What a Way to Start the Day

Our Monday was to start like any other week. We had several appointments, church events, tennis games,and to be capped of at the end with our daughter's drama performance on Friday and Saturday. Here it is Wednesday, and I am sitting in a hospital room with Rae. Monday morning Rae started having a seizure that truly scared us, and we raced off to our local ER. The ER was great and started working on her immediately to get the seizing to stop. They started some testing to get some early results and decide if we were to be transported to Children's. None of the early testing showed anything, but her CT showed something, so we were definitely being sent to Columbus. A ride in the mobile ICU is not a thing any parent wants to experience. Sitting alone praying for your child is about all you can do. We are very thankful for our friend Rochelle who came and picked up our girls. Their family has been a great help these last couple of days.

We have no record of our daughter having seizures before or knowing she had 2 previous strokes. We can only speculate that these happened before she entered the orphanage - we just don't know. There is no one to be angry at, but all we can to is move forward and give her the best medical care we can. God knew all that was going to happen, and we can just trust His plan. While we are scared and very concerned, we are so blessed by our friends and family literally all over the world are praying for us. We are truly thankful for all your messages and emails. She is one blessed little girl.

There are still many questions to be asked and tests to be done to find out the answers. We are thankful for the doctors that are working diligently to take care of her and to help her to find out what is causing this. We are thankful that no infection has shown up in the cultures so far. We pray that we are moving closer to find out what caused this and to even see if it related to her blood disorder. What ever it is, it is all of God's plan and He knows it all. We must trust His wisdom. I will chose to be thankful.

THURSDAY UPDATE - We were able to go home late Wednesday.  She is doing well on her new medicine.  We were told she could possible be mean while taking it, but we think it has given her the giggles which we will definitely take over the other.  We are loving these belly laughs! Pray there are no more seizures, and we can get more answers.

Happy Easter (a couple of days late)

This it the first chance I have had to post a pic from Easter.  It was a nice family day after worshiping our Risen Savior.  We decided to go out for brunch and then Rae to her first big screen movie.  It was just a great day!

Nouns but Still no Verbs

Language is getting better everyday.  We have mastered many nouns and managed to put together a sentence of two.  The elusive verb has failed to make it into her vocabulary.  It is quite funny to hear her sentences or phrases she says.  When there are Mandarin words we know she is using, we stop and tell her the English word for it, and that has been helping.  We use to hear "can-no can-no" all the time which means "look" or "watch".  She is finally saying "look".  There are others words she uses and some others we have no idea what she is saying. 

We still have bouts of sadness for her nanny, but it does not usually last too long.  Today she was very sad and upset with her sisters and was wanting to go back.  I sat her down and asked her if she would like to see a picture of her Chinese mama.  I told her that her Chinese mama still loves her and that we love her, but this is her home now.  She was happy to see the picture, and we talked a little about her previous life.  The funniest thing she remembers about her nanny is the "kong-kong" shoes. If you do not know what "kong-kong" shoes are, they are in our family referred to as high-heels.  When I took her to the store to purchase some shoes, she wanted high-heels and was upset when I told her she was not old enough.  Needless to say, we had some drama over our shoe decisions.  So, she has to settle with wearing my "kong-kong" shoes around the house.

It is both interesting and sad to hear about her life before us.  We just pray that we can help heal wounds, and provide her the best possible life all children deserve.  Our prayer is that God will continue to bind our hearts together and build trust.

Three Months

I am overwhelmed by how many people have viewed our video of our journey. I was going to wait to post it today, but I could not wait.  Please share with any of your friends who may be interested in adopting.

Yesterday proved to be an interesting morning for us with a trip to the emergency room.  Rae has 2 major nose bleeds in less than six hours, and we just wanted to be safe.  We were able to see and ENT and get her blood count.  Now we can add ENT to our list of doctor appointments we will have.

Rae is doing great despite all the doctor visits.  She still likes to hang with mom or dad everywhere we go, but she will stay in her Sunday School class by herself now.  When we go some where she knows people, she is a little social butterfly.  She is starting to play with girls her age. She recognizes letters and numbers she knows whenever we are out. She loves to help around the house especially sweeping and folding(yea for mom). Her new favorite phrase right now - "just a little bit".  She also loves her new bike, and loves riding it around in circles in our garage.

We have more doctor appointments in our future.  They are still trying to nail down what it going on with her blood disorder.  We have seen the ophthalmologist to see what is happening with her strabismus, and she will have surgery at some point to realign her eyes.  As of yesterday we will now need to see an ENT to see if there is anything we can do to curtail her nosebleeds. 

She is truly a brave little girl dealing with all we have put her thru these past months. Please pray for one of the girls that was adopted at the same time - Lily.  She is having her first palette repair Thursday.  The other 2 girls in our group have had their surgeries and seem to be doing well.

our beautiful girl

she loves to dance around

Video Finally Done

I am finally done with our Journey to Rae video.  Had previously done one and sent it to my mom for her church to view, but it was not quite finished.  So, now finally it is done.  I can't believe 3 months ago we were in China getting our girl.  She has come a long way in these few months.  She is speaking more English and more comfortable around our friends.  Looking forward to seeing her making friends with some little girls her age. (warning - the video is long, but the end is worth it)


Our Adoption Journey to Rae from Donna Dear on Vimeo.
This is our family's journey to our new daughter Rae. Please enjoy

Cooking with Emily and Rae

Emily is my budding baker.  She plans to open a bakery one day.  So, we let her work on her cupcakes a couple of times a month.  We were trying out a new recipe and Rae decided she wanted to help.  They made peanut butter cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. They were delicious.

First Hospital Stay

It has been a crazy couple of days in the Dear family.  My in-laws came in town to visit with us and see Rae for the first time.  They also were able to see Hannah's band concert and were also going to see Emily and Rae sing in the children's choir Sunday morning.  On Friday, I was throwing a party to celebrate my husband's book that has just come out (more on that coming in another post).  It is funny how things can change in a minute.

From Thursday midnight till Friday morning Rae had  6 nosebleeds (2 major, 4 minor).  The last one would not stop bleeding, so we rushed her to Children's.  Hannah was a big help by going to me to the emergency room because Noel was in the middle of fixing the sink, and after all we were to have people at our house.  After getting here, they were finally able to stop the nosebleed, and since she has lost so much blood, and her counts are still low, they wanted to give her platelets. Because of the severity of the bleed, they wanted us to stay overnight to make sure if her nose did bleed again, she was here.  We made all of our arrangements for us to stay the night, and in the mean time her hematologist is consulted.  He wanted Rae to have a 3-day steroid infusion that has to be monitored in the hospital.  So here we sit.  The 2nd infusion is late this afternoon.  She is doing well despite having to be hooked up to her IV all the time, and she has been a brave girl with all the stuff being done to her.  She is loving all the chocolate milk she wants though.  There is a possibility we will go home Sunday night, but if not it will be Monday. Thanks for all the Facebook messages and prayers.  Thanks to my hubby holding down the fort at home and bringing me Chick-fil-a this morning.