Our Journey to Special Needs Adoption

I am a part of a yahoo chat group from our adoption agency that is made up of families who have either adopted a special needs child from China, are in the process, or are considering it. Recently a topic was brought up that was really close to my heart, gender preferences.
Some of you may know that Chinese people have a strong preference for sons. As a result, there have been thousands, if not millions, of daughters abandoned. In our culture, this is so hard to understand and seems so wrong. We can be quick to judge a country with such prejudices.
But don't be so quick... here's a sad reality that research is showing, out of eight American families who adopt, only one family will CHOOSE to adopt a boy. Ouch! This is a reality for all adoptions, international, domestic, first-time parents, parents of many, parents of both genders already, etc. It doesn't matter the circumstance; by and large, adoptive parents prefer girls.

Because this topic is close to my heart, here was my response to the group.

I am really glad that you brought up this topic for discussion. I am in some ways shocked and in other ways not surprised to hear that there is such a strong preference for girls among adoptions. I knew this with Chinese adoptions, but had no idea that it is such a strong factor among all other adoptions.
I'd like to share our story and hope that it might help others as they are considering adoption. We adopted our son, Joshua, from China three years ago. He was 22 months and had bilateral cleft lip and palate. I continue to marvel at him. He's bursting with personality, love, affection and skill. Our family is truly in love and smitten with him (including our two bio twins who are almost 8).

Our adoption process did not start with him in mind, however. We initially requested a girl, as young as possible and with no special needs (and to be honest I was secretly hoping that she would be cute because I worried about bonding with one who wasn't... shallow I know). As first time adopters, we had fears about adoption and bonding, so we figured that if we got one as young as possible she might not be too scarred. We had our own fears about our ability to bond with an adopted child as well. And, we thought we were already being pretty heroic already just by adopting internationally... we didn't even consider special needs.
I think our initial choice in choosing a girl was mostly out of our comfort level and experience. We knew two other families who had adopted Chinese girls. It sounded easier and safer to get a daughter. Plus, to be painfully honest, I didn't think Asian boys were all that attractive. Sad, I know.
Well, God had a way of showing us all of our wrong thinking and He also had plenty of time to correct our path as the wait time for healthy girls started growing fast soon after we sent in our dossier. About two years into the wait, I felt like I started hearing messages about special needs from every direction. My husband and I gave it a considerable amount of prayer and both felt like we were not supposed to proceed with changing to special needs adoption at that time. About six months later I sensed in my heart that I needed to pray about this again. Through that, God began to show me how imperfect I was when He adopted me, and how I had decided on my own what kind of child I wanted instead of letting Him decide. I was showing favoritism and God doesn't do that (see James 2). It's strange how as adopted parents we think that since choices and options are before us, that they are our choices to make. We didn't get to choose the sex of our biological kids, or whether or not they were special needs. For our family, I felt like God was asking us to trust Him to give us the child He wanted us to have... boy or girl, healthy or not. I'm not implying that He takes all families on the same journey or that He doesn't allow us some choice in the matter. I just feel like so often, we haven't given God enough of the say.
In the end, He chose a son for us. And I have to say that it was harder to adjust to the fact that I was getting a boy, than to the fact that he had special needs, partly because we had been planning and praying for a little girl for nearly 3 years.
I am so grateful that the Lord gently corrected my wrong desires and decisions and that His sovereign hand interrupted our course so that we could have Josh!!
My biggest encouragement to people who are adopting is to be very careful and prayerful about the choices you are given. Be sure that you are allowing the Lord to direct your choices and trust Him with the results.
Blessings,
Lesli