Swine Flu

Wow. This process is not for the weak of heart! There is an outbreak of some kind of swine flu in China. There are rumors that Travel Approvals will be held for 20-30 days and then another decision would be made. We will know more about these rumors next week. If you could pray this does not delay out trip past the summer and also that Mei Mei and those around her are not exposed. Thank you for your prayers!

Medical Stuff

Hi everyone. Just thought I would post some medical info. about cleft affected kids in general. We had researched quite a bit before the referral and continue to do so. There won't be too much time to do anything once she arrives! Try not to get overwhelmed with it all. We are trying not to too! The Lancaster Cleft Clinic is awesome. They have a team of doctors who work together to deal with all of the different issues that sometimes go along with cl/cp.

I will start with the cleft lip. As you know she was born with bilateral cleft lip and it was "fixed" when she was 2-3 months old. We think that this was done as part of a government initiative and was probably done by a Chinese doctor. We have learned that many times they just stitch the lip up so that the baby can eat and also have the chance to be adopted. Many times they do not attach the muscles in the upper lip properly and the child cannot move their upper lip. This is a problem because the child then cannot pronounce certain sounds and cannot pucker or kiss and when they smile their upper lip does not smile with them. Looking at quite a number of pictures of Mei Mei I am guessing that this is the case for her. If so, she will undergo a lip revision here to attach the muscles. We also will do plastic surgery to reduce the scarring from her first surgery. We are sure they will do a great job but we are prepared for the reality that she will have noticeable scars. As Rob says, God accepts our scars we will accept hers! We are thankful for the opportunity to walk beside her and help her to put these things into proper prospective.

Moving on to the cleft palate. As you know we were amazingly blessed to hear that a wonderful doctor from the US recently performed cleft palate surgery. We have noticed that during the cleft exchange week when Mei Mei's surgery was done the repairs of the other children were quite severe. This served the purpose of the cleft exchange program allowing US doctors to teach the Chinese doctors how to surgically correct complex problems. Of course it would be nice if Mei Mei was just thrown into the mix because of her age. We don't want to speculate about things we are not sure of so we will see. A cleft palate repair is many times once and done. However other procedures may include adjusting the length of the palate, some type of flap surgery to improve speech and the way air moves or something of that nature, and repairing holes or gaps that my occur after the first major surgery. Many of these surgeries/procdures with the lip and palate etc. can be combined especially now that the major surgeries are taken care of!

Speech therapy will probably eventually become part of our weekly routine in the Fisher family. Every cleft case is so different so it is very hard to tell how much therapy she will need. We will first focus on her emotional adjustment and learning a new language all together! We are not sure exactly where therapy will take place. We have heard that kids are given therapy at home, in school, and even the preschool setting.

Hearing problems... Some kids with clefts have some hearing loss due to infections etc. Many need tubes. Mei Mei's medical records do not indicate any hearing loss or ear infections so we will wait and see while hoping for the best.

Dental work, dental work, dental work, dental work, dental work. Need I say more?

Again, I am telling myself and all of you... do not be overwhelmed. Being born with a cleft lip/cleft palate can sure be a pain in the rear but it is not at all life threatening. We are SO BLESSED in this country to have access to such amazing health care. In China, many of these children will live their entire lives defined by this correctable condition. What an amazing opportunity we have to give this little one a future defined by her strengths, hopes and dreams. Thank you Jesus!

Prayer Requests

I want to post prayer requests down the side of the blog so they are showing all the time but I can't figure out how to do that. Anyway, here are ways specifically to pray for us. We value your prayer support above all else! I am going to call her Mei Mei (may may) because it means little sister in Chinese. I will write answers to prayer in red below each request.

1. Pray that we may be able to travel this summer while Rob is off.
2. Pray for healing as Mei Mei recovers from her recent palate surgery.
3. Pray for Mei Mei's foster parents that they may be able to prepare her as well as possible for the adoption.
4. Pray that our hearts will be knit together with hers.
5. Pray for Mei Mei's grieving process as she leaves all she knows in China and adjusts to life as a Fisher kid.
6. Pray for Rob and I as we wait. It is easy to cycle between faith and fear. This is truly an emotional roller coaster ride.
7. Pray for the swine flu outbreak.
seems to be contained!
8. Pray that we will get pictures of her foster parents and siblings, if any. This will help her in the grieving process.
received pictures of foster Mom and Dad!
received picture of foster Brother, Drew! 8/09
9. We now know Mei has a brother (not biological but most likely foster brother) so pray that he will be adopted and that we will find his adoptive parents.
10. We hear that Mei's foster parents hope that she can improve her speech. Pray that she can make progress now that her palate is closed.
reports continue to say Mei is improving in speech. She is using more words together and strangers can understand her!

That is all for now but be prepared to pray for this little one for the rest of your life on this earth=)

UNBELIEVABLE NEWS!!!

I, Casie, happened to randomly meet this lady on a blog that ended up telling me that our daughters cleft palate was fixed! We could not believe that it could be true but we found a website with pictures! A wonderful doctor from the states did 6 days of surgeries in China as part of a cleft exchange program to help teach Chinese doctors how to perform cleft surgeries. We certainly may have more procedures/surgeries in the future but this is a BIG one! This means she will not have to undergo surgery soon after she comes home! She can just get settled in. This is an amazing blessing. They did her surgery on Rob's birthday! What a belated birthday gift this was! It also was such an answer to prayer. Her referral pictures were so expressionless. This was really hard for me. I just couldn't picture her smiling or laughing or playing. I was praying for a picture of her smiling. It seemed like a hopeless prayer but the night we found out about her surgery the first picture we identified was our little girl laughing in the hospital bed! The caption read that she was entertaining everyone before it was her turn on the operating table! I can't tell you what that moment was like for me. God is taking care of so many details and is calming even the silliest of our fears. We are amazed.

