Off to the doctor's
Yesterday we went to the international adoption clinic at Floating Hospital. Jess had a medical check up, developmental eval, and bloodwork. They said her biggest delays are gross motor and speech - no surprise there. She's cutting her eleventh tooth! Dr. Miller checked her spine, hip rotation, reflexes, hearing and throat - all looked good. When we first got there, they put a urine bag on her and of course, even though we were pushing water the whole time, she didn't go until after the main appointment was over and we were upstairs at the lab. Just as they called our number for bloodwork, she went. I had to rush her back down so they could take the bag off and then back upstairs to get blood drawn. 8 vials!! They're running a titer so that we know whether she's immune to the things she's supposed to be. Dr. Miller said 60% of kids from China aren't. Since I believe strongly in immunizing children, I want to know what she needs without having to give her extra shots she doesn't; hence the titer. Dr. Miller did ask us to try to get the preoperative echocardiogram from China for our cardiologist. We've got a call into our agency to see how to go about this. Seems from what she read in the report our little girl was one very sick baby when she was operated on. However, she also said that Jess appears to be a very healthy little girl now and that the surgery was stated to have been a success. She said it was obvious that someone really cared for her. She told us that regardless of what some say, it is fine for Jess to be on the bottle for another 6 months if she wants. She also said that sleeping in our bed was fine (I've never been a big fan of the family bed but if my little one needs it, then it happens) and not to push her out too soon. She said the next step would be using a portacrib in our room, then me sleeping on a bed in her room with her in the crib, and finally her in her crib alone in her room. Looks like it'll be a long process but if it's what she needs, then we'll do it. Dr. Miller wants to get her weight on the chart so we've been instructed to give Jess all the ice cream, sourcream, cream cheese, etc. that she wants - lucky her!! I plotted her measurements on the Chinese chart that I found on Families with Children from China website and she's in the 3rd percentile on that. She's also drinking pediasure to help her get some good nutrition and weight. Well, Dr. Miller said that she'll call us if there is anything in the lab tests that we need to do something about and that no news is good news. We'll get a report in 2-3 weeks and she wants us to come back in 2-3 months. Next week is the cardiology appointment.