Thursday, February 26, 2009

Hello again...


Hi there,


Just a brief post to say hello...we are stuck inside tonight due to major amounts of blowing snow and although not much new has happened, I wanted to post a picture of the 4 kiddos sledding this past Sunday with dad. The 2 younger ones decided they were NOT fans of sledding, and after a few runs down the hill were content to watch their older brothers from the comfort of the family van.


I started back to work this week...which makes things just a little bit harrier, but it actually is a bit of a nice break from the fighting twosome at home (Toby and Bethany are fierce competitors and frequent squabblers at the moment). The great news is that Bethany is doing great at daycare (my good friend Gina takes the kids while I'm at work) and is not bothered at all by the big dog there. Chewie is a mere 20 pounds, but Darby is 60! After about 10 minues of crying the first day, Bethany has not paid any attention to her - praise God!!


Tomorrow we go to a "Celebration of Life" service for Ian Henderson, the sweet boy I have mentioned in the past, who passed away last week at the young age of 7. He is rejoicing in Heaven with the Father now, out of pain and completely whole, but we mourn with his parents as they begin life without his physical presence. It is a temporary separation to be sure, but heart wrenching as well.
Saturday I am honored that some friends are throwing a "Welcome Home" shower for Bethany at our church, and then later in the afternoon we have an adoption group fellowship gathering for all of the MN families with AWAA (our agency).
We are so blessed! Thanks for checking in!
Becky

Friday, February 20, 2009

Ho Gowji! (Cantonese for good dog)-Sunrise in Minnesota







We are still here but we are getting pulled into the busyness of life in Minnesota and neglecting our blogging responsibilities. Our friend Darryl has effectively chided us for not staying on top of our posts. Becky and I were able to pull away for a few hours for our Valentine's celebration and just decided that blogging wasn't an effective way to be romantic. Bethany has made a dramatic improvement in her adjustment to Chewie... She no longer is scanning the room to ensure that she has a location of the dog. She can walk from room to room with no worries about his proximity and she has even taken on the responsibility of feeding him every morning. We had come to think that she wanted to be picked up because of the dog but it turns out that she just likes to be carried everywhere! It is an immense blessing to be past the "I am freaked out by the dog phase" because now we can gain a clearer understanding of how well she is adjusting. It is still a bit challenging to get past the language barrier and speech impediment caused by her cleft palate. We believe that Bethany is saying much more than we realize in English but because of her almost entirely missing palate we don't understand much. This is consistent with what her caretakers in China told us. Often, they could not understand her Cantonese either. None the less we are able to communicate pretty well. She talks a lot! I can't wait to understand more of it!











Matthew, our oldest just celebrated his 9th birthday. We are looking forward to a very small gathering of one of his friends and family for a party tomorrow. Matthew has coined it his "un-birthday" party because we have limited the party from his original hope. His basketball team has been a great blessing to him and the family as we've experienced alot of fun at his games this season. The team placed third overall in the final playoffs. We are thankful that he has the interest and the ability to play. His coach gave him the "most improved" player honorable mention at the end of the playoff. I know I've enjoyed getting into the sport as much or more as him. For those that know me that is a feat in itself. He has been a bit under the weather tonight so pray that he feels better tomorrow.




Trent continues to enjoy kindergarten and is also looking forward to his upcoming birthday. We are in the birthday season here at our house. He received special honors as he saved the day in the van as mom was driving. Bethany had a slight problem with something coming out of her nose and mom could not help (driving). She asked Trent to help with a Kleenex and he boldy went where most 5 (almost 6) year olds would never go! He wiped the offensive matter off of her face! He received an opportunity to take a chance in the privilege jar. This is a reward that can only be achieved for a random act of kindness. You cannot get it for what could appear as "sucking up" is the bottom line I guess. He picked a slip of paper that said, "movie night-you pick". This is the same kid who squishes spiders with his fingers when he sees them...








And finally an update on our Toby. He is having a bit of a rough time. We have to guess that is has a lot to do with the new competition in the house to be the baby in the family. He has been acting out quite a bit...bothering his sister (especially in the car), hitting his brothers and often not doing what mom/dad ask. It's actually quite amazing that Bethany and he can turn anything into a competition. We were building a Lego block tower the other day and they were jockeying to be the fastest to hand me a block. It was like a muscle off at a body building contest. He is our laugher. Not that the others don't laugh but he laughs when he's nervous or in trouble. That makes it awkward and frustrating at times to discipline. Frankly it makes it fun sometimes. I know that I can easily make him laugh to help him to stop being angry about something.






