We're Back

Thank you so much for your prayers on our behalf.  Emery had a scary week last week.  She has been having a harder time catching her breath after exertion with longer blueish heavy breathing spells, but both my pediatrician and cardiologist assure me this is normal for her.  Then she woke up and her lips were white, her fingertops were white, she was obviously in a lot of pain and said her heart hurt and was completely limp except for the pain on her face.  It lasted for an hour and by the time I got her to a doctor and hooked up for an EKG she was getting over it.  There was a lot of discussion with our cardiologist and pediatrician and we ended up flying to Seattle the next day since she was still pale and not back to a hundred percent.  Well, she was THRILLED to go on the airplane, loved visiting the doctor and all of her tests were better than they ever had been, not to mention that she charmed everyone she met and had more energy than I have seen in a month.  We stayed overnight in the hospital, went to the Ronald McDonald House(love them!) next to the hospital with a Holter monitor, basically a portable EKG, and spent the weekend in Seattle.  She did great.  If I hadn't seen the scary white episode myself I never would have believed it was the same little girl!
She was off the monitor for a day so we went to the zoo.  She LOVED the monkeys:)  She got to learn animals by seeing them in person and it was so precious. 

We went from being monitored in the ER to being on a plane in about two hours.  I am so very blessed to have wonderful friends who prayed and took care of my family.  One of my friends took my children, my husband was at work, then came into the ER and worked some kind of magic with the insurance, along with feeding my guys for me for a few days.  Another friend heard what was going on and jumped on the plane with us for the duration. It was so nice to have her there and not be alone!  Another fabulous friend started her prayer chain going when she called me to tell me about receiving her own LOA, which Emery and I are SOOOO excited for.

We have had quite the week and will be heading back to Seattle in a week for another, more specialized, heart cath to get more information to determine the surgery.  There is a bit of uncertainty over whether the data requested is possible to get since they couldn't get it the first cath, but a special wire is being ordered and we will be praying that they can get a measurement on the collateral vessels pressure, the veins going directly from her heart to her pulmonary artery.  Then hopefull we will be moving forward with surgery dates!

Thank you for your prayers.  No one knows for sure what this episode was and is hoping it was an anomaly.  I am concerned that she rides on adrenaline.  She is such a sweetheart regularly, but she does have her normal kid moments.  But in new circumstances she is charming and sharing and kind 24/7 and I hope that it wasn't that she was finally comfortable with us for her little body to relax and then her heart struggled.  Who knows?  She is doing great now, her oxygen levels are normal for her and she is playing with her brothers not slumped over the couch or limp in my arms so I am thrilled.

A Little Bit Sassy!

80% of the Time or More

Prayers

Yesterday Emery had a scary morning and we went to our clinic for an EKG but by the time we got there she felt better, also she actually enjoys going to the doctor for the most part so  she was excited to go.  Long story short, Seattle Children's is pretty concerned so we need to fly down tomorrow morning for some testing and are not sure how long we will be down there.

I am not sure whether to hope that she has another scary episode so they can monitor it and know what is going on or pray that it never happens again.  Anyways, as always we really appreciate all the prayers that have helped preserve Emery's heart and keep her healthy and ask for you to keep her in your thoughts and prayers this weekend and that the doctors will be able to find what is going wrong.

Thank you!

Sunday:)

Emery and I just finished making dinner together, for some reason she has WAY cuter aprons than I do:)  We had chili and cornbread and watched Beauty and the Beast together, and we got to sing along with all the songs, oddly I know every word and she tries valiantly.  It is amazing what a little quiet girl time can do.  I think we are really moving forward in our attachment and maybe, just maybe, she is starting to accept me as something more than a changing caregiver, at least that is what I am hoping.

It is funny that she doesn't have a problem with hugs or kisses or tickling or whatever, but snuggling on the couch to watch a movie, no.  Sitting on a lap for a while, nada. Prolonged physical contact, nope. So when we watched tv together I gave her a choice of having my arm around her or holding my hand or no movie.  We held hands.  It was precious to me.

Hopefully we will be hearing about her surgery schedule in the next couple of weeks, we so appreciate all the prayers that have upheld her health.  She passed her dentist appointment with flying colors.  She liked it so much that the tooth doctor is now included in her evening prayers.

