The National Down Syndrome Adoption Network (birth, children)

[AnywhereElse]

I don't know if the rest of you here have seen the recent threads about euthanizing severely disabled children and the other which asks what you would do if you had a baby with "mental disabilities". I just found both threads disturbing on so many levels. Many of the posts were barbaric.

I had brought up this website: National Down Syndrome Adoption Network which is an excellent resource for anyone considering adoption either as a potential adoptive family or a birthmother. For general information about Down syndrome and parenting a child with Down syndrome, this is the probably the best resource and is connected with the adoption website: Home - Down Syndrome Association

I had been using the term "waiting list" but learned that the terminology has changed. They have a list of families that are "home-study ready and want to adopt a child with Down syndrome" and for birth families, they can provide a handful of potential families that might be a "fit" to the birth families and after that agencies become involved and the process moves forward. In our case it moved very quickly but it all depends on who is moving the paperwork but it doesn't take long to put it together.

While I realize that many would not be interested in children with Down syndrome, I know there are a lot of people who would and might not just know how to go about expressing an interest.

The old days are gone and children/people with Down syndrome no longer have the stigma like 50 years ago, thank goodness! There is no quality of life issue with my son and often here at C-D when they discuss quality of life, I direct them to the Psychology section to take a look at the quality of life of some of our "normal" people.

I know that 30 years ago, there were other organizations, often associated with a particular disability that kept names of people that might be interested in adopting. If you are interested in special needs adoption, get out there and make contacts with everyone that you can think of.

I'll never stop promoting finding homes for people like my son or that his quality of life is probably better than that of many, many others that are "normal" whatever "normal" is. I think "normal" is overrated anyway.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

There must be some sort of group home for adults with downs syndrome near one of our local stores I often run into groups of them in that store.

I take a dog in with me and everyone of them will approach and ask about the dog, so I have conversations with many of them. They all seem like they are gentle affectionate people and they don't appear to be very much mentally challenged to me. I'm thinking that their somewhat slurred speech is causing people to think that there is more mental challenge than there really is. They are certainly high functioning.

If a family wanted to take on a baby with life challenges, a downs syndrome child would be a lot easier than some of the other mental challenges. Personally, I find them to be lovely people.