It’s happened to me several times. Someone in my world describes a child they find comparable in some way to LuLu. And without realizing it, invariably they end up telling me the child was internationally adopted.

“The other little peanut I had once,” says LuLu’s OT yesterday, “who reminds me so much of LuLu, was this sweet girl with Tourettes adopted from Russia.” I suspect the therapist’s comparison was focused on the fact that both girls had the diagnosis of Tourettes and had perseverative vocal tics that were very interesting. As she continued to tell me the cute stories of this sweet girl and how she slowly gained control over some of her tics, I replied, “so she was adopted from Russia?”

The OT then told me what sad conditions this girl had endured in her early childhood. I think on some level she understood that this child’s early hardships might indeed have impacted, exacerbated or even caused some of the dysfunction the OT observed.

And so it goes. Professionals search their memory for a child who they see as similarly complex as LuLu and tell me their stories. And it never fails that if they cite one, he or she is nearly always internationally adopted.

Perhaps this isn’t significant. But I think it is. Before anyone reading this starts to believe that I’m anti-international adoption, nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing warms my heart more than to meet a family pursuing international adoption. Just last night a church friend called to say she’d met a family who had adopted two girls from China. “They’re beautiful,” she gushed. “Of course,” I grinned (because I have an obvious bias toward adorable children from China) “Everything ok with them?” I followed on. “Looks like it,” she replied. My friends all know that I’m the “resident expert” on adoptions gone wrong. I’m always relieved when folks tell me a positive story. But I get my share of friends calling about an acquaintance who is having some type of problem with their adopted child – often sleep, tantrums, unusual behaviors.

Which brings me back to the point. Perhaps it’s because of my life’s situation, but it appears to me that when someone starts to describe a child with complex disabilities (especially neurologically-related) that often you find out the child started out life in an orphanage or third-world country situation where abuse, neglect and poor nutrition were likely.

Some of you are saying “duh” because my observation is obvious to you as well. And I suppose there are professionals who would quickly draw this correlation and say “duh” as well. But the next question, which is “what do we do about it?” is the tougher issue to resolve.

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