Rumors, Schmumors.

Interesting blog entry. Not sure if I like the blogger yet or not, but she definately cuts straight to the point with no vanilla icing, which I do like.

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Rumors, Schmumors.
August 16th, 2007 · No Comments

Damn rumors making my work more difficult. There’s been a lot of chatter about Chinese children with special needs being referred in the non-special needs program once they have had corrective surgery. Apparently these children have had corrections done such as extra digits that have been removed or minor heart repairs. But the one condition that seems to have everyone’s undies in a bunch is a cleft-affected child who has had the cleft repaired.

The most frustrating part to me about all this gossip is how families waiting for the referral of a NSN referral are talking about it. They are being horribly insensitive. It seems to me that they keep cloaking their desires for a child without any medical issues as what is “the best interest of the child.” Their argument goes that a family referred one of these “repaired” children is not prepared to parent such a child, and therefore the CCAA is not acting in the best interest of the child.

Does anyone else see how stupid this argument is? It makes me so frustrated that I can hardly put together a cohesive retort.

First of all, I think these families need to realize there is no guarantee that ANY child will be completely “healthy.” Perhaps that’s part of the pipe dream of some China families since one reason families pick China is because there is no family history to the child, and as far as doctor’s reports can tell the child is healthy. This information alone does not ensure that a child is defect-free. This idea ties into one of my former posts about families wanting to “order” their kids just the way they want them. Sorry, but even for families who have their own children they cannot do this. Even in my own family, my brother and his wife gave birth to a beautiful little girl who nearly a year later was diagnosed with a serious heart defect. Does this then mean that because they didn’t prepare for a child with such a condition that it is not in this child’s best interest to remain in this family? Of course not. Nothing in life is perfect. There are going to be surprises and bumps along the way. It all depends on how you want to look at it.

Secondly, I think that all this talk about a few instances where children like this have been referred has brought out all the dirty laundry and scary stories people have heard about families adopting a child that they thought was healthy (whether after having corrective surgery or just not having any issues documented in the original referral). This, in turn, frightens everyone else because now they think that this sort of thing happens a lot more frequently than it actually does, and that they may be next. Then, suddenly its doomsday in China-adoption-town, with the China adoption program quickly going to hell in a hand basket.

Furthermore, I really don’t think the CCAA in China is doing any of this maliciously. I think that they are bending their definition of a child with no known medical needs to include these children with corrected conditions because they have so many PAP applications that they are trying to match. It seems to me that the CCAA is in fact doing what it sees as the best for these children because it is matching them with families. And children with a removed extra digit or a cleft lip that was repaired maybe really are healthy after corrective surgery. I think the CCAA is really just trying to do the best they can for everyone involved in this process—finding children homes, giving families the opportunity to parent, and to keep the criticism of their agency to a minimum.

Perhaps if these stories were shared openly with families early in their adoption journey, they would not have such high expectations about the health of children coming from China. I know that even within the agency I work for we see a couple cases each year where a child referred to a family as a NSN child returns home and it is discovered here that the child has a medical concern. And the possibility of being presented with the referral of a child with a minor, corrected condition is there too. This just happens. It’s happened every year for many years because believe it or not, adoption is uncertain in more ways than just wait times. All families need to prepare themselves for the possibility that their child may be one out of the hundreds that has an issue, and how they are going to deal with that situation, should it arise, beyond making judgment calls out of fear.