Re-doing our Special Needs List

As I mentioned in my earlier post, Referral Blues, we received 2 referrals for 2 sets of siblings. In summary: the first sibling referral was never "official" even though we received paperwork and pictures (and we didn't understand that at the time) and we said "yes" enthusiastically and then while waiting for our travel date, it was officially taken away from us and our hearts were broken.   We then immediately received another referral (that was official) for another set of siblings and we began to bond with them through pictures and videos, but they were too high risk for us to accept and outside of the parameters.  One of them had an extreme small head size and the doctor was almost 100% certain he has mental retardation. The difficult thing is sometimes these children end up OK, but we have to go by what the doctor say and not by great stories we hear on the internet of those who proceeded anyways and the doctors were proved wrong.  I've been struggling with wondering...  but I'm also reminded to trust the guidance of my husband and just see these 2 as not the right choice for us.

I'm trying to be a "big girl" and accept this process with the heartaches as part of the mission we're on the rescue the right children God has for us. I've been communicating with others since my post who have had to decline and they have shared their experiences.

Our Social Worker says re-doing our Special Needs list will help. I think our older list communicated well enough. So, I'm not exactly sure what is wrong with our old list and how to do the new list.   On one hand, you don't want to be too strict with what we'll accept.  God's child for us could have some severe delays, or a deformity and could be just fine.  If we mark "no" on anything that could possibly be a sign of mental retardation or serious illness in order to prevent a high risk referral, we could shut the door on blessing a child we could certainly handle.  So, we long to be more than a piece of paper.   (And can you really expect a document to "work"?)  Another thing our social worker suggested was discussing the Special Needs list with an International Doctor. And we have made a phone appointment for that for 10:00 AM Monday.   I think we'll be glad we did and maybe I'll have more confidence in our list, and we can only hope that it communicates better for us.

But in this process, I'm learning, you should not be surprised if referrals are made outside the parameters given, because 1) there is a desire to move these children into homes and they may push some boundaries you have set, and 2) they're not medically trained and we shouldn't expect them to be.  So, the process is far from perfect.  But I am not perfect.  There is only One who is.