This paper aims to foreground the persistent ethical conundrums within the process of engaging children labeled with intellectual disabilities in the research process. I consider what happens when researchers are embedded within and committed to sustaining relationships with disabled children? I explore the possibilities of the enactment of consent as an ongoing negotiation between researcher and research participants. I contend that resisting and transforming unbalanced relations of power within research take seriously the importance of remaining mired in the ethical conundrums of the constant negotiation of research relationships that include making space for participant refusals throughout the research process.