Seasons in life are so interesting.  I am really loving the season of spending time with my kiddos and watching them grow.  Watching a five year old learn and explore her new world is pretty amazing.  I am very, very blessed and grateful for the moments.

Not an Orphan

For an update, everything is going well.    Emery is doing well and learning English more and more.  She loves schooling and taking a break from extra things is making a big difference.  We aren't really seeing any issues relating to adoption, just normal five year old girl seeing where limits are...it is really fun to have her in our family.

This week a couple of times Emery has shut down because she didn't get her way.  It is a lot better than it used to be, but typically she shuts down if she gets told no or doesn't get her way.  She has come a really long way and doing so much better with this.  This week it happened again and I was surprised since it had been a while.  She pulls herself out of it quickly and is back to being a happy girl.  But this week I was thinking, 'you are not an orphan' and then I thought, do I treat God this way.  If I don't need Him for something or get a no for an answer do I ever retreat or shut down or try to do it all on my own when having help would make it better.  Do I act like an orphan when I am a child of God?  Do I act like I don't belong or like I am being punished simply when the answer isn't exactly what I want, even when God has a better idea of what I need for the long term goal of me being a great person?  It really hit me...am I living like a child who is adored and watched over and taken care of, or do I live like an orphan?

I would hope that I am living like a child of God, not an orphan.  And I should try to make sure that I am always living like I know what that privilege is and that I am not ever an orphan, but am always a cherished daughter of God.

Not an Orphan!

Good Times

Mud Fight at the Beach

It is so interesting the way that there are seasons in our lives.  The past couple weeks we have really treated our family more like the birth of a child then bringing an active five year old home, and what a difference that has made.   When we have a baby, I become a hermit.  I take 4-6 weeks off.  I stay home; we spend a lot of family time and I don't really do much other than focus on the new baby and the children who need a bit of extra attention since there is a new addition.  We have been doing that a little bit more, actually I don't know that the kids have noticed a difference, since it isn't like we haven't been spending a lot of time together since we returned home.  I just cut myself a break.  And it has felt great.  Emery's attachment has become a bit better, we are still taking baby steps.  She is still such a sweet darling daughter, so very smart, so fun to listen to singing all day, so adventurous,  and so concerned for her special meimei and jiejie who are still at the orphanage but being adopted.  She is so very, very concerned for them to be in families.  Her English is moving ahead in leaps and bounds.

I have been reflecting over this year, it has sped by so fast for us, when some parts of the adoption seemed to take so long.  I have drawn near to God, and He has drawn near to me.  It has been a gift to me.  It has been humbling. It has been teaching.  It has been rewarding.  I am so very convinced that prayer is one of the most powerful tools we have, even if the answer is no, or not now.  I believe that prayer has the power to change hearts, whether others or our own.  I am so grateful for prayer in my life, never more so than this last year.  Emery has begun saying her prayers with our family, she calls prayers 'Fold your arms'.  But she adamantly wants to have a turn.  It is really sweet to hear her say Thank you for my family.  It is one of my biggest blessings.  I am grateful for my family.  They are so fantastic.  I love getting to spend time with them.  In a world of so much uncertainty and with so many problems in all areas of life, I am grateful to feel peace in my home and with the people I love.

UPDATE!

I got lab results from Emery's blood work and our cardiologist update today!  All the bloodwork is looking great.  Emery even has antibodies so she doesn't have to start in on a full immunization schedule which is fantastic!  The vaccinations she had in China were effective and we don't have to go near needles for a while which is even better.  And no giardia, anemia, liver problems, or kidney problems.  Everything looks very great which is wonderful news.

Then we talked to our cardiologist, who I really, really like, and Emery's information was presented to a large group of cardiologists and surgeons this morning.  There are a couple of different surgery options and everyone agreed that she is an excellent candidate for heart surgery.  She is in a very stable condition with extremely minimal lung damage so there is no emergency at all.  He wants to have Stanford look at her file since they are the number one in the world for treating her heart specific heart condition and asked if that would be ok.  YES!  So we should know their input in one to two months and decide where we will have the surgery done if Stanford will agree to see her, and then see if our insurance will cover the procedure if it is not in Washington.  But he said we are looking at having a surgery date by December/January and surgery next spring sometime and that she is doing great and to let her just live her life and enjoy the holidays.

