Happy Year of the Rabbit

Today is Chinese New Year, the Year of the Golden Rabbit.  According to my research on the internet, this year is supposed to be a time to "catch your breath" and focus on the home, family and relationships with women and children. ( My dear husband will have PLENTY of opportunity with that as he is terribly outnumbered in our family!)

Last year it was the Year of the Tiger, a year that "won't come quietly or peacefully".  For us it was a whirlwind considering that this time last year our Lydia was just a wish in our hearts.  In the last 6 months we have been to China and back, adjusted to being a family of four and been through our first major surgery with Lydia's cleft. 

Even the weather in our neck of the woods echoed the last roar of the Tiger as we got hit with a "historic" ice storm/blizzard.  Three days off of school has given us a lot of time to spend with our girls.
It is fun to watch them play (and fight) together.  They have become true sisters through and through.  Every so often they disappear in Gabby's room to play and although we enjoy the peace and quiet...it's when it gets TOO quiet that we wonder what Lydia could be up to!  We discovered that she could open the hallway linen closet.  We found her opening all the bandaids and sticking them to her body as Gabby was engrossed in her DS games.
 
Luckily the storm came after our annual Chinese New Year party with our dear friends who we now consider family.  It was Lydia's first CNY with us and the first time for Gabby to be the 'big sister' at this event.  Lydia got a little jealous when the other little girls were hugging Gabby hello...she quickly pushed one out of the way and held onto Gabby and yelled "MINE".  Of course Gabby loved being the center of all this attention.  We are so grateful to our host Stacey who asked a photographer friend to come to the party and take these amazing photos of our beautiful girls. 

We hope the Year of the Rabbit brings you and your family much luck, rest and time to enjoy your loved ones!

Surgery Update

We met with Lydia's surgeon and she has a fistula (hole) in her palate. We already knew because you can see it in her mouth, but he explained that unless it causes issues with speech or eating they will just leave it for now and fix it when she's older. Before the surgery her palate was completely open, now there's just a hole in the middle with most of it closed. We're a little disappointed but it is what it is.

Typically fistulas happen because there isn't enough skin to close the palate. When she's older they will take some from the inside of her cheek. The surgeon had already mentioned that she would probably need her lip revised to remove some of the scarring so unless there's a reason to do it earlier he will do her lip and fistula when she's older.

Then and Now

Adopting Gabby has brought so many wonderful people into our life. We met Stacey and Dave at our adoptive parenting class as they were waiting to bring home Harper from China in 2005.  They traveled with Denise and Steve who were bringing home Audrey at the same time. We happened to meet them at a Little Gym class.  Since then this little trio of girls have been fast friends and our families have become each other's extended family.  Tonight it was Gabby's turn to host the sleepover and as I snapped pictures, I couldn't help but remember one of their first posed photos so long ago in the same spot in our house. 



Gabby and her friends Audrey and Harper (aka The China Girls) during one of their first summer playdates. Still in diapers, sippy cups and princess outfits.

Now they are first graders, watching Barbie "A Fashion Fairytale" movie and big enough for sleepovers. Long hair, missing teeth, but still dressed up in princess outfits within 10 minutes of arrival.

How quickly they grow up.  How lucky we are to have such beautiful, amazing girls as our daughters. 

Happy BERTday to our Nanny

Hope you have a wonderful day Nanny!  We miss you!

A visit to the pumpkin patch

It was a beautiful day on Saturday and we went for our annual trip to the pumpkin patch, only this time with our little Lydia in tow. Double the fun!

 

Getting ready to explore the hay maze.

Big sister leading little sister through the maze.

A girl is not complete with out a pink heart painted on her cheek!

Playing in the corn was so fun!



Leave to us to find the ONE pink tractor in the place!



Watch out when it's time for us to drive!

These horses will have to do, the real ponies were running late that day.

We are ready for Halloween!

