Trip to CHoP

Today we drove down to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. CHoP is one of the best pediatrics hospitals in the US and has special meaning for my family as CHoP is where my brother Jason was treated for cancer. CHoP has an international adoption institute where pediatricians are specially trained to deal with issues resulting from institutionalization and attachment to a new family. We met for almost 2 hours with a physician and developmental specialist. They did a play time evaluation to see what stage Gianna is at in different areas. As with most orphanage kids, her fine motor skills are highly developed. The kids are typically left alone for hours at a time and they learn to play with small things to amuse them like lint, grains of rice, and their fingers and toes. Her large motor skills and hand-eye coordination are delayed by a few months, but nothing to write home about. Nutritionally, she is underweight and has some catching up to do compared to her American counterparts. So they want us to feed her lots of high-fat dairy and other high calorie nutritious foods. We talked about what would be best for Gianna once we both go back to work. Since daycare can be much like an orphanage setting (limited individualized attention), they discouraged us from going that route. Instead they suggested either a nanny or a small group day care like the kind people run out of their homes. So we will have to look into that. Does anybody have a nanny recommendation for central Jersey?

For a short time they asked me about my disease and how it impacts my ability to parent. Can I care for her when I am alone? Can I chase her and lift her up? What about my life expectancy? These are things I do NOT like talking about! Unfortunately the doctors were very familiar with fatty acid oxidation disorders (because of newborn screening programs) and I wasn't able to make up nice-sounding answers to fool them.

The doctor appointment ended with her screaming bloody murder in the phlebotomy lab with Dan assisting. They stuck both of her little arms and still did not get enough blood for all the tests. Poor kid. From down the hall, I heard her screaming the Vietnamese word for "no!!". After the appointment was over, we met up with Ryan and Linda at Chick-Fil-A--her first play date. Ryan has not been sleeping well and was in a bit of a testy mood, but he's still extremely adorable even when he's throwing stuff on the floor ;-) Linda kindly brought rice and other snacks for the kids. They are not fans of fast-food, which I guess is a good thing. Gianna wouldn't touch the chicken nuggets even when baited with honey. I guess you can catch more flies with honey, but not more Vietnamese. More rice please!