2 of Everything

Hit Target today to pick up some things to send to China. I bought two of everything so if I don't get the things back I will still have one to take to China so we have some familiar things for her. I got the softest blankets ever but was worried since it is summer that it won't be useful so I also got a little bears holding on to a little blanket. It says in her file that she likes toys that make noise so I got her a glow worm that lights up and plays different songs. Julia has one too so we will take that along to China. I bought a little photo album that we will fill with pictures of our family and surroundings. Disposable cameras so her foster parents can take lots of pictures for us. Also 2 bottles of the same baby lotion. One that we will ask her foster mom to use at bedtime and 1 to keep so we can continue to use it. With all that will change in her little life it might be nice that something smells familiar. So now can you all pray that this package gets to her foster home and they use the stuff? Especially the disposable cameras so we will have pictures of her over the next few months and of her foster family. Also we are trying to find someone to translate a letter to send along with info and questions etc. Nice to have some things to do while we wait.

What about all of the other orphans?

Tragically, many predict that there are millions upon millions orphaned children in China. This is why we are astounded to think that our little on was 1 of 300 children placed in foster care through Love Without Boundaries and even 1 of 30,000 children who were part of the government initiative that lead to her cleft lip repair. I don't know how God works and how to reconcile the number of hurting children in China and all over the world but I am certain of this... the day our little girl was born and the day she was abandoned, God knew she would be our little girl. We spent the last 2 1/2 years navigating through a brutal adoption process while all along God held this little one in His hands. We thank Him for all He did to take care of her along the way. We are ready to take over now=) As we ask God about all the other children who are suffering we feel Him returning the same question. What about all of the other children? What will you (Rob and Casie) do about them? Although the need is overwhelming, we are not overwhelmed. We now see how even a small commitment like child sponsorship can impact the life of a child. We will go to China and bring the little girl we dreamed about home but we know our journey will not nearly end there. We eagerly anticipate all God has in store.

Love Without Boundaries

After we accepted the referral I was reading more closely through her files and noticed that an organization called Love Without Boundaries funded her foster care. I was having bad thoughts about what her foster home might be like, probably just fearing the worst. I thought I would look up Love Without Boundaries to see what they were all about. I sat sobbing uncontrollably as I read about how they screen foster homes and managers in China visit with the children every month and make sure that all of their needs are being met. You see, knowing that your child is out there and not being able to get her for months is so hard to take. This news was so valuable to me. I also read that they do monthly updates and pictures and that we could have all of these once she comes home. To have this bit of history for her is so amazing. Most adopted children from China have so little information about their lives in China. It is sad that we cannot access this information now because of child protection laws but we are so glad that we will have it for her in the future. I contacted the director of their foster care program and she emailed me right away telling me how excited she was that she has been adopted and that she chose the name Faith for her to be represented to her sponsors. There is a couple in the US who sponsors her foster care monthly. It is very strange to think that someone out there is getting monthly updates about our daughter and we cannot but we thank God for these people who made it possible for our little girl to be cared for over the last year. I will never view child sponsorship the same again. If you are someone who sponsors a child without thinking much of it, think again! We can't wait to sponsor a child's foster care through this program!

Expecting #4!!!

We are so excited to announce that we have been matched with a 2 1/2 year old girl in China! We had taken a break from considering the children on the special needs list since we had sweet little Cody. Now that he is a little older we started to view the list of waiting children again. We were still also in the healthy infant program but with a long wait still ahead of us. We researched conditions, prayed, and decided to consider children with minor needs under the age of 3. Our agency called us late in March with a little girl for our family! She turned 2 October 1. She was abandoned soon after birth, was found, and taken to an orphanage. She had cleft lip and cleft palate but was otherwise healthy. It took great care to feed her because of her special needs and she bonded well with her caretaker. Through a government initiative, her cleft lip was fixed at 2 months of age. Her palate remains unrepaired and will be fixed soon after we bring her home. She will also undergo surgery at some point to help reduce the scarring from her first cleft lip surgery. A year ago an organization called Love Without Boundaries provided the funds needed to place her in foster care. Foster care greatly improves the quality of life of a child living in an orphanage so we are so happy about this. I will talk more about Love Without Boundaries in another post. Because of child protection laws we are not able to share with you her name or where is from in China. We will probably use her Chinese name as her middle name but we have not decided what her first name will be yet. The kids have always called her Kate because we all love that name but we haven't decided for sure. It will take 3-6 months for us to gain approval from China to travel and bring her home. We are really praying we will be able to travel during the summer. We will be in China for about 14 days. The plan is for Rob's parents to travel with us and possibly Cole. She is 1 year older than Cody and 1 1/2 years younger than Julia. It will be nice to have the girls in the middle and Cody does really seem like he was meant to be the baby of the family!
Please don't feel obligated to keep up with our blog and our lengthy posts. This is a journey that we want to share with family and friends but I must confess that the blogs main purpose is therapy for us as we wait to bring our little girl home!