Now that we are getting closer to referral, one of the big to dos on our list is finding a pediatrician for Grace. We were kind of dreading this since we have no experience with pediatricians and have heard some horror stories about doctors being hesitant to work with the specific needs of parents traveling for international adoption.
We realize that all doctors will not be completely familiar with the needs of international adoption so we were prepared to educate our doctor if necessary. Jen was so excited when I got home from work today. She had just gotten off the phone with one of the doctors (who happens to be Chinese) she wanted to interview and she really liked him.
He told Jen that while he wouldn't consider himself an international adoption expert he has many patients who were adopted from China so he was familiar with our needs. He has no problems writing us any prescriptions that we will need in China which was one thing we were a bit concerned about as some doctors seem to have a problem with that. He is willing to look at our referral after we get it and also suggested we have an International Adoption specialist look at our referral as well. Jen told him that we were planning to use Dr. Laurie Miller, who is the local renowned international adoption specialist. He told Jen that he knows Dr. Miller well and has worked with her in the past. She didn't even need to ask him most of the questions on our list since he answered them in their normal course of conversation.
The office that he works out of seems pretty convenient as well, both proximity wise and the services they offer. They have evening and weekend hours as well as 24 hour emergency call-in. They also have quite a few doctors on staff so if, as Grace gets older, she doesn't feel comfortable seeing a male doctor she has options.
As much as this adoption process has been long and trying the big tasks, like finding the right agency and doctor, seem to have come pretty easy for us. So it looks like we have found a pediatrician who will be a really good fit. One more important task checked off our list.
2 comments:
We used Laurie Miller too. If you can't get a quick appt to have the paperwork reviewed before you need to accept the referral, she does email reviews too - you just have to scan the referral paperwork to email to her (and it has quite a few pages).
Another thing CAWLI did for us...we signed the acceptance letter on the day we received the referral, but we didn't check the "accepted" box until dr. miller and our own ped looked at the paperwork. Then, we just called CAWLI back a few days later and they checked the box for us...made things quicker and easier that way. I think they try to get all the acceptance letters back in about a week to return them to China.
We're just now starting to get serious about settling in with a doctor for Alyzabeth. I'm afraid the "Wait" lulled us into nodding off on this one... Your doctor sounds fantastic! Good job.
peace
fm
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