6 Weeks

This is Ashi in the middle of March. Yes, those are flies on his face. The special mothers would swish the flies off his face when he sat on the potty outside.We went to the US Embassy on March 8th to get his visa and permission to come to the US. Even though he was legally my son, he needed an IR-4 from the embassy in order to enter the USA.


Had it been just 6 weeks later, he would not have been allowed to come home. He would still be at Hannah's Hope today.On May 1, 2009 the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (Department of Homeland Security) instituted a new regulation regarding Ethiopian adoptees. They decided that these children, if over the age of 2 or merely just suspected of having been exposed to TB at some point in their lives must be tested for TB and if positive, treated prior to flying to the US. This must occur after they pass court.

He's only half-way through treatment as it is. Had Ashi been caught in this new regulation, he would have been stuck in Ethiopia until after his 2nd birthday. My son. Unable to come home. As you can imagine, this policy irritates the heck out of me. Not only is it discriminatory (they do not have this policy for many other classes of immigrants- and no other adoptees), but it serves no purpose other than to hurt children. It was put in place with the noble intention of protecting Americans from TB exposure. But it ignores the simple fact that these children cannot spread TB after a mere 2 weeks of treatment. There is absolutely no reason to keep them in orphanages for up to 9 additional months, just so they can complete treatment in Ethiopia.

This little one has been on my mind a lot lately. This is "M". She's been legally adopted by a wonderful family, she has three older brothers and a big sister. I met her on her 2nd day at Hannah's Hope. She was so sad, so scared. She hung close to Almaz. She didn't know what to do, where to turn. She absolutely broke my heart.

She has been watching her friends leave Hannah's Hope with their new families. But she is left behind. Why? Because she might have active TB. It's hard to say, TB can be hard to diagnose when it's not nasty and obvious like Ashi's case was. So she'll have to wait 8 more weeks to be sure- they will need the sputum culture to be complete. Then if she has an active case, she'll need to complete treatment (6 months if all goes well) before she can come home. That's at least 8 extra months in an orphanage, 8 extra months without a family. That is absurd.

Have I mentioned that after 14 DAYS of medication a patient with active TB is not contagious? This is according to the CDC.

Have I mentioned that she has already been legally adopted? She is no less the daughter of her American parents than Ashi is my son.If Ashi were undergoing his treatment in Ethiopia, like "M" may have to, he would have gone through that horrible sputum procedure alone, in an Ethiopian hospital. He would not have access to the opthamologist that was able to make sure one of his drugs wasn't making him go blind. He would have to get in a van every single day (no carseat either) and go to the hospital for forced medication. They would have no time or patience to mix it into his bottle and coax it into him.

Climbing up to steal the car keys- again.

The solution is so simple. The kids need to be allowed to be tested for TB and begin treatment soon after they enter the orphanages. And as long as they have been in treatment for at least 2 weeks when their adoption case is finalized, they should come home. It's as simple as that. The children get the treatment they need, Americans can continue to forget about this disease, and the kids get to go home to their families. Why can't the government ever keep it simple.