Ready for Church

I put a new picture of Lily on the desktop of the laptop the other day. This morning Lily pointed to the picture and said, "Xue". I nodded "yes" and said "Han Xue". There are times Lily points to herself and says "Lily" (sounds more like "yee yee"), and times when she'll look in the mirror and say "Han Xue". I have always loved her Chinese name and felt that it was a big part of who she is ~ equally as much as being our daughter and a part of our family that she was to become. I'm so very glad that we decided to keep her Chinese name as a middle name.

Three in Our Journey

It's not easy getting all three together at the same time...

Lily, Angela, & Mark

Angela

Sisters

Mark ~ happy to be a senior

New haircut

Oh Baby..It's HOT outside

Got Spare Time?...and Lily's Appointment

We spent a good portion of the day recently at our appointment with the craniofacial team at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Dr. Williams (the craniofacial plastic surgeon) was great! Lily is scheduled for surgery on September 4th and we have a pre-op appointment on August 23rd. Dr. Williams will close the soft tissue of the fistula in Lily's gum, fix her nose so that it's symmetrical, and refine the scar on her top lip where it's a little fat. He felt it was important not to wait to close the fistula since food and liquids go into Lily's nasal passages when she eats or drinks. Dr. Williams felt that the doctors in Changchun that did Lily's lip surgery did a great job and that the scar isn't that bad. When she's about 4 or 5 he will go back and do a bone graft to close the bone. He explained to us that if they did the bone graft now it could interfere with the growth of the bone and adult teeth buds. Lily will begin orthodontia early when her adult teeth start to come in. The speech pathologist felt that a worse case scenario would be that there could be a slight chance that Lily would have a lisp due to her top baby teeth being skewed upwards where the fistula is. Lily also saw the pediatric dentist that day. He thought her teeth were in great shape ~ he said that the children in Lily's orphanage must have been brushing their teeth because she didn' t have any decay. She did have to have her teeth cleaned by the hygienist that day ~ she wasn't happy at all, but was all smiles when it was over and they let her pick out a bunch of stickers and a new toothbrush. I squirmed in my seat as she cried during the cleaning that really only took minutes ~ probably harder on me than her :) But it had to be done before the surgery takes place to help prevent infection.

So, please keep us in your prayers on the 23rd and the 4th.

The BIG appointment

This Friday afternoon we have our first appointment with the cranio-facial team at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. I'm really not sure how Lily's going to react even though this appointment will mostly just establish her treatment plan. Lily becomes very uncomfortable when we are in an office type environment. Just last week I had to drop off paperwork for Piedmont Hosp. to the Nursing office at KSU for this upcoming semester, and I tried to put Lily down for just a second so I could sign a form....she screamed like you wouldn't believe. I picked her up immediately and told her, "we're here for Mommy, not Lily....for Mommy". Lily sobbed as she gave me a pat and said, "for Mommy". As long as I didn' t put her down she was fine. We're confident that Lily will be in great hands such as Amy's!

Last month we missed our First Friday's gathering because my mom was in town. Hopefully Lily won't be so distraught from the appointment and we'll still be able to come see some of our friends in the adoption community that evening. There are a few families that we've met that are getting ready to travel soon ~ we want to wish them well in person! You can always feel the love and support of friends in this gathering ~ even if you hardly know some of the people attending that month...I've thanked Susan & Dan before many times, but I can't thank them enough.