Think she has attached?

I worried so much that Mavery would not attach to me. I should not have worried. This is how my days go. Every. single. day. I try to use the bathroom, she tries to sit on my lap! I did not think you would appreciate a picture of that. hehe! She does not get far from me, ever. Unless Makenna can lure her away with promises of lipstick and painted nails. Or if Mark picks her up and carries her into another room with him. But it does not take long and she is back. The good news is, when I am out of the house, she is fine with Mark. When I come in the door, she is SO excited to see me, running over screaming mama. So sweet and I feel loved that is for sure!

3 Years 1 Year Pictures

No longer that sad little girl in the picture. Laughing, smiling and home forever!


Beautiful Mavery

So cute!

I asked her who was in the picture, she said Jin Song. I asked why Jin Song was sad, and she began to study the picture. I just love this picture, 2 little sisters studying what once was, but is no longer the same.
I just think her profile is so sweet.
The wonder of Christmas, everything is magical for her.

3 Roses for 3 years in honor of her birth mother.

December 18th 3 years ago- 1 year ago..

As I think about all this date signifies for Mavery, and for myself, I am in awe once again of our Father and how He has written the pages of her story.

3 years ago, December 18th, 2005. In the city of Jinhua, in the amazing land called China, a baby girl was found, on a train, all alone. She was wrapped in old clothes and a red note was pinned to her outfit with her birthday of November 1, 2005. She was just 6 weeks old.

1 year ago, December 18, 2007, I woke up in prayer. I had dreamed of her in my arms and it felt so real. We were anxiously waiting to find out if JinSong would be our daughter. I wanted to believe, with out doubt. God had spoke, I thought. Yet, I woke up in tears because she had felt so real in my dream & I just did not know what the day would bring.

I knew this. I wanted today to mark the end of her being an orphan. I wanted her family to find her. Her mother held on to her for 6 weeks, and let her go. For 2 years, she lived in an orphange. My prayer was simple. Lord, I want her to be mine, but more than anything, I want her to be found, today, in a family, FOREVER. Let this day be forever marked as special on her little life. If I am not her mother, please let me handle this with grace, and just let me be happy for her.

And it was special. And it is. Obviously, we got the call that day that Mavery was ours. It had been the most emotional 6 weeks for me, and it was finally over. And yet, in many ways, it was only just beginning.

But now, here she is. One year later, no longer just in my dreams. And she feels so much better in my arms than I could have imagined! Last year all I had were a few referral pictures. I memorized those, they were etched on my heart. I knew every inch of her. I wondered what she would be like once she was here.

I could never have prepared myself for how amazing she is! Or that today, on this day now, how attached to me she is. I told Mark today, I am pretty sure if she were able, she would literally climb into my skin so she could be that close to me. If I am sitting, she will climb up UNDER my shirt, just to lay against me. She does not leave my side, ever.

There are times, this can get tiring. There are alot of people in this house who need alot of things. But today, I stopped and I just sat to hold her. As I rocked her and she just sighed this happy sigh, I was reminded of how blessed we are to be a part of her story. How thankful I am that she is here. How grateful I am to her birth mother, for giving her life, and giving her hope.

December 18th, forever special for us. Mavery Raye JinSong, forever ours.

**I will add pictures tomorrow, come back and see!

Now & Then-Two Months Later

Home 2 months!
Home 1 month!

Gotcha Day in China

Maverys Appointment is Scheduled

So if I don't get REAL hair, I will make my own.
What are you looking at, you are the one WITH hair!

Ah yes, long hair feels so lovely!

I spoke with St Louis Childrens Hospital today and we have Maverys heart catheterization scheduled. It will be on Monday January 5th. We are to arrive at 7am and the procedure will begin at 8:30. I was told to prepare to be there for an overnight stay. Ugh. We will spend the day there on the 2nd for pre testing. More xrays, ultrasounds, etc. They said it will take awhile because they do not have good records of her previous surgery.

