challenging enough! So when my wife started showing me pictures of this little boy with a club hand I thought she was crazy! We already have 2 boys (18 & 15) the whole point of going with China was to get a little girl. I was terrified of attachment issues, etc.

It didn't take me long to realize that I was mistaken. This little guy was the right child for our family. The SN factor was a good fit for us. My sister, who lives close to us, has a son with major birth defects that affect all of his limbs. We've watched him grow up and endure surgeries, etc. He will never be like other people, but he is doing great! I looked at the pictures of this guy with a funny hand and thought, "we can do this." We knew the support systems, and had seen first hand how children adapt to their differences. That said, someone above referred to limb differences as being "correctable". Some are I suppose, but the course of action recommended for our son was to leave him alone, and let him adapt. His right hand is normal, and he can do many things with his left. So far it affects him very little, but it will always be different.

As to how "easy" it's been, I should say we have had our set of challenges - he has health issues we were unaware of when we adopted him, and he has oral aversion issues. Our agency required we take a number of online training classes before submitting our dossier. This was very helpful in preparing us. Also, we are experienced parents, and my wife is an early-childhood educator with years of experience. I think we were very lucky to receive such a loving and (generally) easy-going child. But a lot of why things have seemed easy for us is because we were very prepared, and have been willing to take things as they come. Being an older, experienced parent has it's advantages.