10 Days

We are counting down.  10 days until we leave.  It takes us about a day to get to California and then pre op the next day and then the surgery on the 8th, Wednesday.  If you are praying specific prayers, her head surgeon is Dr. Hanley:) 

Emery is currently super excited and the guys are treating it like a vacation from all things girly and getting to have dad around for a couple weeks, so I guess I am the only one not expecting to have a complete blast;)  Emery just knows all of the things that she is currently not able/not allowed to do and can't wait to live life without restrictions so even though there is a bit of a rocky path to get there she has been looking forward to it since China, as have we. 

We will be in the CVICU for a few days then will be transfered to a regular room.  Leaving for home just depends on how Emery recovers.

And Emery has been with us 6 months, half a year, she is, according to her, Chinese- AMERICAN!

January

January has been spent in the snow:)  Emery made a snowman and snow angels and loves to eat the snow, we have had to limit that since she will try to pick it up from any surface...the parking lot at Walmart...no, a random car...no, freshly fallen in the yard, ok.  She is dying to play outside for a long time and being the protective mom I am(just over two weeks until surgery!!)  I limit it so she doesn't catch a cold.  She is so excited to get her heart fixed, since she is having a harder and harder time keeping up with her brothers and running and jumping which she loves to do.  Her surgery is scheduled for February 8th.  I will post before then, but would appreciate any and all prayers that could be sent heavenward for her.  I am excited to be done dealing with insurance, travel coordination, doctor coordination, monitoring her health, etc. even though, honestly Seattle Children's couldn't do much more to make all of this go more smoothly. 

Year's End

Christmas at our house was a little crazy, a bit chaotic, and tons of fun.  On Christmas Eve one of my sons made puppets to use to illustrate reading the Christmas story.  Emery was VERY concerned about getting to sleep so that Santa would be able to come. For the one non-believer kid in our family it was a bit more difficult to get to bed with the others:)    Christmas morning was a blast.  Emery opened one present and savored it.  She looked at it, examined it.  Exclaimed over it.  It was a new doll.  So we paused all of the present opening to encourage the boys to not just move on to the next gift after a quick 'Thanks'.  After a couple more presents Emery was asking, " 'nother present, please?"  Ah, well it was a nice thought at the beginning.

We went to Christmas morning church and left a bit of glitter on the pew from Emery's Christmas dress(we got it off!)  Who knew little girls dresses with sparkles shed?  Somehow, we didn't take any pictures of everyone in church clothes, so we will be restaging that event:)!

While there was plenty of hustle and bustle, baking and making, wrapping and buying, singing and reading and watching Christmas movies,  I was struck by the fact that last year we had barely started the process to adopt Emery.  We made Christmas ornaments for her so that she would have some this year to put on the tree, and she did.  And I was struck by the fact that I could not have necessarily predicted this exact path, and it is one so much greater than one I might have thought I would choose.  It has been a great and crazy year.  I am looking forward to a year that is maybe a little bit less crazy but just as great!

And my focus even more this year is going to be about something I was reading in John.  When it talks about how Christ is the vine and that we are the branch and the branch can't produce fruit on its own.  Well the closer the branch is to the vine the stronger it is and the more it can carry.  I feel like my plate has gotten pretty heavy and full so obviously I need to be moving a little bit closer to the source of my strength in order to carry it a bit easier!  So that is my continued, carry-over goal for 2012.

May God bless you and yours this year.  Thank you for your help and prayers for our family in 2011.  We have been so very blessed.

:)

FEBRUARY 8TH!!!!


Need I say more?




Heart surgery is scheduled:) 

Life As We Know It

First, the good news.  Have I mentioned that I really loves Seattle Children's?  I really do.  They are fantastic in so many ways.  I called yesterday ti check on where we were at since it has been a month since Emery's second cardiac cath.  I KNOW they will call me when they hear an update, but still it has been a month, so I called just because it felt like at least I was doing something.  I talked to the resident who has gone above and beyond for us.  Seriously a FANTASTIC doctor. We went over a few things that had been going on with Emery's health and pretty much ended with no new news but the hope and expectation to hear within the week.  Then last night he called me with an update.  Stanford has a surgery plan for Emery, has officially accepted her to be put on their schedule and we are FINALLY moving forward, although still waiting for a surgery date.  We should know the date within a week.  Our next contact should be with Stanford's surgery schedulers and there are no new tests or retests that need to be done before the surgery.  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He called right when he heard the news.  How incredibly nice:)


Emery is having so much fun waiting for Christmas.  She doesn't quite understand that we have to wait.  Every day has the potential of being Christmas for her, which is kind of funny.  She also knows that it is Jesus's birthday and is convinced that Jesus is coming to our house so that we can sing Happy Birthday to Him.   She got a stocking and thought we needed to two for Santa's two feet that must be sooo biiiigg.  Complete with hand gestures.  She loves the advent calendar, although I don't know that it is because there is a countdown or because she gets a piece of candy every day, probably the latter.

We are making big steps in attachment.  My husband is out of town and she really misses him, that is a good thing.  We countdown to when he will be back and she understands that.

