Surgery May 12

Gracie will have her big surgery on May 12. We went to Hershey last Friday for a pre-op appointment. The surgeon continues to put me at ease. He has done this so many times. There are other posts that go into detail but basically they will close a hole that is in her nose, attach muscles in her upper lip so she can move it, clean up scarring, and most importantly lengthen her palate. Her uvula (hangy thing) in her throat and surrounding tissues are so far from the back of her throat that she cannot speak clearly. Lengthening the palate will help tremendously. Later they will probably do another surgery to work on some of the surrounding tissues in the back of her throat. She has a great deal of air escape from the hole in her palate and nose so closing the nose and some of the hole in the palate will really help with that. Kids respond very differently to this kind of surgery. Most do very well. I am sure she will do much better than her Mother;) She must go 6 weeks with only soft food so that will be tough and at first she will need around the clock care. I hear many parents say that it is a time of bonding because you are with them 24-7 and providing for their every need. I look forward to that but I am concerned about getting my Cole, Julia, Cody time in too. I am sure they will enjoy some extra time with grandparents and friends and certainly extra time in front of the tv! We will be after you all to be praying as it gets closer.

Dental Surgery

I am late posting this info. but Grace had dental surgery. It all happened so quickly and was such an answer to prayer. Her insurance kicked in on a Monday which allowed us to make a desperate plea for the insurance company to allow us to use the dentist we wanted to use. They said yes on Tuesday and our dentist office had a cancellation and got us operating room time on Friday of that week! It all had to happen quickly because it needed to be done at least 6 weeks before palate surgery. Turns out the lady at the dentist office that worked so hard to make it all happen is my friend from high school's Mom. Insurance covered the surgery completely!!! It was a very expensive procedure. Basically they just took out all of the decay and put in a lot of metal. They had to pull one tooth. It healed well. She did great with anesthesia and didn't need pain meds afterward. PTL!

1st Speech Therapy Session/Surgery now May 12

Hi all! We had our first speech session today at the cleft clinic. Grace did so well! At first she didn't want to talk to the therapist, Maureen, but after seeing the prizes that were in jeopardy she decided to cooperate. Maureen is fantastic. I learned a lot and we already worked on some things this evening. Grace LOVES learning right now so that makes it easy. Hope that continues.

Grace's surgery will now be on May 12th. The surgeon needed to reschedule for some reason.

We are still awaiting news to see if her dental work will be authorized and paid for. We are so hoping for good new tomorrow or the next day.

Thanks for checking in!

Surgery Scheduled and Dentist Visit

Gracie Mei's surgery on her lip and palate will be May 5th. It will be at Hershey Medical Center and she will spend one night most likely. Again, it is a complete lip revision to make her lip functional and to clean up some scarring. They will also lengthen her palate with a procedure called a z-plasty and attempt to close a hole in her palate. It will be a three hour surgery. She will be on a soft diet for 6 weeks.

We also finally had a dental visit. The clinic recommended Dr. Ross and we could not be more grateful! I had nightmares about how the visit was going to go. You just don't want a kid with a lot of mouth work ahead of them to be traumatized by any doctor. Well, she is in great hands. They didn't attempt to clean her teeth or do x-rays or anything. Dr. Ross played and joked around with her until she was ready to show him her mouth. She did a great job and he got a good idea of what needs to be done. It is quite extensive. 5000$ extensive!!! And that is JUST the dental fees NOT the hospital fees!!! We are working on insurance coverage which can be tricky. Cross your fingers! She will be sedated at the hospital to do the work. The biggest question is whether or not he will be able to repair the top teeth on the cleft side He will take x-rays immediately before the surgery so we will not know until after it is completed. The alternative to restoring the teeth is pulling the teeth. This is really not ideal but might be necessary depending on the amount of decay. They are not adult teeth but holding on to your baby teeth is important. We will pray they can all be restored.

It has been awhile. Thanks for checking back on us!!!

