I certainly did think exactly that. To be honest, I thought it more than once in the 14 years that Super Dad and I have been adopting and fostering children. Six of our seven adoptions were through the state foster care system and are considered special needs by the state.

Why the sudden true confessions? Yesterday, I received an email from a college student working on a project she called “six degrees of separation” for her Research Methods and Gathering Class.” She had found my email address on my special needs blogs and wondered if she could ask me some questions about parenting an adopted child with special needs. One of the questions that she asked me was…

“At any point did you think to yourself that this was too much to handle and what helped bring you out of that state of mind?”

The first time I can remember feeling this way was when we were fairly new foster parents. We had accepted an older sibling group whom we thought would be returning home soon. They were beautiful and intelligent children. However, they had suffered many years of chaos and neglect. They were our fourth placement and we definitely were not prepared for their behaviors.

The younger sibling between the ages of 7 and 10 really put our family through the ringer. She defecated in bed and all over the bathroom and made lovely paintings on the walls. She killed several of our pets. She frequently hurt other children in our home by accidentally shutting body parts in doors, drawers, or stepping on them. She broke or defaced numerous items including our automobiles. She tried to cause dissension between Super Dad and me, as well as her birth relatives and our family by tattling or asking the other if one gave her a “no” answer.

Night after night, I begged God to help me love this child. I begged him to help me make it through the next day. I sought scripture to help me. These are some of the verses that comforted me and helped me.

Job 42:2 (NIV) "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.

Philippians 4:13 (NIV) “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV) No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

I had a support group of many friends who were also foster and adoptive parents as well as Christians with whom I could talk. They had experienced or were experiencing similar challenges with their special needs children. I also checked books out from the library on a weekly basis about parenting special needs children. I would go home and devour the books, looking for hope and help. When my adult children questioned my reason for writing about adoption and special needs, I told them how other families’ true stories had helped me make it through the hard times.


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