Waiting Families Meeting...

Our March FCC-AZ Waiting Families meeting this past Saturday was the most informative so far. Our speaker was one of the FCC-AZ board members who is a pharmacist by trade and has two daughters from China. What was great is that she was speaking from her own experiences in China as well as her professional knowledge of medications and dosing.

She gave us a handout on "Helpful Medical Items to take to China for Your Child" and went through the list of meds one by one explaining when and how to use them and the appropriate dosing. Everyone was all ears as she went through the list. She said the most important item to bring is an antibiotic and if your pediatrician will not prescribe one, you can order the Pediatric Medical Travel Kit (formally the Texas Medical Kit) from Orphan Allies. I've heard of this kit before and had always been skeptical about if it contains "real" antibiotics and how it's being administered without a prescription. Orphan Allies is a non-profit humanitarian aid organization who has an arrangement with the Texas medical board and a doctor on staff who takes liability for writing the antibiotic prescriptions. You can only order the kit once you have your referral because you need some information on your child to fill out the form to order the kit. If you visit the web-site, you can see a list of what the Kit contains. It's the first thing I'm going to order once we get our referral.

I also plan on making my own medical kit of everything that was on our presenter's list that isn't in the Kit. I posted the list here as a JPEG that you can enlarge and print, but I would also be happy to e-mail you a much clearer PDF version if you would like one. Just let me know.

She also handed out a list of medical tests we need to have run once we have our little ones home. She said that every test on the list is important and if your pediatrician resists, to insist that they are run. You can find the list on the FCC's website. I will be bringing a copy of this to Lauren's first appointment.

Also at the meeting, we got a good tip from a couple of families who have BTDT and another family packing right now for China. They said that Hefty 2.5 gallon ziplock bags are great for packing everything from clothes to medicines to bath products. When you pack clothes in them, push the bag flat and zip up the air-tight seal...a tall stack of baby clothes is suddenly much flatter and easy to pack.

One of our Waiting Families just got back from China a couple of weeks ago (we got to see their referral packet in January) and had their beautiful daughter Ellie with them. Another one of our families is in China right now and just met their daughter Myah. We also have a family who will be leaving for China in 2-3 weeks and I'm looking forward to seeing their little one soon. The family who hosted our meeting this month traveled to China in January 2005 for Olivia and we got to see their travel/gotcha video with little Olivia pulled up in a front row seat. It was so cute to see her watching the video, pointing and saying Mommy and Daddy. I don't think there was a dry eye in the room!

We sure do have a great group of families and Joe and I are having fun at the monthly meetings. Oh, I forgot to mention that I meet a family with my exact DTC date (1/13) who are also in my Yahoo DTC Group...pretty cool!