Surgery Update

I mentioned last week that I needed to do an update on all things Kate, and I finally found a moment to do it in. Right now I am in a hotel room in Ohio while my husband is at a youth ministry conference. Kate is asleep in the bed beside me, and the boys are in the responsible hands of my father (which probably means that they are watching Lion King 1 1/2 for the 12th time today:)-Hi, Dad, just teasing a bit;). Mom has been helping out too, carting them back and forth to school.

Anyway, Kate's surgery to repair her palate was exactly a month ago, and in hindsight, I can say that she has done beautifully. But for honesty's sake, I probably need to lay out the gory details (well, maybe not all of them). The first day was awful. Completely. She cried when they took her out of my arms. She screamed at me when I went to her in recovery. (I was going to insert a photo here, but it was just too awful, poor girl.) She clung to me whimpering for about an hour after that. The only thing that cheered her up was when we both got to ride in a wheelchair that took us to her room. I asked her if she liked the ride, and with snot and tears and blood oozing out of her face she nodded yes. She slept most of that first day, allowing both Tim and I to comfort her. Naturally, she didn't sleep at all that night. On Day 2, she felt some better, but still did not want to drink anything, and we had to force any medications into her. She watched Elmo videos and cuddled with us, and was glad to go home later that day. (She also enjoyed playing tea party with Daddy.)
The next week was AWFUL. Feel free to read my previous posts for more detail.

Throughout all of this, she was extremely hesitant to let anyone look into her mouth. She was swollen (a lot) and bleeding (a little), and it was hard to see how it would look eventually. After about 2 weeks or so, she threw her little head back and laughed, and I saw a uvula - I was so excited!

She stayed on a soft diet for about 10-14 more days, with me progressively giving her more difficult things - but still nothing crunchy. She is now eating pretty much whatever she wants, although taco shells still scare me for some reason.

The inside of her mouth looks fabulous. I can still see some whitish areas down the middle that are still healing, and the ridge there is deeper than the other side. I'm not sure if this will change over time, or if she will always be able to feel where the cleft was in the roof of her mouth. There is still a pinkie-sized hole near her gum line that was left on purpose. It will close some on its own as the palate continues to heal. According to the doc, her mouth needed some room to grow. Once she is old enough for permanent teeth to begin to come in, it will be time to do a bone graft in her gum line and close off that hole.

The doc also clipped off a bit of extra skin that hung down where her lip was repaired back in 2007. That part of the surgery drove her crazy, and she was constantly trying to chew at her lip. Thankfully the stitches were on the inside, and she couldn't get at them. They mostly dissolved, but one tiny piece worked its way out of her lip. She pulled it free last week, and it hasn't seemed to bother her since. You can't even tell that there was work done there now. I don't know if she will choose to have further plastic surgery done or not. The lip line is a bit uneven, and her nose is slightly flat (you really only notice it if you are looking up her nose, which most of you will never have occasion to do). It really isn't even an option until she is a teenager, and by then she will be old enough to make that decision on her own.

Now, onto the dental update. Naturally, neither the dentist nor the oral surgeon has privileges at the same hospital as the plastic surgeon (so much for everything being coordinated), so we had to schedule the tooth extraction for 3 weeks later. One of her top teeth had rotted and broken off, and there was a visible cavity on the bottom, so we scheduled a semi-sedation visit with our dentist. She also did X-rays and found that there is no baby tooth or permanent tooth where the cleft was. That was a surprise to me, as I was sure I had seen a tooth up there at some point. Anyway, that means that she has two missing teeth on the top (the extracted one, and the non-existent one). She complained more about this procedure than about the surgery and asked for pain meds for a couple of days.

We have already had a stranger ask how she lost her tooth, and I just said that it was rotten and the dentist had to pull it. Let them think I am a bad mom for giving her too many sweets or whatever. I am not going to get into a dissertation on the oral health of cleft children in line at a grocery store. (Actually I may someday, but that day, I was so not up for it.)

So, that is the extremely long version of her recovery. The short version is that I think it looks great. People have been cracking me up by telling my how good it looks, when they have never seen the inside of her mouth, and that is where all of the surgery was done.

