Thoughts for Amy's Birthday

I got a special treat in the mail this weekend. A friend sent me a long lost video of my first meeting with Angie at the airport. My friend had recorded it on a now out of date camcorder and we never got the tape for it. So if you are reading this Becky, thank you!

As I watched it, and of course cried over those precious memories of seeing my daughter for the first time, all the girls started asking questions about when I first saw them. They were all babies and it was very precious. Except for Amy. I've been thinking a lot lately of when we first saw Amy. Amy was older. Amy was almost 3 when she became a part of our family. Those of you who have adopted older children, particularly internationally, know what a ride that can be. I have friends in China now adopting a little girl close to Amy's age and it just takes me back.

   As a parent, I already loved Amy before I even met her. I had decided to love her and to adopt her before I knew her. I could not wait to get my arms around her and squeeze her and kiss her. I had been waiting for that day for a year.

Now from Amy's perspective, she didn't know me, she had a routine, she was unaware that life could be different. She was an orphan relying on caretakers to care for her needs, I don't know, but I certainly hope they did. But she had no parents. She didn't know what parents were.

Then the day came when we entered her life. Brent and I were so excited. Amy was not. We met her in our hotel lobby. She eyed us as the translator told her briefly, "Look! your new parents!" It only took her a moment to decide, "no thanks." The guides are very professional and know how to do 'the hand off'. Amy started crying and clinging to the driver of the car that drove her there from the orphanage. I have no idea if she knew him or he was just preferable to us.  Our guide and translator told us to get in the elevator and then she pushed Amy into our arms as the door closed with us inside.

Heartwrenching. We knew she was grieving. We knew we were strangers and couldn't even communicate with her because we didnt' know her language. We could imagine what she was feeling.

We also knew we were the best thing that had happened in her life thus far. We knew we were giving her a name and a family and love. We knew it was worth the grief.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Jeremiah 29:11.

Don't you just love that God is our parent and sees what is best for us as well? He understands our grief and resistance when we don't understand, but he also knows the plans He has for us and it is worth the grief.

Fast forward 3 years. Today is Amy's 6th Birthday! She knows that day was the best day of her life. Well, if you ask her, she thinks every day is the best day of her life. But she laughs when we tell her how scared she was at first. Because now she knows that it was worth it.

Glitter

Amy was creating with stamps and markers.
She asked, "hey mom, do you trust me with glitter?"
No.

The Artist

I love how Amy draws. Notice the hands in relation to the sleeves.

Happy Birthday Amy

Amy's bob

I usually cut the girls hair myself. Amy has special hair so I took her to a special place that cuts kids hair and she got to sit in a police car and watch Cinderella while a professional cut her hair. We love it. At first she said she looked like a Chinese Girl, which is the highest compliment in our family. But now we all think maybe she looks more like Dora the Explorer, also a very high compliment around here.

Amy bakes

I don't bake much, just at Christmas. When the girls bake with me, they take turns. "Too many cooks..."

Today was Amy's turn to bake, we whipped up some cookies. She was so cute. She made some good cookies too.

Happy Birthday Amy

Today is Amy's 4th birthday. She is all into Cinderella lately so she dressed up like Cinderella and had a Cinderella cake. Took her to build a bear and she picked out a puppy, said it was a boy, named it "Puppy" and put a dress on it. For "cake time" all the girls put on dress ups to eat the Cinderella cake. Amy is so excited to FINALLY say she four, the same age as Angie and Karianne. Last week, I tried to round up and tell people they were all 4 and Amy would correct me and say, No, I just fwee, Angie and Ka-yan are fowa, I fwee." She still trips on it today, trying out the new number, but she is very proud of herself. We are too.

Amy and the snake, a story in pictures

love this picture. Amy and her aunt faith playing dress up this afternoon.

You too can come home from the hospital looking like this

Karianne went ahead and had a little work done while she stayed in the hospital with Amy last night

Home!

We are home from the hospital! Amy is so happy to be home, so am I! Last night Karianne and I stayed the night with Amy. The girls had a lot of fun together. I don't think I got a wink of sleep. Next door to us was a very large noisy crowd having a lot of fun- all day and well into the night. Didn't expect to have a problem with noisy neighbors in the hospital.

When it was time to bed discharged Amy got her IV out. The nurse told her she'd be taking it out, Amy didn't want her too, she didn't want any more pain! The nurse said she had to take it out anyway, it may hurt a little but then it would feel better. Amy had tears well up in her eyes and put her hand in front of her face and turned her head. She said bravely, "I not going too look, I not going to look so I won't cry." it just about made me and the nurse cry! She got it out and it didn't seem to hurt her at all. Yeah! then she had to get the dressing changed on her back. She REALLY didn't want anyone to mess with her back, she told me, "momma I will cry and cry a lot!" We said oh please don't cry baby, or we'll cry too!" She was very brave and winced a little but didn't cry. SHe liked telling everyone that she has a BIG bandaid on her back. It's like a badge of honor that she withstood a BIG owie bravely and got a big bandaid to prove it instead of those ordinary little bandaids. She IS a very brave little girl.

Sisters

I brought the girls up to the hospital today to visit Amy for the first time. They had missed each other and it was so good to see them all together again.


I was home with the girls all day, had a nice day with them. In the evening some sweet friends brought us pizza and a giant coloring book with the Disney Fairies. So we had a color-fest all evening. Great fun.