Praise God for the blessing of our children and what we learn through our experiences with them. Can you believe how our family has grown! I would have never imagined about 10 years ago that I would have 3 sons and a daughter from China! Thank God that he has taught me to never say never (any more).







We are a bit sad as the child of friend of ours has gone home to be with the Lord. Ian Henderson passed from this world two nights ago. He's a great kid. Please keep his parents, family and friends in your prayers as this is difficult time and a celebration of a life well lived in just a few short years. He is safe now with his eternal Father. Read more at http://www.hendersonhome.net/.

Thanks for checking in with us. Dan

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Week 2 as a family of 6!


Hello!

I feel a little out of practice at blogging already, since I am out of the daily habit! We want to try and send out a "weekly update" for everyone so you can see our transition progress! We also will use this venue to talk about some of the upcoming medical procedures we will be going through with Bethany as we address her cleft palate and related issues.

First off, the dog thing has gotten a little better. We still have a long way to go, but Bethany is no longer crying all day. This is not only a good thing for her, but also a good thing for her brothers and her mother, who were getting a little frustrated. Our longtime friend Gene, who speaks fluent Cantonese, came over last Friday night and tried talking to Bethany about Chewie. She was fine to talk to him/listen to him about other things, but she gave a clear indication that the dog was an off-limits topic. However, I think she did listen to him a little bit, and that helped us turn a bit of a corner the following day. It still is a daily struggle that includes tears and frustration, but it is definitely an improvement over last week. We'll take it!

Last week we did get in to see our wonderful pediatrician. We have been going to him since Matthew was born, and we love him!! With him, you can tell that being a pediatrician is not just a job for him, but a calling. Anyway, he is very happy with Bethany's growth and adjustment, and we are getting her caught up on vaccinations as well as treating her ear infection. He also made a call to the surgeon about her cleft palate repair (they are friends) and was able to get our March 16th appointment moved to today!! We are so thankful for his help in expediting this process, as we need to get going on things for Bethany's speech and hearing issues. Did I mention that we love him?? :)

Anyway, today we saw Dr. Sidman, who is a surgeon (I'll spare you the long and difficult title) and also the head of the Minneapolis Children's Hospital Craniofacial Team (hope I spelled that correctly). He was wonderful to talk to and he gave us a lot of information about her condition and the plan for her care. Two interesting points of note: 1)The Asian population has a significantly higher incidence of cleft lip/palate that any other ethnic demographic, and its incidence usually occurs more in the southern part of China than in the northern part. (Bethany is from Wuzhou City, which is in the southern province of Guangxi.) 2) The "pits" in her lower lip are indicative of Van der Woude's syndrome, which is a less common type of cleft palate, particularly in China. This is not of any concern the surgeon has assured us...it will be something she will want to know as she is older as it means her children are 50% likely to be born with cleft lip/palate.



Well, we basically learned that Bethany will have 3 major surgeries in the next 4-5 years. The first one will be in the next 1-2 months, where we will put tubes in her ears, fix the lip pits, and close most of the cleft palate. She will be in the hospital for 1-2 nights and the recovery will be somewhat painful. At age 4-5, there will be some upper lip and nose reconstruction to help with future dental issues and help with nasal tonality. The surgeon mentioned that her lip repair surgery was poorly done, so they will correct some of the work and complete the job. Lastly, at age 6-7, before adult teeth start to come in, there will be a surgery to "build a dental wall" for her teeth to be able to come in. We don't have a lot of specifics at this point, but in this surgery they will take bone from her hip area and graft it into the remaining front part of her cleft palate. I am probably leaving a bunch of stuff out and not being complete in my information, but this is what I can remember and somewhat understand! At any rate, we are glad to have an idea about where we are going from here and that the surgeon is confident is being able to correct things for Bethany.

I mentioned ear tubes...part of our appointment today involved meeting with an audiologist. Bethany is showing moderate hearing loss at this point, which needs to be addressed right away. Hopefully the tubes will help so that she can hopefully regain some if not all of her hearing. At this point she is not hearing well enough to differentiate many consonant sounds, which only creates more issues with her speech. We are going to have to have A LOT of speech therapy once she has recovered from her surgery. Please pray for her in this regard. She is a very bright and eager girl, and we are of course hoping that she will be able to go to kindergarten in 1.5 years - but her speech ability will be critical.

Well, that's the gist of things here for the moment. The boys are doing well. Bethany squeals Matthew's name and throws her arms out for him to give her a hug each day we pick him up from school. Toby and Bethany love to antagonize each other and pick on each other, as well as compete for space on mom's lap. Trent is great at keeping Chewie away from his little sister. They are all being great big brothers and wonderful helpers. We are so blessed.


Have a great week!




Love, Becky for the hayfam6