Up, Up and Away...

that is what we were doing one year ago today.  We boarded a plane in Chicago and headed half way around the world, on a mission to bring one very special little girl home.  She would become a party of our family, forever!  It gives me chills just thinking of the journey we took, all orchestrated by our Heavenly Father.  I am still in awe of how everything fell just perfectly into place, what a miracle.

Angel post -surgery

Surgery, once again, went great and went over the estimated time.  We were told the expected it to take no more than 2.5 hours, 4 hours later, the doctor finally came to talk to me.


They got a lot done and the contouring they were able to do to her nose is going to look great once all the swelling goes down.

Here's a run down of what they did - They removed the Nevus from under her left eye, up to her eye lashes (so she has built in eye liner) and replaced it with a skin graft that was taken from behind her right ear. The grafted areas from behind the ear was then tacked together versus replacing it what a skin graft from else where.  It's not as drastic as it sounds, he said the skin should stretch out and her ears really won't look uneven as far as distance from the head, a revision can be done in the future if need be. They contoured the inner eye areas on both side, giving her a narrower nose bridge.  They also removed the thick scarring that occurred around her nostrils and contoured that as well.  It's amazing how much work they have completed since we began with the expanders in June, less than 9 months ago.

As far as our outlook for the next surgery, I was told it will be a while, not sure exactly what that means as far as time but I'm guessing at least 6 months.  She will eventually need a small expander near her nose to remove the spots on the tip of her nose  - meaning at least 2 more surgeries.  But all the scars she has there need to be fully healed.

Here are some photos - again, not for the faint of heart.

Before

Right after surgery

Bandages off

Our happy girl, despite not being able to see, she still gets around. Mom requires that she scoot on her bottom so her feet are out in front of her in case she should encounter anything.

Heading to Chicago tomorrow...

We are off to Chicago tomorrow, Angel is scheduled for surgery at 7:30am on Thursday.  Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.  They expect surgery to take 2-2.5 hours.  We should be back home Friday evening.

Still can't believe all her Nevus, except for a few tiny left overs here and there that will be taken care of later, will be gone. 

Blessings.

Another month by, lots going on...

I have been meaning to post for weeks but things have been rather crazy busy here.  A lot has gone on since my last post. 


Kailey has lost 2 teeth, that she pulled herself - one of them Super Bowl evening and the other this past Friday.  At least she's symmetrical.

Kailey loves to show off her missing teeth!

Angel had her eye specialist appointment on Feb 2nd and we learned that her right eye has good vision, her left eye is lazy and is a -9.5 prescription; therefore, we had to get glasses for her, pretty pink ones!  We also have to put a patch over her right eye for 2 hours each day to exercise that right eye, in hopes that it will strengthen it up.  I pray it works, we go back in May for a follow-up.

Check out my new pretty pink glasses and fairy eye patch.  I say arg..... I'm a pretty pirate!

She says arg every time we put the patch on.

See how well Logan uses his glasses?  Aren't they cute?

Then two weeks ago, my husband damaged his knee playing basketball.  After spending three and a half hours at the Orthopedics's clinic, we discovered he tore his ACL and both Meniscus in his right knee and will undergo surgery on March 10th.  So due to limited mobility, he was unable to drive during that time - thankfully we have wonderful friends who have assisted me in getting everyone where they need to be.  Jason did begin driving this weekend again but that will only last till surgery, then he is allowed no weight bearing for 6 weeks.

So we have 2 surgeries in the span of a week coming up. Angel and I head to Chicago next week for her skin graft surgery on the 4th and Jason's the following week.  Going to be a crazy time around here.  Thankfully, the kids will finish up basketball at the end of next week.  That should slow things down for a few weeks anyway, till baseball and softball begin.

There's my quick summary of the past month.  Three weeks from tomorrow we will celebrate Angel's one year "Gotcha Day" anniversary - that just amazes me.  One year ago we were on the edge of our seat waiting for our travel approval with 5 more days of waiting to go.

One year ago today...

I received our Referral Acceptance call. Oh what a roller coaster ride that day was.  Earlier in the day, we were notified that we had a new nephew, YAY!!!  That afternoon, I saw the e-mail notification from AWAA stating RA calls had been made.  And we hadn't gotten one.  I was so bummed because I really thought we would have been included.  A bit later my phone rings, and it's AWAA's special ring so my heart began to race.  To hear the news that she was officially ours, that all we had to do was wait for travel approval to go get her, brought me to very happy tears.

What a special day, to have two new members join the family.  I'm tearing up just remembering that day. 

 Thank you God for this special little girl, for making her part of our family, Your masterpiece!!!

