Continuing our month-long celebration of National Adoption Month, here is our second inspiring story.
Four years ago my husband and I decided that we wanted to adopt. When we were researching adoption, we came across an adoption agency that specializes in special needs adoptions. We both have had quite a bit of experience with people who have disabilities and decided we felt comfortable going this route. After two years of hoping and praying, we connected with an incredible set of birth parents who were working with an amazing agency in Florida. Their baby had a muscular disease that was very debilitating. A few months later, we jumped on a plane and flew to Florida. Meeting our sweet little girl for the first time was so special. Meeting her birth parents was equally special. They weren’t quite sure what level of openness they were ready for. We talked through things together and decided on what would work best for them and our little girl.
Over the past two years, we have grown very close to these birth parents. We decided to talk to our daughter about her adoption and her birth parents since day one. She will never remember us telling her she was adopted. It will be something she grew up knowing. We have their pictures on her dresser. We are able to fly out to meet them once a year. We do video calls at least once a month. Open adoption has been such a blessing, especially for our sweet two year old.
Adopting a child with special needs has been a beautiful, hard, and rewarding experience. It is heart wrenching to see her struggle with basic things like running and jumping. But it is so exciting to see her hit milestones and we all cheer as she conquers hard things. Adoption has changed our life for the better. We are huge advocates for special needs adoption.
— Submitted on behalf of adoptive parents by Robert C. Lamarche, a Fellow of AAAA practicing in the area of adoption law in Florida 
