Two weeks ago Max had tubes put in his ears. He had constant fluid in his ears that was not draining. It affected his hearing; they said that he was probably only hearing vowel sounds and not consonants. It would be like being underwater, trying to hear someone who was not underwater. The surgery went very well and the staff loved Max, they said he did beautifully.
Well, right before they took him back, they asked if we thought he would be okay, if he would be fine with them taking him back to surgery without mom and dad. And, before I even realized what was happening, out of my lips it went... I said... "This is the first time Max has not had one of us with him since he left the Orphanage"..YIKES...what occurred after that was very difficult. They said "he's adopted?" We explained, yes, we adopted him from the Ukraine. They went into{{ PANIC M O D E}}. They said we need to see documentation of your adoption; we need to see the court documents. There was an exchange, it went back and forth for a bit. In all of the medical process, all the doctors' appointments and everything, this was the first time we had been asked for documentation. We have been asked at other times to provide the documentation. We have not kept it a secret; we have made it clear with all of these doctors' that he is adopted. We want him to get the best medical care possible. We do not know his entire medical history, and what we do know, we have discovered is not all accurate. At one point in the conversation the nurse said to us," you just told us he is adopted, and because you said that, we need to see the documents." I said to her, "if we back this conversation up five minutes, and I don't say anything about him being adopted then we would not need to prove he is ours?" She said "no". "But because I said he was adopted, now we need to prove it" "yes." We explained that he had been in that Doctors care for 3 months, it did not matter.
Now, back this up two weeks when we made his appointment for the surgery. During a phone conversation, telling us what to expect, they asked about allergies, he is allergic to citrus, so I explained that over the phone. She wanted to know what happened when he had citrus, I told her we did not know and I explained that he was adopted and gave her the info about citrus that the orphanage gave us. She said, you may need documentation of your adoption. So with that said we tucked it into his back pack and brought it with us. When we arrived for our appointment and we checked in, they did not ask for it, woohoo, or so we thought.
When you adopt a child, and you have to keep proving the he is yours, it is hard. We are so ready to be a forever family.
They did take Max back and he was fine, we did provide documentation. We did ask them to show us why they needed it, they brought in a simple office statement, but there was really no official legal law noted on it. She did explain, that sometimes if there is any kind of custody dispute that one parent may not want the surgery, so that is why they ask for the documents. I told her that Max was abandoned the moment they said he has Down Syndrome. She said it is not unheard of for a parent to travel to stop a surgery. I said do you think that his parents who abandoned him at birth are going to leave the Ukraine and come here.... Lol...at this point the conversation was lighthearted, she said I know it is not fair. We said to her, when will he be truly ours?
We have had to provide documentation for other things; in fact one of the admin offices said "you'll need to carry documentation for a while." It is hard, we just want to be his forever family, we just want him to be seen as and treated as the child he is..OURS, we want to be seen as and treated like the parents we are.. HIS.
With all that has been said and done, we know he is ours, a blessing of the LORD! And we are so very thankful for him. After the fact, I realized, he does go in to his Church Wednesday class without us, and he does well. Our children also take care of him when Bill and I are not home. So he has been without mom and dad. When MAX came out of surgery, into recovery, they came to get us. They picked him up, put him in my arms and I was blessed to have some cuddle time with my little man. He was so adorable trying to "wake up" We love him!!
This is Max before he went into surgery. The same nurse that gave us a hard time, let Max play with the finger monitor thing......he broke it :) I warned her he is special needs, and does not know about those types of things, that he would think it was a toy and...well... before I finished warning her, Max broke it. Bill picked it up and looked, he said it is so busted. Oh well, Max had fun :)