Next Surgery & More Doc appts

We were contacted with a few dates today and decided March 4th would work the best, 7 weeks away.  I'm finding it amazing that almost 100% of her nevus will be removed before she's been with us for a year.  Our one year, Forever Family, anniversary is March 16th.  I'm still in awe of our journey.

On another note, Angel & I had eye appointments this morning.  If you recall, back in October, we had a concern about her left eye being a bit "lazy" and I had taken her to the eye doctor.  At the time, Angel was still not able to fully open her eyes so the doctor was not able to do a whole lot because she didn't want to traumatize Angel.  Therefore, doc suggested that we bring Angel back after the additional surgery she had in October that helped her to more fully open the eyes. So that is what we did this morning. 

After doing some testing of her eyes, the eye doc recommends we have a full eye exam completed by a pediatric eye specialist because she has concerns. She said that some of the muscles in Angel's left eye do not appear to be full attached or functioning and thinks her depth perception is likely off (which doesn't surprise me because Angel seems to have hesitations in stepping down off sidewalks and such, though that could just be a developmental delay). She did not give a medical term but after doing some reading I think it is a form of Strabismus. Doc also mentioned she thinks Angel might need a prescription.  An appointment has been set to see the specialist on Feb 2nd. A possible eye surgery was mentioned being needed to correct the matter, if that is what it turns out to be. Just what we need.

Can our girl not catch a break?

Article on Dr. B...

A featured article, through the hospital he now works for, was done on Dr. Bauer and one of his patients.  It really highlights what a truely caring doctor he is ...

http://www.northshore.org/uploadedfiles/publications/Connections.pdf

Next Surgery Date in the works...

Finally heard back from Dr. B on Angel's healing progress and what the next surgery will cover.  Here is what he said: 

"Angel really looks like she is making progress. While the scars still have a ways to go they are definitely settling some. I think the next surgery would be excision of the nevus of the lower eyelid and the inner corner of the eye with a full thickness graft reconstruction, plus release and revision of the scares along either side of the nose and brows to thin out the area around the nose and further allow the eyelid to open on the left. We will probably inject some steroid into the scars that we are not redoing."


He also said we can do the next surgery whenever it works for both our schedules; therefore, I sent an e-mail to his secretary to find a date that will work.  Hopefully, we will have that narrowed down sometime this week.  My guess is it will be sometime next month.
 
I'm not sure I'm ready to go through all this, again, but I am ready to get it all done with.  I am apprehensive each time, as her face changes a little with each surgery.  She is beautiful no matter what, just miss every little part of her that is altered. 
 
I will post when we have a date.
 
Blessings from above!

Officially Potty Training...

Angel's New Years resolution must be to get potty trained because she has gone from having no interest in telling us when she has to go, to only having about one pee accident each of the past 3 days, during the day.  I purchased some Dora undies for her a few months ago, hoping that would motivate her but it didn't work.  I pulled them back out earlier this week and I think they got her attention this time because she really wanted to put them on. Told her we have a little work to do before we do that but I think we are getting closer to trying them.  I am so proud of her!!!  And excited about not having to mess with diapers, other than at night, her bladder isn't ready for holding all night yet.  YAY!!!

More pictures from Christmas...

Christmas Morning (some how the time on my camera was wrong it appears)

All this visiting wears a girl out.

Visiting Great Grandpa C in Indianpolis, he addores Angel!

Angel cheesing this morning!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a reason to celebrate 2009 and has many hopes for a blessed 2010!


We celebrated by hosting a family game night, New Years Eve party at our home with a few families and had a great time.  We ate pizza, appetizers, snacks and played games.  Fun for all!!!

2009 was a wonderful yet challenging year for us but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  We have learned so much about God and his love for us when he joined Angel to our family.  We have learned about unconditional love, which started from just a picture and medical report about her.  A love that has grown by leaps and bounds upon meeting her and going through the many medical procedures with her.  She has also shown us unconditional love, despite all we put her through.  We are thankful this hasn't hindered her attaching to us. 

It has been wonderful to see how Michiael, Logan and Kailey never once hesitated to love her and treat her as part of us.  They are all wonderful with her , a great help in teaching her new things and assisting with day to day activities. They love to show her off, whenever they can.

We go into this year knowing we face a few more surgeries and much more massaging.  Not things we look forward to but know must be done to complete what was started.  Despite all of this, we know some day Angel will be appreciative of all of this. At least those are our hopes and what we are told by others who were born with a facial Nevus. 

I know we will also have many good times this year, with the pool we are installing in the spring and trips we plan to take.  Many memories to be made.