I will try to do updates on her speech and other adjustments soon. But this is enough for one night, don't ya think?

Soccer, Valentine's Day, and Life in General

OK, I am a slacker, but not without good reason. I mentioned a few posts back that I have several posts stewing in my brain, but getting them onto the computer is another matter entirely. It seems that there is always something important to do, someone I need to call, or somewhere I need to go. Plus, it seems that I have a lot of trouble focusing lately. On anything. I haven't been going to bed on time, I have a bad cold, and emotionally I am exhausted. There are many people who I love who are going through extremely trying times right now, and my heart just aches when I think of them. The past two Sundays I have been in tears during worship - I just can't stop. (By the way, we are still praying for my friend Doug to wake up, so please join us in praying for him.) So I am often too drained to do anything but play online or something similarly mindless.

However, while my friends and family have been going through difficult times, we have been doing well. Kate continues to heal beautifully from her surgery and from her dental work. I have every intention of writing some posts about her progress, but for now a photo will have to satisfy you.

As for the boys, they have kept busy playing soccer this winter. For those of you who don't know me very well, I am pretty much a homebody (if you don't count my travel bug). I like to have all of my kids at home with me, and I mostly avoid extracurricular activities that aren't involved with church. Ben was six years old before I ever considered any kind of sports or lessons at all. Part of it is my cheapskate nature, but most of it is my desire for family time and to let kids be kids. My boys love their afternoon play time, when my living room is turned into a massive scene from their imagination called "Batman meets Spiderman and they rescue Larry Boy and the Little People while fighting Pirates and Bad Guys." It gets a little elaborate (and chaotic), but they are actually disappointed when I suggest we go somewhere and do something. So we stay home and play a lot:)

So when I suggested they play soccer, they were less than thrilled. But I kept at them, pretty much forcing them to get out of the house this winter, and they spent six weeks playing soccer through our local YMCA. The first week, Ben was eager to learn, while Will alternated between crying and standing still like a statue when he was supposed to be learning how to play. After that though, they both started putting their all into it, and they have had a great time. After the second week, Will came home and declared he was never going to cry on a Saturday again! (Naturally that promise has already been broken. Oh well.)

Ben's favorite position is goalie. He is good at that kind of focused attention on one job. This past week his coach was putting him in another position, and I overheard Ben telling him that he had already played offense and defense today, but he would really like to be goalie again. It's a really more of a class than a league, and the coach was agreeable and put him in that position, which made him happy.

Each week they are put into teams, and one week they ended up on different teams. On the way home Ben said, "I was the only one on the yellow team who was cheering for the greens." He didn't see anything wrong or funny in cheering for his brother in green.

Will thinks goalie is boring, and he would rather RUN! Check out the joy on this kid's face when he chases the ball.

And when he actually kicks it...

In other words, soccer has been a hit. I don't know that they will stick with it long term, but it has been a good taste of what sports can be in the future. I am thinking of Tball in the spring.

Lastly, I have never liked Valentine's Day. It is just about card and flower and candy and jewelry companies trying to make a buck. This attitude always leaves my husband in a quandary, because he doesn't know if I really want him to get me a gift or not. (I don't, by the way.) So this year, he came up with the best solution ever! He got a grocery list pad with magnets on it, and on each page he wrote things that he and the kids loved about me. This week it says, "We love to color with mommy." It is awesome, and it cost $.99, and I love it!!!! Best V Day present ever:) Isn't it great?

Waiting Children

Since we have been home with Kate NaNa, Tim and I have both had a lot of people ask questions about adoption. Although some of them have been nosey and rude, the vast majority of them have been sincere and out of a desire to know more about adoption. I even know that there are several of you who have made the decision to take the leap (yay!), and some of you are still praying about that choice (yay for praying!).

When asked about the China program, Tim and I always tell people that the non-special needs program that we started out in has slowed down to the point that people who will receive their referrals this next month will have waited 3 years. We are so thankful that our eyes were opened to the special needs program, where we found our darling girl. We were in the NSN for over two years before we switched programs. Evidently God needed that time to prepare our hearts, to educate us, and to get Kate's file ready!