After much debate and discussion, Gabby has finally decided what she will be for Halloween.
It couldn't be a princess cause some kids in her class think princesses are for babies.  But she knew she wanted a dress that had pink, purple and blue. I was trying to steer her towards the fifties dress or Dorothy from Wizard of Oz.  But then she came across an outfit called Harajuku Cutie ( kind of a Japanese punk rock girl)  that had all the colors she was looking for and it was no longer up for debate.   After we got home and did the makeup and hair to match,  I  quickly realized that the days of simply dressing as a ladybug or  black cat are over.  Of course when Gabby was getting dressed up, Lydia began to strip down too, so we got out Gabby's first Halloween costume...the ladybug princess which Lydia looked adorable in.  When it came time to put on makeup...Little one was right there in line for the lip gloss!  Poor Rob...the teenage years are going to be lots of fun for him!



Adding the finishing touches to our costume.



Not even two yet, but quickly has learned how to pucker those lips for the gloss.

A girl can never be too sparkly!

Too cute for words.





Mirror, Mirror...

Well it's not a mirror exactly, but Lydia sure had a good time with her reflection she found in the oven door.

Looks like another sassy girl in the house has been created!

The first video she is telling off her reflection, saying no and pointing that finger

 (whereever did she learned that one?)  What cracks us up is her expression as she walks away, a mad smirk on her face, she is ready for her Oscar anyday now!

The next two she was playing peek a boo and cracking herself up. 

She was very aware of the camera at this point.

Four days post surgery

It's been four days since Little One's surgery. To see her play and run around the house you'd never know she'd been through anything.  She is sleeping well, generally happy to have the drops put in her ears for her tubes....not so happy when it is time to take her pain medecine.  We look back at the pictures we didn't post right after her surgery and see how swollen her face was and how sore her mouth looked it is amazing how well she is healing.  She's eating more each day but drinking is almost nonexistent. Luckily we can "count" melted ice cream and thinned down pudding as liquids, but we scrutinize each wet diaper and keep track of what she is able to drink and eat. 

 She still likes watermelon which we chopped into tiny pieces and noodle soup so she's getting fluids with her food but we'd like to see her drinking. Everything we're giving her is the extra-sugar type - no 'no sugar added' apple sauce for her, and even the Carnation instant breakfast drinks to get her calories in.  Anything to motivate to put food in her mouth that is still so raw and sore. 

 We made the mistake of giving her a melted fruit juice bar that must have been really high in citric acid.  She began to point to corners of her mouth first that are sore from the device they used to hold her mouth open during surgery, and then she began to cry really hard and point to her mouth.  It all ended with her throwing up what little she did eat which we know had to really hurt coming back up.   Never occurred to us that our choice would cause her pain.  Then we began to think of the pain one gets when peeling an orange with a papercut, and realized that the whole inside of her mouth is filled with "papercuts".... so that has been at the forefront of our minds when we taste things before giving them to her.

It'll only be a three weeks and then it's back to her normal diet (I'm sure some Chinese crackers will be first on the menu).  In the meantime we are enjoying our time at home with our Little One.  She is having fun playing with her doctor kit which must take on new meaning now for her.  She is enjoying slurping up strawberry ice cream (her new favorite flavor.)  Meanwhile, Gabby had a great time over the weekend at the balloon festival in Forest Park.  Many thanks to Nana, Aunt Shannon and Uncle Scott for taking her so she could shock us all by climbing a rock wall!  Brave girl!

It will only hurt for a minute Mr. Panda...

Mmmmmm...ice cream

What's so funny?

Our daredevil Gabby!

We're home

The Hospital discharged us this morning and Lydia is doing great. She was eating mashed banana, yogurt and some scrambled eggs this morning and was back to charming all of the nurses. We were home by 11 am and Lydia was celebrating her freedom by charging around the house and getting into everything (more so than usual). She took a good nap this afternoon, we'd like her to be drinking more - I think we just need to find something with the right consistency.

And it's morning

It's morning already and we had a really good night. Around 10pm Lydia was going strong, happy and still watching Baby Einstein. We, however, were feeling the stress of the long day and needing to sleep. Finally we turned the TV off, turned off all the lights and told Little One 'Night Night' like we do every night. Lydia laid back and fell asleep without a peep.

The plan was for Rob to go home and get a good night's sleep, but that didn't happen, we both decided to stay the night with Kara on the less comfortable pull out chair. Lydia was only up during the night to get her Tylenol every 4 hours, other than that she slept great and was relatively happy.