Thank you all to your continue thoughts and prayer as we continue ravel this road as Angel's Forever Family.

A Family is God's Masterpiece

- that is a saying I have come to love!

Wishing you many blessing in 2010!

Where has the year gone?

Wow, this month flew by with lots of snow left behind. Where do I begin?

The months in reveiw...

• The kids entertained us at the Church's Christmas Program on the 5th.  Theysang a song with their Sunday School class and Michial participated in the puppet show (Michiael joined the puppeteers this fall and enjoys it).  They all did a wonderful job.
• Angel experienced lots of snow and sledding for the first time (check out her big grin below).  On Dec 8th & 9th we experienced a "blizzard", had about 18 inches of snow dumped on us. The worst in 30-years they say.  It was very windy and cold; therefore, the kids missed 2 days of school. We had drifts in our yard that were 3 to 5 feet deep. 
• Angel has been with us for over 9 months now!
• Angel celebrated her first Christmas and loved all the presents. What kid doesn't? I'm sure she doesn't really comprehend it all, just knows she made out well.  She sure loves Santa though!
• We spent several days in Indiana over Christmas visiting lots of family.  They were all so glad to see us and especially see or meet Angel.  She did great, warmed up to everyone quickly.  What an outgoing little girl, loves to be the center of attention, most of the time.

Logan took Angel on her first ride on a sled, this was down one of the drifts on the side of our house (told you we got a lot of snow....

Here's the result!!!!!

Our Christmas at home, we celebrate early since we travel over the holiday.

Each year, every family member gets an ornament, this ornament represents something about the individual.  This year, we gave Angel a flashy 2009 ornament, representing her first Christmas and union with our family.

Only 3 days left to this year, I can hardly believe it.  We will be enjoying these last few days as a family, as Jason has 2 more days off of work. 

I'll upload more pictures soon, I need to get all the Christmas photos we took while in Indiana off the camera yet.

God Bless

Updates to go along with pictures..

It's been almost 4 weeks since I've posted, guess we've been busy.


Things are going well with Angel, we have been massaging the scars, not always 6 times a day but we try. This process is still a battle, most of the time - occasionally we can entertain her for part of or the whole time. We now listen to 5 nursery rhymes while we do the massaging, this is to help her become accustom to knowing that when the songs are over, we are ready to say our ABC's and then we are finished. I'm not sure it is serving it's purpose but hopefully someday soon she will figure that out.

Some of you may be aware that November is National Adoption month. Last weekend, our county held an Adoption Day Celebration down at the Courthouse. On this day they complete many domestic adoption court hearing and do Citizenship ceremonies for those who were adopted internationally over the past year. This was the 8th year, if I recall correctly, that they have done this. We were invited, about a month ago, to participate in one of the Citizenship Ceremonies taking place, what a special time. There were about 12 children in the group we were with and they called each one up, one by one, to be presented with their Citizenship certificate (which most already had, it was just a special ceremony) and to have a picture taken with the judge. It was so neat to see so many families in our community that have adopted children from half way around the world.

Our first Thanksgiving with Angel was special, we had dinner with our good friends, who are Angel's Godparents, and their three boys on Thursday evening. We all shared what we are thankful for - for most the kids and adults it was family and friends - I added our sweet addition to the family.   When I think back to a year ago, we had known of little Fu Ru Tian only a few weeks and had just submitted our Letter of Intent to adopt her.  Wait to find out if we would be approved. Oh the anticipation and love we had for her already. This year we get to hold her in our arms and feel blessed that God chose her as a gift to us.

This reminds me that I found a quote in Reader's Digest, while at the doctor's office on Friday, that I believe is so true:

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.
~ Desmond Tutu from God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time

We were blessed to have a few family members come from Indiana to visit us this weekend, it was great to see them and for Angel to meet her Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa D for the first time! Special memories - love them!

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, the Christmas Tree and decorations went up today. I don't think Angel knows what is going on but she feeds off the excitement of her brothers and sister. It was so fun to watch the kids put the tree together and go through the ornaments. I got some great photos of them, see below.

Angel and I went to the mall last week and while there happen to see Santa. I thought at first Angel would be scared, as she usually hates mascots but I pointed Santa out and he looked up and waved; therefore, so did we. Then she was like "hi, Santa" repeatedly so we went to sit on his lap and she didn't seem to mind. Got a great picture of Santa reading to her, so very cute.

We also had family photos taken this week, we were way overdue. It has been 4 years since we have had a family photo taken. A friend of ours took them, I can't wait to see them. He sent us a preview of one yesterday, oh they are going to be good! I imagine choosing won't be easy.

