I thought we were done with the drama of the kindergarten registration process, but apparently, we are not, because yesterday we got a call from the school district, informing us that the kids are missing 3 DTaP vaccinations on the medical forms we turned in. Forms that our doctor signed, stating that the kids were up-to-date. Because they are. Because we are the anti-granola family, all vaxx’ed up and stuff.But the district is adamant that we are wrong, and our doctor is wrong, and why doesn’t the paperwork for my kids match those of kids born in an industrialized nation, and also, maybe we could just get them three quick TDaPs before mid-October, when all this is due, and did I mention that I turned this paperwork in two months ago, and if there was a problem, maybe the woman who checked it and said it was complete should bear the brunt of the blame here?
It never ends, adoption paperwork, and every milestone brings more with it. In this case, my kids spent the first 7 months of their life in Africa, and since TDaPs are given at 1, 3, and 6 months, we had to do titre testing. Medicine that ends up in Africa is often expired, often watered down, often is mislabeled, and even if your records look good, the only way to know for sure what inoculations were given is to check for the presence of them in the blood, which is called titring, or titration testing. Which we did, which demonstrated that the kids had in fact lucked out and had their three TDaPs, and that the dosage levels were appropriate and good, and so they only needed 2 more, at 15 months and 4 years, which they got.
So our doctor’s office faxed over the titre results, and an explanation of them, and I thought we were done, until the phone rang again today, and it was the school district, telling me now that the forms were incomplete because the kids didn’t have a Varicella vax listed. Which they don’t, because they had Chicken Pox as infants, another titre test we had done. Chicken Pox swept through their orphanage like a brush fire, 250 infants and toddlers burning up with it, including my own. Immunity through disease.
So here is where I was a tiny bit not so nice, because, as I tried to explain, wouldn’t it have been better if they had told me on the first call *everything* that was inconsistent in their records, so I did not have to keep bothering their doctor to write and fax letters for each individual issue, day after day? Now I have to chase down their doctor (again). And I get it, I really do. I have had Whooping Cough, and I wouldn’t wish it on a kid. It went through our PreK school, and was awful. I don’t want my kids to have the measles, and I don’t want anyone else’s too,either. I believe in herd immunity, and Doing Our Part in that. But it is also awfully tiring to always have to explain away the inconsistencies, the differentness of our records. I just, for once, want one thing to be straightforward and easy.
The best part of the conversation happened as I was trying to get off the phone, when the district caseworker said to me, “Oh, and make a note: the kids also need HepA,” and so I told her no, the kids had their HepA shots already, broken into the 2 dose schedule, but she interrupted me to interject that she meant they needed another dose by Grade 5, and I said, jokingly, well, we have five years to figure that one out, and she replied that she just thought she would tell me, because it seemed like maybe we didn’t really understand the importance of these vaccinations. And then I did this.
Because I have seen, with my own eyes, people with Polio, and beggars with Leprosy, and children blinded by Measles and Rubella, begging and starving at the side of the road. I am fully aware of what these vaccinations mean to my children, and what can happen in places where vaccinations are not available. We aren’t non-compliant with the vaccination schedule at all: our records just look a little different. We look a little different. So if you need me, I will by lying on the floor next to my chair, the back of one hand pressed firmly against my forehead, moaning quietly to myself.