We didn't plan to adopt a special needs child either. In fact dh never planned to adopt at all! I had always wanted to adopt and always wanted lots of kids. Dh was overwhelmed when our boys were born so close together and we realized that I hate housework, LOL.
Two things happened very close to each other. One: I was searching the web for some deaf friends and ended up on a website with photos of children who needed homes (deaf) for some reason, even though that's not what I was looking for, I kept ending up on that page, and this one boy Nikolai, I could not forget. I just couldn't put it out of my mind. At the same time we got a new pastor (we are Methodist and the like to move pastors around every couple of years) and his passion was Russian orphans. He had gone on a mission trip and been allowed in a special needs orphanage. He brought back pictures of children tied to beds and such. They were all so thin and frail and he told me some of them really did not have that much wrong with them. One, just was shy and would not talk to the lady who came to test him. I decided right then and there we needed to adopt from Russia. So first I ordered stuff from every agency I could find. Then I had a talk with dh who told me we could not afford it. Not wanting to tell me no, and crush me, he gave me a number (half of the lowest one) and said that he would do it if it cost less than that. I was awake praying all night. The next day I got a note in the mail, a new agency was starting, the lady was a friend of our pastor's and she was willing to give us a huge discount if we would be the first family through the new program. Her figure came in just under dh's! Of course then we found out there were other fees, starting with the homestudy, which we ended up getting for free!
Anyway then we did all the paperwork and nothing happened. We ended up moving and nothing happened. Then some missionaries contacted us about a boy they had found who was missing a leg and had a club foot in Ekat. Would we be interested? Well, I did a lot of research because at first I thought no way that kid could live in our two story house, also I kind of wanted a girl by this point having two boys. Well, finally I said yes, and then it falls through. So finally we get a letter in Russian from the region that offers me my choice of nine special needs children and I need to go there and choose one, now this was not the way things were done back then, but I was so desperate and there were rumors of Russia shutting down, so I jumped on it and jumped on a plane. Anyway, because of the little boy I asked to see limb different kids first, some of the children had heart defects and I knew it could be nothing or it could be something that would kill them before I could get them home, so I only felt comfortable with the limb different ones since I had researched that. Long story short I found my daughter. Six years later we got a call out of the blue about a baby in a domestic situation, and decided to go for it, but that didn't work out, but that made me want another child, so we started our search. I knew I wanted another limb different child. And just when I gave up, we got a call about our son. I would love another one, but dh is saying NO.
Since I have one with some issues now, I definataly feel the physical issues are way easier than the emotional ones!