That about wraps up the past week ~ blessings to you all! I'm thankful for all the prayers you have said for Angel over the past year, we are very blessed to have so many prayer "warriors" out there. Thank you!

Updates - it's been a while...

Well, I guess I will just post the pictures for now. I had written a rather large blog post up and somehow managed to lose it so I will have to rewrite it later.

Angel for her Citizenship ceremony

Great Grandma & Grandpa D - just met them on Friday!

The girls with Papaw & Kim

Showing off the ornaments we got them last year that say "Big Brother" (Ge Ge), "Big Sister" (Jie Jie), and "Little Sister" (Mei Mei) in Chinese letters

My First Christmas - Look at my tree

Kid's Halloween costumes - Angel - duck, Kailey - Sharpey (High School Musical), Michiael - Indiana Jones & Logan - Mut (Indiana Jone's Son)

Quack, quack

This is how fully she can open her eyes now. The right is pretty much back to normal, the left still needs a little work. She will likely need a little more skin removed from the eye & nose juncture.

Update from the doc this week is that we need to massage more, concentrating on the area to the left of her nose where it has built up a bit. The right side seems to be healing well but the left side by her nose and an area near her chin both have a ridge to them. Therefore, we must massage more often throughout the day - Angel is not a fan of it at all. We are trying to do our best to do 6 sessions of about 5 minutes each. I have alarms set on my cell phone and Outlook calendar to help remind me. We are massaging about every other hour during the day. Between that and trying to potty train, I feel like we don't get a whole lot else done.

I also asked the doc what procedures he foresees for next year because we are getting ready to reinstate our health insurance and what to be sure to be prepared for what is to come. He is going to put together an outline of the procedures he expects will need to be done and send it to us. Some will depend on the scaring. I'm eager to see what we face in the coming year. I knew we would face several surgeries, guess I didn't realize that there was the possibility of all the "little" procedure that would need to be done to get things "just right". It's all for the best, just hard put her through so many. Thankfully she is such a trooper!

Looking much better...

Overall she is looking great, as you will see in the final picture. I still think she will need a little more work on the left eye before she will be able to fully open it but it is better than it was. We will see what the doctor says.

It's snowing....playing with foam popcorn.

Practicing fine motor skills with "momey" or money.

You can see both my eyes now!!!

What's next?

I asked Angel's surgeon yesterday, during the post-op overview, so what is the next step? At this point, he wants her to fully heal; therefore, he does not plan to do another surgery till after the new year. There is one exception to this, that is if yesterday's surgery still doesn't allow her to fully open her eyelids.

I pray that once all the swelling goes down she will be able to.

For now we are to massage some of the scars from the last surgery for 30 minutes total, preferably 5 minutes, 6 times a day. I am lacking already today, I've only done it once. This is going to be tough to stick to. Getting her to sit still that long won't be easy either. Better set a timer to do it every 2 hours. Between massaging and potty training we'll have a timer going off here all the time.

3rd Surgery - How it went

Another successful surgery done. Our trip to Chicago on Sunday went well, Angel did great for not having anyone in the back to help entertain her.

Monday morning we arrived at the hospital right on time 7:45am! I was worried as to how she would react this time since it had only been 5 weeks since the last surgery but she surprised me again, not once did she throw a fit. We walked into the pre-op (which was also the room we were in post op) room, same one as last time and she didn't even hesitate. She didn't even get upset about nurses this time, she was totally cooperative. She knew exactly what to do - I was amazed. Even after surgery she cooperated.

I am saddened to think that surgery is becoming the "norm" for her so she just goes along with it.

Surgery started about an hour and a half late again this time but was only about an hour long. Recovery time was much shorter this time too, about 40 minutes, it's been an hour and a half to two hours the last two times. She came out of it wonderfully. So at 1pm we were moved back to the outpatient room for another hour of observation. Well that one hour turned into two and a half hours. They didn't come check on her much. We were released at about 3:30pm, after I finally asked when we could go. Then we were on the road to home, arriving at about 10pm. Ange slept most of the way.

She is her usual self today, you wouldn't even know she had surgery yesterday. She isn't as swollen as I had expected her to be either. I'm so glad she was able to see, even right after surgery.

Here she is coloring while we wait.

Post surgery, while we wait to be released. She ate two applesauce, a NutriGrain bar and drank a cup of apple juice. The girl was hungry and thirsty.

One day post op

Thank you again for all your prayers, she has a wonderful group of people lifting her up!

Blessings!

Surgery on Monday at 9:20am

Just got the call that we need to be at the hospital at 7:45 am on Monday. Please pray for the procedure to go well and for safe, smooth travels.

Have a great weekend!

Pictures Only