time for shots: Preparing to Travel to the DRC!

We are SO thankful that we are finally getting to the last leg of our adoption journey that we didn't even mind that it was time to go get our pre-travel SHOTS. Neither of us are a fan of needles, but we looked the other way and survived! The tiny prick of the needle wasn't even the most painful part, it was definitely the BILL. Shots for international travel ARE NOT covered by most insurance, so we got to pay those lovely bills straight from our own pockets. {On that note, if you're ANYWHERE in the process to adopt internationally: you should talk to your doctor about getting up to date on routine vaccinations NOW, because many Insurance companies DO cover those. That will save you money down the road!}

I am going to share our grand total in hopes that you families following behind us can adjust your budget and be better prepared than we were!!! We budgeted $700 for shots for BOTH of us, but it ended up being more like $800 PER PERSON. Yes, that's right. $1600 total. {Just saying it out loud feels like a major punch in the gut.}

But, keep in mind that this is just what we chose to do. The only shot we HAD to get was the Yellow Fever (it is REQUIRED to enter the DRC). That shot was only about $120 each. But we decided that, for us, we'd rather get the vaccines now and NOT get yellow fever, polio, malaria, hepatitis, tetanus, meningitis, etc, etc. in a third world country with very poor medical care. Not to mention that it would put a major damper on bonding with our new children! So we weighed the costs (financial, physical, etc) and made our decision. But you have to decide for yourselves. Here are the recommendations from the US Center for Disease Control (http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/democratic-republic-of-congo.htm#vaccines):

I hope that is helpful for someone out there. We just didn't really think about this part of the adoption journey much until it fell in our laps. If we had been up to date on routine vaccinations before we went to the local international travel clinic we may have saved a decent amount. Lots of vaccines have changed or expired since we were kids, so it's worth asking about.

And I will warn you that we BOTH had flu-like symptoms (headache, achiness, low-grade fever, and general yucky feeling) for a little over 24 hours after each round. (We split our shots over 2 visits.) Not fun, but certainly not as bad as having yellow fever or whatever! We sent Jonah off with the grandparents for a night so we could just both lay on the couch and rest.

We are thankful for God's intelligent design of humans, and that he allows us to benefit from modern medicine. But we trust ultimately that God is sovereign over all things, and HE is the one who will protect us from harm and disease in the DRC. (As He has been protecting our children every day!)

Praying to hear some good news about court soon! (And excited to write a post soon about the Care Packages we sent to baby R and baby girl!)