Referral Medical Review
Someone asked about whether this is worth it.
We had an adoption specialist look at our daughter’s paperwork last time. We did it after we had already sent in our acceptance letter, and we did it mainly so we would know about any issues and be prepared for them.
We won’t spend the money to do it again. The doctor looked at the blood work and the pictures and gave opinions based on this very limited information. She said that we shouldn’t pay attention to weights and measurements all that much, as they are weighed fully clothed and sometimes may even have a wet diaper on. She also said every person measures a different place around the head and you can’t even really trust those measurements.
This time I plan to let our family doctor look over the bloodwork to tell me if anything looks out of place – we will be making an appointment to get prescriptions to take with us anyway, so he can do this while we are there. I will also probably need to make an appointment with my daughter’s pediatrician, so I may ask her to look over it as well while we are there.
There really isn’t enough in the medical information for an adoption specialist to do anything with. I felt like it was a total waste of money. And I think the specialists know this as well, as most of them offer all kinds of other things as part of their service. The end of the call was basically “I know this does not seem like much information, but this is a very typical file and picture for a referral from China, and most babies are fine”.
I understand that other countries provide videos and a lot of other information, and that these adoption specialists do provide a good service in this case. But for a NSN Chinese adoption, I just don’t think they have enough information to really do anything with.
I see people trying to convince themselves afterwards that the money was well spent because “the doctor will be on call for us while we are in China”. Well, my family doctor and my daughter’s pediatrician will be on call for us in China and they won’t ask that we send them hundreds of dollars ahead of time.
It is important to get the acceptance forms back quickly, it’s not nice to hold up your entire travel group. The wait is long enough without a family having to take a week to decide whether to accept this child they have waited more than a year for.
April 13th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Good to know…
What do you think about Hepatitis shots before the trip? My mom wants me to have them, but I’m not convinced it’s necessary.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
I agree. My first daughter had a very small head to go with a very small body. Thank God we didn’t get any expert opinions on this! She is very bright, perhaps genius level.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
We used the “experts” at a very well-known hospital. NEVER AGAIN. There isn’t enough info given in the developmental portion of the referral, and you certainly can’t tell much by the pictures. It wasn’t worth $150 (and it could have gone as high as $300!).
One of the “experts” told us that our daughter had a moderate chance of being neurologically damaged.
Neurologically damaged my butt. She had the basic issues with gross motor skills, but at 18 months, she had extremely high fine motor skills, and it was very evident that she was quite intelligent, and began understanding English before the end of the week. We could also tell that it wouldn’t take much effort and she would be mobile enough to get herself around just fine.
Next time, we’ll take the info to our local pediatrician, who will review the medical info for no charge. The basic medical info is all anyone really needs to be concerned about – and then you can assess the rest once you have your daughter in your arms.
April 24th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
We took the info to our family doctor, along with the picture and measurements. Even though everyone takes the measurements at different angles, etc, it is good to know if the head circumfrence is way off of the norm or not. We did not use a specialist, because we too thought it was wasted money. Our family doctor coded it as looking at a mole on my back so the insurance would pay for it.
Our current pediatrician has not had much experience with international adoption, however because of that, she is willing to review and look up every detail of what she needs to know instead of relying on her word as gospel, so it has a positive aspect to her “greenness” with international adoption…she is extremely thorough. But more importantly to us is that she has a rapport with children and interacts with the child as if playing when examinging the child.
July 8th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
The Medical Exam report we received with our referral was mostly translated in Chinese except for in 3 areas. One of the “omissions” turned out to be a serious medical condition. If we hadn’t found someone to translate this for us, we’d have accepted a referral for a child we could not have cared for. Our untranslated growth report turned out to carry some key medical information. Again, if we hadn’t gotten this translated ourselves, we’d never have known of the medical issues with this little girl. Our translation of the growth report showed up to us well after our referral acceptance was due back to our agency. It’s been a nightmare for us, after all the excitement of finally getting our referral. But we had to decline the referral, and now wait for a new referral for a NSN child, like we requested in the first place. Bottom line, get ALL your documents translated before you accept any referral.
January 31st, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Does anyone know if all Chinese babies are accurately tested for HIV? I have not seen this information anywhere. thanks