Clinic Day

Every child leaving China as an adoptee must have a final medical checkup, so on Monday, we met our agency reps, Jason and Jocelyn, in the hotel lobby and walked for about 10 minutes until we came to the local clinic. This clinic was open to the public, but, since it services many adoptees, it also had a special area set up for adoption checkups. Within this area, there were three rooms. One room was for weighing and measuring, the second was for general checkups, and the third was for ear, nose, and throat. We would have to take our paperwork into each room and let the doctor complete and sign his section.

Even though we all had healthy daughters, we were a little nervous. After all, these doctors could spot a runny nose and decide to use their power to require that we remain in China until it was gone. We didn’t know that they would do this, but we knew that they had to give us a clean check up, so it was a possibility. We sat in the Adoption Room waiting area and secretly wiped noses and quietly checked for sudden fevers.

Once the doctors arrived, we were told that we didn’t have to go to each one in a certain order as long as we made sure to visit each room. So, we spent the next 30 minutes criss-crossing the waiting area, passing other families, and asking “Have you been to that one, yet?” Eventually, all three doctors had poked on every little belly, looked down all the little throats, and were satisfied that all the little ears could hear. We emerged from the Adoption Room with officially-endorsed healthy children – all fit for traveling to and living in America.

The only real down side of the clinic trip was that three of the families, including us, fell under The Hague Convention Treaty. This is an international treaty establishing certain guidelines for adoptions. We three families were subject to this treaty due to the timing of the expiration dates of some of our paperwork that we had completed over the last 5 years.

This treaty required that we follow new guidelines for immunizations. We were given Carly’s immunization records when we were in Nanchang. We gave the clinic our copy, and they determined that Carly would have to have six additional immunizations to comply with the Hague requirements. One of the other babies had to have seven, so it could have been worse. Carly thought the whole thing was horrible. She let us know loudly and with much kicking.

Honestly, I thought it was horrible, also.