Dr. K

* I started this postover a week ago and forgot I never finished. Whoops!

Tuesday was quit a busy day. Training all morning at work, then rushed off to G3's annual Help Me Grow evaluation, then rushed off to meet with Dr. K to go over Haylie's file, back to work, and then finally home. Phew, what a day.

I didn't know what to expect when meeting with Dr. K, but I was plesantly surprised. Dr. K has adopted in the past(her youngest is now 20) and spends a great amount of time traveling and doing mission work. She and her husband have fostered 4 children from various countries including China. They would foster the child until they had heart surgery and could return home. Dr, K spent almost 2 hours going over the file with us and explaining everything including the creative ways that different problems are worded to disguise.

So deciphering all of the adoption speak: Haylie is old to have her cleft lip and palate fixed, but it should be an easy surgery. Her speech is very behind as it is hard to talk with her mouth the way it is. After the repair, she should be able to work with speech therapy and learn to speak. It will take time, but it will come. The cranial facial doctor will want her to have surgery within the first few weeks of being home(assuming we are chosen as her parents).

Haylie's height and weight were very good for her age especially with the cleft. Dr. K said that kids as old as she is that have the same problem are usually under weight and malnourished as most of them are not resourceful enough to figure out how to eat properly. She is apparently eating mostly normally.

The one part of the file that I was most worried about was the heart condition. Dr. K explained how there was a small hole in the left ventricle and blood flow was interrupted. She spoke with the cardiologist who agreed with her that the echo and heart studies were showing that the hole was closing on it's own and it should not be much of a problem if at all.

Dr. K was able to explain so many of the specific medical things we would need to do if we end up with Haylie. It was good to meet with someone so knowledgeable. Once we have a travel date for our child, she will link us up with the appropriate team of specialists who will go over even more specifics as to what will happen when she gets home. As much as I dislike Children's Hospital due to many issues with G3, I have to say that we live in an amazing area of the country if you need medical assistance with an adopted child. Everything medical is so close by and easily accessed. So, the weather sucks here in Ohio, but we have great doctors.

Even with all of the good news about Haylie, I am struggling with being extremely frustrated with our adoption agency. We had several emails back and forth with them on Tuesday. We told them that we would like to pursue the adoption of Haylie and we were informed that 2 other families had requested her file at this point. Basically, if either of those families would chose to pursue Haylie then they would get her over us as we are at the bottom of the barrel so to speak due to my medication. Now I know that God is in control of this situation and if we are not the family for Haylie or she is not the daughter for us than it will be ok, but I am still frustrated with them. They knew we were paying quite a lot of money to have her file reviewed and 5 minutes before we met with the doctor, I received an email informing us that it was great that we were reviewing her file with the doctor as we will now know about heart conditions and can use that information when looking for another child. I know adoption is very political and agencies don't want to have their 100% success rate diminished by having China turn us down, but it is so frustrating.