So that is our update, totally not what we were expecting when we adopted her, and still some pretty major surgery options that we will have to decide on, mostly whether or not to do one major surgery or to have a series of surgeries to fix component by component and there are pros and cons to both options. In the meantime, we went shooting again today, 4-wheeling, playing in a stream, getting totally muddy, out to a bonfire on the beach with friends last night and our families kids were involved in a major mud fight at the ocean edge and just becoming an Alaskan girl and loving being a part of a family where we all share the same last name and belong to each other.  Life is great right now, I am going to enjoy it since it will fly by too fast.

As a footnote, for those of you who are familiar with Dora the Explorer, yesterday Emery was trying to tell my youngest son 'No' and he wasn't really responding so she held out her hands and yelled 'Swiper no swiping, Swiper no swiping!''.  I couldn't stop laughing.  She was using English, I guess:)

Faith is Like a Little Seed

One of the songs that my kids sing says 'Faith is like a little seed, if planted it will grow'.  I think this is so very apparent when you get down the road and look back and instead of this small seed you have something strong and precious and meaningful.  Even though my life doesn't always reflect my faith in the way I would like, I get busy and sometimes my days seem like a string of appointments and chauffeuring children to activities, and cooking and cleaning and just the everyday things that can make up our lives and none of them are major or super impactful on the world, I can see the way that my faith colors my life.  It was a little seed that I planted when I was very young and now it is a rock that I am built upon.  It is a source of comfort, a well of strength I can draw from.  I am interested in what this new season of life will/may bring.  I had cut back on most activities for myself before we adopted Emery, but I am going to be cutting back more and keeping her home more until her health is taken care of. I have been able to be more involved in the community and have so loved it but now I get to take a step back or maybe to the side or in a different direction and refocus on solidifying my family and I am really excited about it.

What a gift to be able to focus my energy on strengthening our family bonds and solidifying us as a unit.  Societies and communities are only as strong as the families that make them up and I am thrilled to be able to really focus my time solely on my family for a while.  I had a thought the other night, that the world is kind of like a huge storm right now and I need to strengthen my family against any storms that might come at us. We live a pretty peaceful life.  We are very blessed in our daily lives, but I know on many fronts there is potential to do better and to be stronger and I am really glad that this adoption gives me the added incentive to focus on things that I haven't since my boys were younger since we have kind of moved on.  We don't focus on the extreme basics of what our beliefs are, but with Emery we have to since it is completely foreign to her.  We haven't done as many crafts or basic little songs or games since my older three were much younger, and now we do again and surprisingly they are all enjoying it.  While there is always a focus on our family and I love my family, in the past years as our kids have gotten a little bit older, we are more and more busy and have more and more distraction that gets more of our focus and even though everyone is still involved in activities of their own my refocus is a really great thing.  Learning the basics of what I have faith in has been fun for the older boys, I am loving hearing about their own faith.

I remember seeing a lesson when I was younger, there was a jar and a pile of rocks and a cup of sand.  The teacher poured the sand into the jar then tried to fit the rocks in, they wouldn't fit.  Then she put the rocks in first and allowed the sand to fill up the space around them and everything fit.  I am getting the rocks of the most important things on my schedule and then letting whatever else can fit make it, or be left out for this season and at least I will be assure that I have the important things taken care of.

On the medical front, we spent a nice long day on Thursday going back and forth to the hospital and clinic for a pediatrician check up, blood work, and more blood work.  By the end Emery, who is a total trooper, was pretty much done.  And I realized that spending five or six hours dealing with medical issues that I thought would be 45 minutes can really impact a schedule:) I have been assured by the cardiologist's nurse that I will hear a surgery plan tomorrow afternoon.  I am hoping that will be the case.  Emery is doing really well, we just keep taking two steps forward and one step back with the attachment and bonding and adjustment process which is great since we are definitely moving forward!

We went shooting as a family yesterday and Emery loved it!  Too bad she isn't old enough for a bb gun of her own, that is usually an 8 year old thing around here, but she has three older brothers and a dad who can share.

Thank you so much for your prayers.  I know God lives.  I know He loves us.  I know He hears our prayers, every single one.