well not conclusion per se...
More like
How Old is My Kid ~ The Resignation of the Issue.
My friend Megan
Hi Megan!
Reminded me on FB tonight that I never posted about the result of my Magnum PI investigation into figuring out how old Joey really is.
So here you go!
The answer:
Drumroll please......
The answer is.....
I have no stinkin idea.
The End.
Yeah.
Magnum was way better at this than I am.
I checked his shot records that came with him.
And his first shots were about two months after he was found.
I checked the paperwork in his file that we photographed.
DOB 4/2/04 again and again.
I checked the newspaper article that he was in as an infant when the local news did a story on him getting his heart surgery.(It was the most his province had ever spent for an orphan to get a surgery of any kind. They even nicknamed him "$182,00" {yuan} (Only they say it in Chinese...which I don't know how to type.)
But I didn't catch the date at the top of the newspaper in my photo. Argh!
At some point I may go ahead with a bone age scan just for grins but I am honestly not going to put much stock in that at this point.
He's a heart baby.
He's Asian.
His nutrition status was significantly compromised
(must be why he's so "weird" huh Pat?)...sorry...that just kinda slipped out....ahem...
So there are a lot of factors that would make a bone age scan pretty much unreliable at this point.
I will have a convo with his dentist when we go back in a few months for his next cleaning and see what he thinks,
and when I get a minute {in 20 years or so} I'm going to check out the DNA testing that a few of you recommended.
But for now
he's 8.
Doesn't act 8.
Doesn't look 8.
He'll turn 9 in the 2nd grade.
He wears 3T shorts.
But in the abscence of any real proof to the contrary, I don't feel comfortable changing anything....for now.
And probably forever honestly.
I think there is a small window of time where I can realistically change his birth date without causing him emotional harm.
I can't look at him when he's 14 after all and say, ya know what buddy? We really think your only 11 so we are going to go with that now. Happy 11th Birthday!
Ya.
Umm.
Notsomuch.
So for now,
we go with either he is really 3 years old in this picture....
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or the date on the camera is wrong.
Either way.....
he's Joey,
my maybe Chinese,
maybe Taiwanese son
who is 8. {maybe} {sigh}
.JPG)
In better news, we love him regardless.
And seriously....3T shorts are just plain cute!
.JPG)
We wondered about our first daughter's age for a while, but we're pretty sure they were right. She's 8, wears a 4...maybe a 5 if we have really good adjustable waist bands...and is just getting her 6 year molars. Yep. She's our sweet, tiny girl!
ReplyDeleteI am crazy for your 8 year old!
ReplyDeleteI think I asked before, but do you remember the scene in Almost Famous, where the mom tells her son he's a couple years younger than she told him he was?
ReplyDeleteDoes it ever bother you to not have answers?
ReplyDeleteFor our boys, we'll never have baby pictures or a true age. I know that they may or may not care but for their sake, I do care and it breaks my heart. When they ask about their past and I have to tell them the truth - that I really don't know - it just about undoes me.
Don't get me wrong, I knew going in to IA that this would likely be the case. I just didn't expect it to be so difficult for me to wrap my head around.
Well. Tessa (Long Ji Xing) tells me that he was one of her "big" brothers! And her date of birth is 6/30/04. I wonder about her birthday too though since they estimated she was 2 years and 3 months of age when found. She is still a tiny thing too. I really think her heart defect made her smaller. She is cuteness in a small package!!
ReplyDeleteI'm a lurker on your blog. I have a couple of thoughts on this issue. You likely already thought of them but I thought I'd point them out.
ReplyDelete1) It's less common for orphanages to estimate a child's age in a way that makes him/her older.
2) The time says 4:10 pm. Was the picture taken by an adoptive family or the orphanage? I’m going to assume for a moment that the person who took the picture is from the USA. If the time on the camera was EST that would make it 4:10 am in China. Even if it was PDT it would only be 7:10 am in China. (Did I figure that out correctly? I’m not good with time zones.) It seems unlikely that the picture would have been taken so early in the morning? This might suggest that the date and time stamps are just incorrect.
Our bone age scan said our "4yrold" could be 18 months old- we have orphanage records dating 4 yrs ago so we can't rely on a medical piece of evidence to help us with our small (2t) boy with medical needs.... Wrapping my head around approximates is hard in my concrete precise world..... Letting it go
ReplyDeleteI think you're right. He's cute regardless!
ReplyDeleteI have looked for you on FB but thought you weren't on! I'll try again!
Sonia~~we had exactly the SAME issue with our "turning 9 in 2nd grade" girl. Age doesn't match development at all. Hashed out the whole dental/bone scan thing with hubby and we just don't think it will be accurate based on her history. Would love to continue to follow Joey's saga as we are in the same boat! (And I found out we have mutual friends in Robin from 6 Kids and Counting--she was our neighbor at Randolph)
ReplyDeleteHi Sonia ~ I read your blog often. We have also been for searching for answers about our sons age. We brought him home from China in 2008 thinking he was 5, making him almost 10 this year!!! We BELIEVE he is really 2 years younger. Dr's, dentists, friends all agree.... He wore a 2T when he first came home (at 5....really?) and is in 5T now (at 9??).... his special needs makes him tiny and malnutrition for those years is against him, but developmentally he is much more 7 than 9. I am glad to connect with other parents in this same boat... our blog is www.cunninghamkids.blogspot.com ~ Robyn Cunningahm
ReplyDeleteOur oldest from China was adopted at 8 months. No special needs. At her 5 yo check up, the doctor said she was no longer growing on a curve, so we had her growth hormone checked (ok) and her hand Xrayed. Her bondage showed she was about 2 years behind. If she had been adopted older, we would have assumed that was her actual correct age. She is 8 in October and wears 5/6 in anything on the bottom, and she measured for a 4T for a swimsuit bottom I bought from a catalogue just this summer. She is finally coming to terms with the idea of being a shorty and catching up 2 years after the others stop growing. And if it gives me more time till puberty, I'll take it! BUT, I don't blame you for wanting to figure it out for him and the potential it may hav to help him with emotional growth and maturity.
ReplyDeleteWe are also going through the same thing with our son. He was abandoned at what the orphanage said was 4 , but pictures look more like 2. He was 7 when we adopted him in May 2010. In Aug 2010 when his birthday came I had him turn 7 again and just explained that's how we do it here in the USA :). He is in the second grade and will be tuning 9 next week, (according to China 10 but he doesn't remember that now). His bone scan shows him 2 year younger and we see an endocrinologist in Sept. If your going to change your sons age I would do it sooner rather than later. Jax is only 44 pounds and just a peanut, his 7 year old sister who we also adopted from China same orphanage is almost 5 pounds heavier. Good luck in your decision.
ReplyDelete