I took this picture of Maddi on Friday afternoon around 4pm in the waiting room of the radiology dept after she’d been undergoing test after test since about 9am.
Let’s back up a bit.
Chinese adoption has changed quite a bit in the last 6 years.
You used to be able to adopt a healthy baby girl very easily (well…easy is relative), but that’s really not the case any more.
Remember I mentioned that in our travel group there were 8 kids adopted and only one was from the traditional program?
The traditional program pretty much no longer exists. The people in our group had gotten their paperwork to China in October 2006. Yep…it took 7 years of waiting and in the end…they got matched with a boy!
Most US agencies will no longer accept clients into the traditional program…only the special needs program.
Special needs in China is a bit different than in the US. Some things that are considered special needs are very correctable in the US.
When you send in your paperwork to an agency, you have to fill out a Medical Conditions Checklist. This is a list of special needs that you feel are manageable for your family.
A majority of the kids have cleft palate, so we figured that would be the need we got matched with, but it wasn’t.
Maddi has an issue with her bowel structure that caused her to have to have surgery at less than one week old.
This problem is often related to a syndrome, actually no longer considered a syndrome, but an association…whatever it just means that often they find more than one issue in these kids.
Therefore, we have to go through not only the typical battery of tests for a child coming from China, but also ones to rule out the associated conditions.
On Friday, she had to do a urine sample (took ALL DAY), blood drawn, a TB test (which the guy messed up and had to do twice), 3 chest x-rays, 17 skeletal x-rays and a renal ultrasound.
Today we are going back to have the TB read and then have an echocardiogram.
Next Monday she will have a sedated MRI where they look at her brain and her lower back (she has a sacral dimple which can mean spinal issues).
I also need to call the urologist and the surgeon today to set up appointments.
It’s a lot for anyone to go through, but especially a 1 year old still unsure of her surroundings.
I was exhausted by 11am on Friday. She did great…ok there was a LOT of screaming, but she recovered quickly once I got out the goldfish.
Hopefully at our follow up appointment on the 15th, they’ll tell us that everything looks good and we can just deal with the surgeon from then out out to get her bowels fixed.
**Update** – The nurse practitioner called last night to say that most of the scans have come back normal! YAY!!! No syndrome or association or whatever! Her kidneys are fine, but they did notice something strange and we’ll need to see the urologist (which we needed to see anyway) to find out if it’s anything to be concerned with. We meet the surgeon this coming Friday. She does have a fairly resistant strain of bacteria that is causing a uti so she started some anti-biotic for that. So keep your fingers crossed that the rest of the news is good!