I am still not her favorite person, I might never be, and I am OK with that.  Some of my sons would definitely prefer my husband to me(I don't blame them!) but we are so much better than where we were.  I look back and am amazed at the progress that has been made.  She will let me help her, and looks to me for help now.  She doesn't try to go with every other woman or man available.   I can now say no and it is ok with her.  It is nice to be moving away from the media entertainment phase. There are still things to work through and time to spend and places to improve but we are on the right path I think.  Last week she told us that she wanted her China family, her sisters and ayis and not us.  I hurt for her.  To me, that is a normal thing, one I have been waiting for.  I don't think it was truly a rejection of our family but a expression of grief for the loss that she has had, and she is finally able to verbalize some of the things that there are to grieve for.  So we are back to the crying at night for a variety of reasons, that are all completely understandable to me at this point and she lets us hold her and comfort her and it is so much easier to work through than when we held her like a rigid board or rubbed her back while she sat up perfectly straight and cried quietly.

We are grateful for this season of the year, and this season of our lives.  We feel so very, very blessed.

Thanksgiving

Family

One year ago we submitted our letter of intent to adopt Emery.  I remember thinking that we weren't quite ready to adopt  We had just bought a house that was a fixer upper;  not just a few cosmetic changes, but a gut it to the studs and , upper.  We live in a community where it can be hard to find housing and this one kind of dropped in our lap.  It has a yard and is in city limits.  We really wanted a yard and it is hard to find that here.  So we (mostly me) decided to buy it when we walked around the outside before we went inside.  Some rooms inside we didn't even go in.  It is small.  One of my sons had to go to the doctor right after being inside because he had a severe allergic reaction to cats that lived inside.  We lived in a hotel for weeks while we cleaned it up and repaired enough to move in.   But it is in a great neighborhood, and did I mention it has a yard?  In the midst of this craziness we saw Emery's pictures, read her files, prayed, fasted and decided to move forward in a leap of faith.  Her file seemed pretty straightforward.

Jump ahead a month and her file wasn't quite as straightforward.  There were all kinds of complications that could be happening and time became precious for her chance at a repair surgery.  The cardiologist who reviewed her file gave us best and worst case scenarios and told us realistically she was probably somewhere in the middle but they couldn't tell from the testing that had been done.  The worst case scenario was that we would bring her home to die. 

We weren't really ready to expedite the adoption.  We had planned on a 10-12 month period to go through the steps and get all our finances in order.  And I was a bit scared.  Should we proceed with this adoption when surely there was someone else who was more ready to go forward?  In January I put out the word that we needed help to expedite.  I have never been so humbled than by the extreme outpouring of support and help that we received from friends, family, and strangers.  We did a 10 day fundraiser and were completely overwhelmed by the grace we were shown.  And we had, almost to the cent, what we needed to expedite the adoption and start rushing things through.

Our homestudy writer was amazing, she put in all the visits in one week and got it written up quickly.  We had to fly to Anchorage to be fingerprinted for USCIS and they allowed us to walk in whenever we could, once we explained the situation.  We got an extremely helpful and sympathetic USCIS worker who helped us to expedite.  Our agency representative was extremely attentive to our file to make sure it wasn't lost and to ask if it could be expedited at every step of the way.  Eight months later we were meeting our little girl.

In the last year our family has grown in more ways than the obvious,  we have felt embraced and carried by so many wonderful people, and we have seen God's hand in our lives more. 

I have so very, very much that I am thankful for.  I am thankful for the power of prayer.  I am thankful for the gift of friendship.  I am thankful for the blessing and strength of family.  And above all I am thankful for God, who knows and blesses me in so many ways.

Happy Thanksgiving and a very Merry Christmas season. 

Hopefully we will have a surgery date soon:)

Sleeping Beauty

First Day

The Little Princess

All Clear

The cath was successful and they were able to get the pressures that they needed to plan a surgery.  In addition the pressures in the collateral vessels were low which is apparently a very good thing.  Emery was a champ and it was SOOOOO much better than last time.  Hard to believe that in less than two months we did not need a translator and Emery turned to me for help instead of the nurses  I have to admit I was strangely happy to be puked all over after Emery came out of the procedure.  I don't think she has ever vomited before and was very scared and disturbed by it all.  I told her that her geges and baba would be so proud of her and that is was a cool gross thing.  She was so excited to call baba and tell him that she puked 3 times!  Eew gross, giggle, giggle!  We still have a predominantly boy family.  We had a fantastic trip.  Emery was hungry and begging for pizza right after she woke up, but we waited until the next day and had pizza for lunch in the airport and then baba made pizza for dinner.  She was one happy little girl.

The exciting thing for me was that her oxygen levels were higher coming out of the cath than before, only a few points but I'll take it!  We didn't have a repeat of last time trying to get her stable at 70.  She was a solid 77 when she woke up.  So great!  It was so nice to sleep the night in the hotel instead of the hospital that night.

Thank you so much for your prayers.  We are so grateful for the way they have been answered.  We are back to the waiting game to hear a surgery date.  It snowed here last night.  I don't think Emery has played in the snow much, or ever.  She LOVES it.  It is really cute to see how much she enjoys these firsts. 

At the Ocean