From China, with Love

We’ve been spending a  few days with my husband’s brother, his wife, and their 9 year old daughter.  Alyson was adopted from China about 5 ½ years ago, when she was almost 4.  My brother-in-law and his wife were not sure they wanted children, so Alyson didn’t join their family until they were both over 50.  You can imagine what a lifestyle change it was for all of them!  I look at this beautiful little girl, so loved and nurtured, and think about what her life was like before she was adopted.  She came from a good orphanage, but still, there was a lack of basic healthcare.  Alyson now has all of the recommended vaccines and will grow up to be a healthy child.  I think about all of the other children in foreign countries with no access to health care, and then I think about the parents in the U.S. who deny their children access to vaccinations for reasons not based on science.  How can we let our children potentially suffer from vaccine-preventable diseases?  We are so lucky that we live in a country with access to these life-saving vaccines.  I hope that all parents will make sure to take advantage of vaccines, and give their children all of the love and protection that they can.