This morning she woke up around 5:30 (but I think it was mostly one of the IV's beeping that woke us up), she was due for her meds at 4:30 so she slept longer. Most of her cries now seem more mad than pain, especially when the nurses start messing with her.

We're not 'done' yet but so far Lydia has been a trooper. So far Lydia been eating her mixture of milk and pudding and she has drank a little apple juice. Unless something else comes up I think we'll be sticking to the plan of going home sometime today.

Zzzzzzzz...

Ahhhh...we are finally sleeping!  After another dose of pain meds, Lydia was sitting up and began showing interest in the tv....so we put on one of the Baby Einstein dvds and in came the wonderful cleft team nurse with her 'magic' pudding treat (thinned out pudding with milk).  It worked wonders on Lydia who was not interested in eating any applesauce earlier.  She ate almost 6 ounces and soon with a full belly she laid back and fell asleep. :)

Just down the hallway is a pantry stocked with all sorts of puddings, ice cream and drinks so I can go there and get more soft items for Lydia to eat when the mood strikes.  Now time for us to get a bit of rest too....

Just trying to find what works...

After we got settled in the room, the nurses have been great explaining what we can do to keep Lydia comfortable.  The new pediatric tower is beautiful. One of the team brought by a stuffed duck just for Lydia and some Baby Einstein dvd's for us to watch if that will help soothe her.  When she becomes more active, they will bring by toys for her to play with....they do think of everything here.  We are so lucky to have such great facilities so close to home.  There is a Ronald McDonald house on the floor to get free snacks and drinks, we feel so fortunate knowing that we will be able to leave the hospital tomorrow with our Lydia, while other families deal with much greater obstacles with their children.

The drainage has slowed down, but Lydia couldn't get settled down in her bed so Rob and I have been taking turns rocking her.  During the surgery she had morphine and once in the room, they moved her to Tylenol with codeine.  It should have kicked in about 30-45 minutes after they gave it to her, but she just couldn't get comfortable and kept setting off the monitors because she was crying or moving so much.
The nurse decided to give her morphine again to help with the pain since the Tylenol didn't seem to be helping.  Rob came back from lunch and brought me something to eat, so we switched off and the new meds are working a bit, but we know she is still in pain because she is whimpering a lot. :(

So we are just taking it hour by hour, grateful for all the prayers and well wishes we are getting from friends and family.

Palate is done

We're in the pediatric ICU. The palate surgery went fine and Lydia is doing well. She has a lot of drainage from her mouth which we expected. Lydia was in recovery around 9am and we were called back there around 9:30. By 10:30 or so we headed up to the ICU. She's laying on Kara now trying to get as comfortable as possible.

Tubes are in

Little one has her ears done already, and is currently having the palate surgery.


We were up bright and early and at the hospital right at 6am. Lydia was charming everyone with smiles and waves and was in a very happy mood, blissfully unaware of what was coming her way. After we had checked-in, signed consents, etc the nurse came and gave her a syringe of something to 'calm her down' and it certainly did it's job! We had a drunken baby gooning at us. The only time she cried was when the nurse came to take her down to the operating room.


The ENT came in about 20 minutes later and told us that he was done, so now we wait for the palate surgeon to check-in with us.

Active before the meds...

Mellow after the meds...

Surgery on the 16th

Lydia's surgery is on September 16th - this Thursday! She has a slight cold and a little cough so we're hoping that the surgery will happen, but whatever is best for her is more important. Surgery is scheduled for 7am and she will have ear tubes put in first then her palate repair. The hospital said they have her down for 90 minutes total - so hopefully it'll be quick but we know it will not be painless :(

We'll have some long nights and plenty of crying, I'm sure, but the timing is so right. Lydia is really trying to talk, watching our mouths and trying to copy the sounds. She is saying 'no' clearly which is very cute.

We're planning on taking a laptop to the hospital and if they have wi-fi we'll post more (or at least that's the plan).

Sisters

The weeks are flying past and we're still trying to adjust to being a family of four! This last weekend as we try to wrangle two active girls through the grocery store we decided that we'll divide and conquer the regular weekend chores and errands from now on.


Gabby continues to be a great big sister (albeit a little overzealous at times). Gabby has started first grade and has lost another tooth. This time it was with much more drama. One evening she managed to knock her tooth while eating and it bled a little, the next evening it came out while eating - very dramatic but at least she didn't swallow it.

