"SPECIAL" Yes, That's the Perfect Word

Look at my girl, she's special alright! I have always posted on my beautiful family, and of course the inspiration behind this blog, Maggie Peng. Being a busy mom to four kids, I try to find the time to post pictures and share some of our day to day happenings and now want to share just how special our girl is!!
We started the adoption process in July 2005 and we logged in to China Jan 06. We were on a list for a non special needs child as young as possible and of course a little girl. When we started our process the wait time was 6 months for a referral. Joe and I really never looked in to the special needs/waiting child list, because to be honest we didn't know anything about it at that time.
Spring of 06, I spoke to another adoptive mother, who had adopted her three daughters from China and they were all special needs children. I was really surprised by what China considered special needs and thought to myself, we would most definitely be open to specific special needs children, that we thought would fit into our family.
I did mention this to some people that our name was on a list for a special needs child, and I really was surprised by the feedback I received. I can't tell you how many "are you sure you know what your getting into? and can you really handle a child with a special need and the boys", and so on. So what I decided was to be selective on who I shared information with and just wait and see.
I never really called my adoption agency to see where I was on the list, I just waited and thought my daughter will be exactly who she is suppose to be. We knew we would not limit our search for our daughter because of a medical condition WE considered minor.
As luck would have it, our beautiful daughter came into our lives, after our social worker asked me three times if we wanted to take our names off the special needs list, because we were so close to a non special needs baby. I answered three times "no, keep our names on the list, I don't want to change anything", and then she proceeded to tell me about a little girl 18 months old recovering from open heart surgery to repair VSD. I later asked our social worker why she asked me three times about changing our status of a special needs child, and she replied "I wanted to make sure you were committed" Well we were committed, and our daughter is exactly where she was suppose to be, with us!
Special needs children from China includes a huge spectrum of pre-existing medical conditions.
I really want to try to advocate for these children and blog more on our experience of adopting a special needs child, and like I said "Special is just the right word"! We are so blessed to have our beautiful Maggie Peng in our lives!