I adopted my darling daughter Natasha in 2000. Prior to adopting I researched the many medical, emotional issues that are commonly found in orphanage children.

(If you have decided to adopt from Ukraine, I would suggest your next step is to investigate the various medical issues.)

I decided to be open to Hepatitis along with items like crossed eyes, developmental delay (everyone has to be open to this one), cleft palette. I had a longer list that I will have to hunt up.

Anyway, this blog is about why I was willing to be open to a Hepatitis diagnosis. Here is a 2002 email that I exchanged.

Here are my thoughts. I am not a doctor.

Yes I am talking about hepatitis B and C.

And yes I can see it raising a red flag. Chronic hep B and C can be life threating. The vast majority of people waiting for a liver transplant have hep c. The virus destroyed their liver.

You can have hep b (HBV) and c (HCV) and not acute or chronic hepatitis.

As of May 2001 (last time someone checked) there is no lab inside of Ukraine that can do hepatitis blood work. They ship the blood to a lab in Moscow. So I really doubt the accuracy of the tests.

Needles are reused all the time in Ukraine. So the testing can cause hepatitis.

Children of single mothers or gypsy sometimes get the hepatitis diagnoses just because. In other words being single or gypsy must mean you have hepatitis. There is some heavy bias in Ukraine.

Woman who have hep c and give birth... there is a 5% chance the baby will have it. You may want to read Mother-to-Newborn Transmission Rate of Hepatitis C Virus.

The goal of treatment in hep b and c is get rid of the virus or suppress it so that the liver is not damage. I am not sure if children have the same treatments as adults. A co-worker's husband has hep c and he has used shots of INTRON to reduce his virual load. This treatment didn't work and he is trying another drug.

To be continued... in part 2