Lydia continues to make her thoughts and feelings known, I'm trying to figure out how much sound can come from someone so little. I think both Gabby and Lydia are learning how to push each other buttons. Lydia has her surgery scheduled for Sept. 16th. We're anxious about the surgery but these last couple of weeks has shown us that she's right at the critical time to get her palate fixed and start on speech therapy too.

Gotcha Day Video

We finally got around to looking over the video from our video camera and not just the short clips from the digital camera. In many ways it already seems like a lifetime ago since we got Lydia, but in other ways it's feels like yesterday when she was handed over. When we got Gabby she cried for the first couple of days so we were expecting anything from Lydia. It's hard to hear her crying on that day but we know that the tears soon dry as the bonds begin. Driving from the adoption office feeling her cling to me as she fell asleep is something I'll never forget. I wouldn't change a single thing about our time in China.

Another loose tooth gone

After what seems like weeks of Gabby having a loose front tooth, tonight it finally came out. With barely a whimper but much excitement Gabby found the tooth lying in her palm while reading books with Kara. Now the tooth is inside her tooth pillow waiting for a visit from the tooth fairy.

Wiggly...

... and finally out!

First Cleft Team Visit

July 30 was our first visit with the cleft team that we'll be working with for Lydia's cleft repair. We arrived for the appointment around 8am and there were quite a few other families in the waiting room including a few China girls. We were shown to into a waiting room that had a few toys and such to keep Little One occupied.

Four hours later we were done and Lydia had been seen by an ENT, audiologist, geneticist, speech pathologist, dentist, behaviour, plastic surgeon and the cleft team nurse. Lydia did great, a lot better than we had expected her to react to seeing so many strangers in such a short amount of time. By the end of the day she was cozying up to the plastic surgeon and trying to get his attention. The cleft team visit is something that we will have every year and right now we're feeling lucky to have such easy access to a team of physicians that will give Lydia all of the care she'll need.

Lydia has some fluid in her ears so she'll be getting ear tubes at the same time as her palate surgery. In the hearing test she was not responding on her left side as well as she did for her right side, but hopefully the tubes will take care of that. The plastic surgeon said that her mouth and jaw look good and we're hoping that she'll only need the one surgery. There's always the possibility that her palate will be too short, or that holes (fistulas) in the palete will form after the surgery. She does has some thick scarring on her lip that may need to be fixed later but it is still healing as her lip surgery was only performed at the end of March.

We're currently waiting on confirmed dates for her surgery but it'll probably be sometime in September. It is best to get the cleft repaired as soon as possible to avoid any further speech delays or problems.

Jesus wants my Cheerios

Sunday we had Lydia baptized at our church. It was a special day for us because it was our 11th wedding anniversary as well. The service was very nice and Lydia did great. There were two baptisms in the service which they performed at the beginning of the service. We expected Lydia to have a melt-down but she was happy looking at everyone and getting attention. We were so happy that Kara's sister Kathy, husband Don and niece Rachel came in town just for the occasion.  They, along with Kara's brother Steve and sister in law Kelley, served as godparents to our little Lydia.

Back in our pews and Lydia got a little fussy so we pulled out the crackers (gone in 60 seconds...) and her Cheerios (in a 'snack trap' that slows down the shoveling of food into the mouth). Lydia settled into a steady rhythm of eating and started to look around, at this point she notices the big banner next to us with Jesus on it. She makes her usual little screech and pulls her Cheerios as far away from the banner as possible and looks at us like "He wants my Cheerios", we told her that she's okay her snacks are safe. She's quite the character....but we have learned that she doesn't want anyone messing with her when she is eating!

After the baptism we went to our favorite Chinese restaurant for a post-baptism/welcome home party. We were so lucky to have many friends and family come by to celebrate with us!  Lydia fell asleep during the short drive from the church to the restaurant and missed half of the party, but was much happier once she woke up for the rest of the party.

Gabby had a great time seeing her cousins and her 'China girls' who were anxious to play with Lydia once she has settled in a bit more.  It was such a special day to officially welcome Lydia into our extended group of family and friends.