what is considered special needs?

Yes, or it was ten years ago when I adopted from Russia. But here? It's no big deal at all. My daughter is missing most of her lower leg bones in both legs and a few fingers and she is doing just fine.

Special needs can refer to anything from very minor to very severe. Just being older is considered special needs. Or a sib group that is hard to place, typically, w/ a boy in it. So many things that are considered special needs, really are no big deal here. I have a son missing his leg and other leg is a club foot. Another one who's deaf. One missing her corpus callosum of her brain. One who supposedly had epilepsy and is on his last week of being weened off the meds. Some have strabismus. List could go on and on. Just know what you can and can't handle. In addition, many things will not be on that little piece of paper of a medical. I have 2 w/ RAD. 6 w/ FASD. You just never know till they come home. Amazing what I thought would have been a "big deal" years ago is nothing to us this year. You learn to adapt. good luck. I have a blog that shows how our kids are getting along. [url=http://www.10kidsin2010.blogspot.com]10 in 2010--The Journey of a Lifetime[/url]. I took the donation bar off so should be able to post it, right. If not, delete it someone. Thanks.

We are not phased a bit about a "special need". We are wondering if it qualifies as a special need so we can (hopefuly) get the now 30 DAY wait waved. :) HAHA

Special need, itself, is a term that simply helps to define what children you will find acceptable. Judges don't go by "special needs" or non-special needs, they go by whether there is an extremely compelling reason to waive the rules. If a child is missing some digits and there are no other issues, I can't imagine that it would affect the judge's decision about waiving. Sharon

Without getting into too many details, we are dealing with a situation that involves surgery, the sooner the better. I am hoping that may be a reason to waive...but all we can do is keep our fingers crossed:).