Adopting a child who is HIV+?

Hey everyone - it's Riley.

One of the situations that has changed for us over the previous year relates to our adoption plans in a way that we never shared publicly.  And we wanted to share it now in case it might be of some encouragement to someone out there. 

We had arranged our previous dossier to specifically adopt a child who is HIV positive.

There was a lot of research, connecting & learning that went into the preparation for this.  Now we are hoping that it will eventually be of some practical help or use in our lives.  Our new social worker was a bit shocked to find out about all of the preparation & reading that had been documented in our previous dossier - she had never seen anything like it.   The reasons we have gone a different direction have nothing to do with having a HIV+ child in our home, but have to do with a lot of external factors that we now need to consider (access to immediate specialists, dynamics of community/city, change in support systems, etc.).  And as stated before, we are now working with a different country where the children have different needs.

It’s ironic - I had some initial hesitation in beginning to consider pursing this and this past summer I found myself grieving the change.  I don’t think we realize just how heavily invested & attached we get to children we’ve never met during the waiting/praying/planning process.  For us, decisions in the moment & also future plans always take into consideration those children that are not in our family yet.  We had plans about how to talk to the child’s teachers, how to help our children cope with friendship difficulties arising from perceptions of this chronic illness, discussions with extended family about how to deal with our kids getting scrapes & cuts, etc.  It’s a bit stressful bringing up the topic to family & friends who may not be supportive of such a unique situation!  And now this preparation gets set aside...

There are a lot of great resources and information available if you are ever interested in learning more.  Tragically, most people’s understanding (& mine to begin with) was stuck in the 1980’s.  

So why share this detail now?  If we can be of any support or encouragement to those of you who are interested in caring for a child with HIV (via adoption or foster care), please let us know.  Or if you need someone praying for you, we would love to get behind you in any way we can!