This week, our agency received the files of more children from China, bringing the number on their agency list up to 12. There are some beautiful faces on this list, and I encourage you (especially those of you praying) to wander over to A Helping Hand and read about them for yourselves. For the record, I am already in love with the little boy with cleft lip. (Don't worry, we haven't been home long enough to adopt again, per China's rules.) There is always a child on there that I fall in love with, who I pray about and eagerly await the note beside their name that says they have been "matched with their forever family". That is such a beautiful little phrase to me.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. The waiting children of China will forever be close to my heart, and I pray for families for each of them.

Please Pray for my Friend...

I had several other blog posts floating around in my head that I wanted to write today, but that isn't going to happen. A little while ago I got a call that my dear friend, Doug, is in the hospital. Doug is one of my precious friends from college (one of the GP "girls") who I only get to see a couple times a year, but I still think of as a close friend. Honestly, he is one of the funniest people I know, he is a loyal friend, and he has the sweetest wife and baby girl.

Anyway, I don't want to share too much personal information, but Doug is sick. He isn't a little sick. He is a lot sick. So please lift him up in prayer. Pray for his whole family, his doctors to figure out what is wrong, and especially for Doug. I am praying for God to move in a big way. Please join me:)

Celebrate..Part 2

Just thought I would share some pics of Kate's celebration meal tonight. I fixed chicken pot pie (the softest meal I could think of), and she had seconds:)

And here of some pics of the ice from last week. This was after it had started to melt, but you can still see the tree bent over into our yard. Normally this doesn't even come over the fence at all. Thankfully we never lost power like so many people did. Tim's brother's family lost theirs, and last I heard they are still waiting. It's been over a week now, bless their hearts.

Celebrate!!

Even though we have been pretty much trapped in the house (thank you, winter storm) for EVER, I feel like I have had a busy week. No, I haven't accomplished much of anything (except cleaning out Kate's closet). All I have done is watch Kate to make sure food and toys stay out of her mouth, and we all sneak around the house so that she won't see any of us eating. That has been interesting, and none of us have had very well-balanced meals this week.

Kate has been taking it all like a trooper (well, maybe she's a bit grumpy at dinner time). She has been mostly living on melted chocolate ice cream. She will occasionally drink milk and water, but over the weekend I noticed that her lips were more cracked than usual. I was worried that she might get dehydrated, so I started giving her Pediasure and Pedialyte to supplement her fabulous diet. Naturally, she refused to drink these things, but she was willingly taking her medicines. So I figured out that full 2 syringes would equal 1 oz. of fluids, so I started pumping fluids into her this way, telling her that it was medicine. Yesterday she finally took the Pediasure voluntarily, signing "bear" when she wanted it. (There is a bear on the bottle.) She fought us so hard those first few days, that I was really worried we would be back at the hospital for dehydration. I started asking God to make her less stubborn so she wouldn't starve. Thankfully, he answered that prayer, and she is doing very well.

I am pleased to announce that we saw the doctor today, and he said that Kate's mouth is healing well. He even said we could go ahead and give her some soft foods, even though she originally wasn't supposed to have solids until Saturday - Yea!!! Can you tell I am excited that I can stop hiding food from my child??? He said to do soft foods only for 10 more days, and then we can progress to regular foods. So my friends, we are almost there! (Well, of course she is supposed to have 2 teeth pulled in 2 weeks and we will back to soft foods and pain meds again, but hey, this is progress!) Thank you to everyone who has been praying for my sweet Kate NaNa!

On another note, the kids have been out of school for almost 2 weeks now due to icy roads. They did have school this Tuesday, but we got 3 inches or so of snow that day, so we haven't had it since. I am hoping that tomorrow they can go back. I really need that, if you know what I mean:)

Totally Random Thoughts...

My boys are totally into super heroes. Last night, Will asked me why super heroes wear their underwear on the outside of their pants. His dad guessed that maybe it was so you could tell the supers from the regular heroes. But then, why does Batman do it? He isn't a super (store-bought powers, ya know). Although, come to think of it, was he wearing them in the last Batman film?

So, anybody know the answer to Will's q? Anybody?? (Funny answers to make me laugh will be gladly accepted.)