Surgery Soon

Hi all. We had another team visit at the cleft clinic today. It started out with a long wait in the waiting room with an 8 and 4 year old boy who asked me every question imaginable about Grace. Where is she from? Did you go the whole way there to get her? Where is her real Mom? Why did her foster parents abandon her? What is wrong with her? After these question and more the 4 year old says... "Well, you are not her real Mom you are just her Mom for now." I was proud that I kept a smile on face and of my quick answer... Yes, her Mom for now and forever. Aren't I lucky to be Gracie's Mommy for now and forever! I read a great article the other day that made the point that it does not matter how rude someone is or intrusive or offensive their questions or comments are. It is YOUR reaction that impacts the child. Getting angry, embarrassed, and defensive just shows your child that they have something to be ashamed of. The article advises to answer calmly, assuredly, educationally or to use humor to let the person know the questioning was out of line. Here are a few lines from the article I love...

Empirical research has strongly supported the notion that a parent's attitude toward a child's birth defect is the single strongest indicator as to how well the child will adjust. Parents who had healthy attitudes toward their child's cleft had children with a strong positive sense of self. It is no coincidence.

If you convince your child that you love him, then he sees himself as lovable. Even if your love is unconditional. If you cannot deal with any aspect of your child, then that aspect becomes his millstone.

Anyway, back to the team visit. Again, we just LOVE the team there and we were so proud of Grace. When we saw Dr. Mackay (the Dr. who will do her lip and palate work and plastic surgery) Grace started singing Amazing Grace so Dr. Mackay started calling her Amazing Grace. He must have said it 10 times. It was so sweet. Maureen, the speech therapist, was so impressed with Grace. Her schedule is packed full but she promised to make a spot for her every week.

Hershey Med. will call us within the next 2 weeks to schedule surgery. We are thinking sometime in Feb. or March. Grace will have 3 surgeries at one time. A total lip revision which will attach the muscles in her upper lip, close the hole in her nose, and cosmetically improve her upper lip and area under her nose. That was all 1 surgery. The 2nd being a Z-plasty which lengthens her palate and the 3rd being an attempt to close the hole in her palate that was not closed in China. He blocked off 3 hours to do the surgeries. 3 hours will be a long time to be praying in a waiting room! Our prayer is that he hits it out of the park.

Dr. Mackay continues to believe that Grace will need much repair. After the Z-plasty he is thinking she will need Pharyngoplasty. After Pharyngoplasty is P-Flap which we are really hoping to avoid because it can cause sleep apnea which is very serious. The reason for these surgeries is to enable her to speak clearly. If she speaks well after Z-plasty there will be no need for more surgeries of this nature. We get the impression that this is very unlikely for Grace but we will pray to this end as we know God is able. There are other surgeries later, age 8 and beyond, for other reasons... jaw alignment... cosmetic changes... orthodontia... and bone graft surgery.

A friend of mine asked me these questions... What do you fear the most? What is the "worst case scenario"? Do you believe God will be faithful in it? Although I have trembled through every possible worst case scenario before bringing Grace home I think currently, and very thankfully, my new "worst case scenario" would be that she would not be able to speak clearly. I guess eventually if this is the case we will lower our expectations and assume that she could only make as much of an impact on this world than a man we all know who was also slow of speech... Moses;)

Grace's First Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas as a family of 6! Grace opened a Kai-Lan big wheel first and she would not get off of it. She would just wheel over to the tree to unwrap her next gift while on her new bike. Cody got a Harley big wheel and when Rob asked Grace if she wanted to ride Cody's bike she rode her bike next to it and stuck her foot on it while still on her bike. It was so cute.

Joy Unspeakable

It has been awhile since I written. Grace continues to do so well. We continue to be so blessed by her. To take a child from a place where there is little hope for a good education and medical treatment to a place where she will get the best of both... bringing a child into a home that will teach her about the God who created her and who has a good plan for her life. It is JOY UNSPEAKABLE! We are looking forward to our first Christmas as a family of 6. Our hearts ached the past couple Christmases because of this space in our family that was yet to be filled. I watched as she looked in wonder at our lighted Christmas tree and carefully placed an ornament on it and I was just overwhelmed with all that God has done to bring her into our family. The New Year will bring lots of challenges with speech therapy and surgeries but for the rest of this year we will just enjoy this carefree time with Gracie Mei. I am certain that she will enjoy her first Christmas!