Back to Adoption Parenting Home Page
 | What to Expect When You're Expecting Parasites
by Christine White |
“Expect parasites,” he said matter of factly in a Russian accent. Dr. Boris Skurkovich, pediatrician and head of the Hasbro International Adoption Clinic, wanted to prepare the audience of adoptive parents-to-be. “It’s really no big deal,” he said. “They’ll probably have scabies at least and certainly lice. Just be prepared.” He was talking about our children.
I wrote myself a note saying, “Ask pediatrician about scabies cream,” and tried not to feel guilty for cringing. While I knew the first day meeting our child in China wouldn’t be a baby-at-breast scene out of a painting, I wasn’t expecting to love, hug and disinfect on day one either. The idea of pouring “Rid” on her head, lathering her with “Elimite” and waiting for bugs to die and fall off our baby’s body wasn’t exactly a moment I wanted to capture with our new video camera or note in the baby book.
I imagined adding a lice kit to my Babies R Us registry and decided a quick stop at the pharmacy might be a better idea. But then the people at the cash registers would think I had lice. Saying, “No, it’s not for me; it’s for my baby” didn’t seem wise either.
Don’t sugarcoat things for us, Dr. Skurkovich. Don’t worry about our first-time parent fears. I had come for clear and direct information and wanted to be educated about adoption. However, talk of fetal alcohol syndrome, attachment problems, small head circumference, HIV, tuberculosis, rickets, and plain old malnourishment and neglect — not to mention severe acute respiratory syndrome — were a little more overwhelming than I had expected.
“How was it?” — my husband asked when I returned home.
“Interesting,” I said. “Tell me about it.”
“Let me just run the bath water and pour a glass of wine.”
“Uh-oh,” he said.
“No. No, it was helpful. Really. The chances that our child will test HIV positive and have active and infectious TB are slim. However, we should prepare for lice and scabies, and possibly rickets.”
“I thought only sailors in the 17th century got rickets.”
“Yeah, me too. Apparently not.”
“Make that two glasses of wine,” he said before I crawled into the tub and he eventually got comfortable on the toilet lid. Somehow, it’s more comforting to stare off into space catatonically when you do it as a couple.
Don’t get me wrong; I was a 36-year-old woman at the time, a being so filled with love, I felt like a piece of rotting fruit, a banana too soft even for banana bread. I was anxious to spill some of this motherly love on our child-to-be. However, a nurse, an early intervention expert and an infectious disease specialist I was not.
In time, I began to make peace with feeling overwhelmed, worried and somewhat intimidated by the adoption journey and becoming a parent.
I had listened to pregnant friends whisper their fears. I remembered my totally stoic sister tearing up at a restaurant, when in her eighth month of pregnancy I chose to tell her about a woman I knew who had a full-term stillbirth. As she rushed to the bathroom for tissue, I wanted to poke my eyes out with a fork to repent, to show her I realized how stupid and insensitive I had been, despite having a reputation for being a complete sap. Every time I apologized, her eyes welled up again.
“The hormones make it worse,” she said, “but could you just shut up?”
I couldn’t. I felt like a toddler, who after being told, “No, you can’t have that,” asks 14 more times to make sure you really meant it. “I’m sorry; I’m sorry; I’m sorry,” I said pretty much until the day she delivered a healthy baby girl.
Years later, she got me back. Just hours after meeting our daughter in China, I called my sister, awestruck with motherly love, boasting that though Kai was only 13 pounds at 10½ months, she was relatively healthy and developmentally on track.
“I guess you got the cream of the crop,” she said.
“We’re happy she’s well,” I said, “but Karyn.”
“Yeah, but you have to admit, you got the pick of the litter.”
“She’s not a puppy. It wasn’t a Yankee Swap. We wouldn’t love her any less if she were more delayed or showed obvious signs of living in an institutional setting for almost a year.”
“But don’t you feel a little like you won the jackpot?
I gave up on responding and tried to remember how often people, especially siblings, speak before thinking. Then I went back to being a totally enamored first-time parent.
The truth is there are no rules for how to act when someone becomes a waiting or new parent. That’s true whether you are carrying the child in your belly or in your heart, whether you are getting ultrasounds or reading about your child’s culture, whether you are breast-feeding or bottle-feeding.
What parent doesn’t wonder if his or her child will have too many fingers or too few toes, or be able to hear and see? These are common concerns, and you can’t predict your child’s future or health. “The only thing you can be sure of,” another adoptive mother-to-be said, “is that you will get the child who needs exactly the love you have to give.” I mumbled her words to myself like a mantra each night when worries woke me during our long wait.
~~Christine “Cissy” White is a freelance writer and stay-at-home feminist. She lives with her husband and daughter in South Shore, Mass. This article is an excerpt from her book, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting Parasites: An Adoptive Mother’s Journey From Paper Pregnancy Through Post-Placement.” She used to help plan cultural events and educational seminars for an adoption agency in the Northeast.
Parasites That Commonly Effect Internationally Adopted Children
Ascaris lumbricoides (intestinal roundworms)
— Found in approximately 25 percent of the world’s population. Humans are infected upon ingesting infective eggs that hatch in the small intestine, then enter the circulatory system and eventually the lungs. An adult worm can be 18 inches long.
Eucestoda (tapeworms)
— Infections are usually diagnosed by the presence of tapeworm eggs in feces.
Enterobius vermicularis (pinworms)
— Infect more than 400,000,000 people. Pinworms live in the large intestines and lay eggs on the perianal skin, where they cause itching. They are usually the most easily detected.
Giardia lamblia (giardiasis)
— Live in the small intestine and are passed in the feces. Most often humans are infected when they ingest water contaminated by feces.
Pediculus humanus (body lice)
— Spread through physical contact and cause skin irritations and itching.
Sarcoptes scabiei (Scabies)
— Transmitted through physical contact. The mites burrow into the skin causing itching and rashes.
|
Back to Adoption Parenting Home Page | |