Amy is walking a bit now, hoping this evening she can get on her medications for pain by mouth so she can go home this weekend.

Thursday

"I will trust in Him.
And again, Here I am with the children God gave me"
-Hebrews 2:13

Some more pictures from Yesterday.

Amy and me before surgery.


Our camp in the waiting room


Amy in her PICU room


Amy had a rough night trying to get on top of the pain, still having a lot of pain issues today. She has a spinal headache. I don't even know how a 3 year old deals with that. I had one from spinal fluid leaking after Lucy was born and it was so extremely painful. Pray for her. She's supposed to get up and start walking tonight. We'll see.

Brent and I are exhausted. I didnt realize how stressed and tired I was until I got home last night (Brent stayed the night in the hospital with Amy). When I got home I found out Lucy had gotten a haircut and I was devastated and just wanted to sit down and sob because someone decided to cut Lucys hair! Continue to pray for all of us, thank you!


PS it snowed this morning, a lot! Crazy.

She's out

Amy came out of surgery about an hour and a half ago. She was in surgery for over 7 hours! I am still waiting to have a good talk with the Dr about the success of the surgery but from what I understand, he removed a bone spur that was splitting her spinal cord in two separated cords untethered her spinal cord that was attached to bone at the base of her spine. He also made a sack to try and make the cords one again, I didn't know he was planning on doing that.
The first notice we had that Amy was out of surgery was an orderly (sp) asking us to follow him. We had watched doctors all day long come out and talk to the families and tell them how it went, we didn't get that. The orderly asked us to follow him and he'd take us to Amy. We started breaking down our camp that we had been living in all day and he told us calmly that Amy was a "little" restless and wanting momma and daddy. I left Brent to get all our stuff and I took off to find Amy. As soon as I got through the Recovery room doors I heard Amy just wailing and It's all I could do not to break into a run to get to her. I thought she was just being confused from coming out of anthesethia. She calmed down a little when she saw me, but then started wailing again telling us her back hurt. Poor baby, I just melted. They gave her some morphine and got her to sleep. SHe's been in a heavy sleep since then. We need to keep her flat throughout the evening to keep the spinal fluid where it should be. Keep praying that she has a restful night- and us too!

And we wait

We are in hour 4 of Amy's surgery. The last update we got was 2 hours ago and we were told the Dr was still making his way through all of the scar tissue on Amy's back from her previous surgery. He hadn't even gotten to the spine yet. We were here at 5:30 this morning. Amy was so excited, you'd think it was Christmas the way she was acting. She didn't know exactly what was going on, she just knew the Dr was going to work on her back and she was going to get to stay in the hospital for a few days with Momma and Daddy. That makes her feel special and that's all she needed to act special. She didn't stop grinning from ear to ear and making everyone act until they gave her some "dopey medicine" then she was still grinning but she couldn't keep her head up anymore. They didn't stick her with any needles until they put her to sleep, thank goodness for that.



Brent and I are sitting in the waiting room. We were the first to arrive this morning, we've seen this waiting room fill up and empty again. The candy stripers left for the day because almost all of the surgeries are over. We have to answer the phone at the desk now until the doctors call. I've seen a lot of strange protocol at this hospital so why shouldn't waiting parents answer the desk phone?

Please keep praying.

Amy

Amy is 3, she was born in Wuwei, Gansu China. She became a forever member of our family last summer.
Amy is scheduled to have surgery on her spine Wednesday. She has
Spina Bifida, a condition where a child is born with problems with the
spinal cord because it was not completely formed in the womb. The
Spinal Cord and the vertebrae are not fused closed as they should be
so nerves poke through spaced between the bones instead of down
through the lower body. Spina Bifida can cause no problems or severe
problems like no movement from the waist down, depending on the size
of the openings. Amy has a slight limp which we now know is from her
Spina Bifia and not her foot that is smaller than the other. Her
spinal cord is tethered to a bone spur at the base of her spine
instead of free floating as ours are. Without surgery, she could loose
her ability to walk very soon. She has gone through a growth spurt
lately and we are starting to notice problems due to the spinal cord
starting to stretch. We have had several doctors look at her MRIs and
they have no idea how she is able to walk as it is. We are anxious
for her to have surgery and nervous at the same time. She had surgery
on her back when she was one ( we followed her surgery then and decided then that she was OURS!) and there is a lot of scar tissue the doctors will have to work around this time.
She is having surgery at 7 in the morning tomorrow.
We covet your prayers for Amy.

our Amy

beautiful

I've been making these sweet little tutu overalls for the girls. I made Karianne's and Lucy's yesterday, and Angie and Amy's today. I didn't get Angie's finished until later so she hasn't tried hers on yet, but Amy got to twirl a little in hers. She was so excited. "momma I put it on and you take my picture?"
Yes Baby.

Amy and Lucy

Lucy seems drawn to Amy lately. She wants to play with whatever Amy is playing with, she cries for a bite of whatever Amy is eating. One of Amy's Christmas presents is Lucy's favorite Christmas present. Today Amy was just standing in the living room and Lucy crawled over to her and pulled herself up on Amy and just hung on to her. Amy is a pretty good sport about it. Generally she prefers to play with someone her own age but she does pretty good humoring Lucy.

I love this picture!

Sweet Amy

Know what I noticed today? Amy's huge callus on top of her foot is gone! It was so big and hard, it looked like her heal, it is were her foot hit the ground when she walked before the surgery.

Very satisfying feeling looking at that sweet little foot now.