The good thing, we get a chinese translator. I am not sure how helpful it will be, but we, and the hospital, think it can not hurt to try. It is a service they provide there, so they suggested we use it. To bad they don't offer free parents spa services once they take your children away from you, I most certainly would take advantage of that! Or could they just drug me when they drug Mavery and wake me up with her? That would work to.

I am honestly at a loss for words today. I know, shocking. I just don't like the words overnight stay. It is supposed to be no big deal. No big deal is going in early and being home by lunchtime. Sigh...

Hair-larious!

The hair is coming in slowly but surely. Not fast enough for Mavery that is for sure. She still brings me bows every day and I try to get them in there. It is going to be THICK there is no doubt, thicker than most of the girls in this house. Not the boy though, he has some hair. So tonight after bath we had fun playing with it. She thought it was hilarious, and was running around to all her siblings pointing at it and cracking up! Hopefully I did not start something because I really do not care for this look in my Christmas photos! hehe!

The adorable stocking is from my friend Kathy, isn't it great? She sent it to Mavery along with some other things and I just love it! My print that is for sure and I LOVE anything monogrammed. I am thinking I need to have them made for all the kids, each with a different animal print. I think a monkey print for a certain someone! So fun, thanks Kathy. Mavery thinks it is pretty cool to and when she realizes what happens inside of it this month, I know she will be even more excited than she is with it for a sock!

I prayed for this Child

and the Lordhas granted

what I asked of Him....

So now we give her

back to the Lord

All of her days, we will give her to the Lord..

1 Samuel 1 :27-28

Thank you for all your prayers and sweet notes about Mavery. They have done MY heart good. I feel better about it all, and know that God is holding her in the palm of His hand. He created Mavery AND her heart, He breathed her first heartbeat into her. The fact that we even have her here with us is a miracle. I rest in that, she is here, she is mine and she is going to be fine, this is not a big deal. No word on dates yet, I am actually hoping we can wait till after the holidays now.

My oh so talented brother in law once again worked his magic and did these amazing photos. I asked him to make me some Christmas & Adoption cards, he is very creative. I have lots more to post, will add those to our family blog soon.

Maverys Heart

We did not get the news we had expected today at Maverys first appointment with the heart doctor. She is ok, she will be ok, just not what we expected.

Everything was fine when we got there. She let the nurse listen to her heart and then the doctor was able to listen. He explained to us exactly what Tetralogy of Fallot is, and he told us what could happen with leaky valves etc.. He said he thought it sounded very good and so we were encouraged before we even had the tests done.

We went to a room to have the echocardiogram done (ultrasound of the heart) and Mavery did great. They had her sitting on me which I think helped a ton. Mark fed her snacks, the lady gave her bubbles, and she was fine till almost the end. Which should have been an indicator. The doctor told us 10 minutes. 20 minutes later she said she would quit but he might want more pictures. After the echo they did an EKG. Which did involve a little bit of pinning her down while they stuck stickers all over her little body, but at least it was very quick. The doctor came in and said he wanted us to come back to the room to explain things. Hmmm..

So we went back to our room and he starts talking and Mavery decided she has to potty which means she automatically pulls her pants down in the middle of the room so you are forced to take her even though you know she is just bored and does not need to go. He kept talking and when I came in the room I could tell by Marks face it was not just a "yep, it sounds great" report. Dr Goel started explaining to me that there are 2 things wrong. Which immediately made my heart drop. And he is so sweet and must have realized that those words did not go well with me because he immediately said "she is going to be fine, everything is going to be ok, you do not need to worry about this." He went on to explain what is wrong and bear with me as I try to explain this, because if you can remember, I am NOT into some details and while I tried intently to listen and understand, I was having a hard time getting past the 2 things wrong part still.

If you would like to know what exactly Tetralogy of Fallot is, click here. I thought this site had a good explanation. He said her repair was good, and that sometimes even with a good repair there are things wrong afterwards. But he said that typically this would have been caught right away with follow up. So we assume she did not receive follow up after her surgery. What he told us is that her left pulmonary artery is narrow. Typically this would be widened in surgery for the blood flow. Sometimes the doctors leave it in hopes that it will enlarge on its own. We of course have no idea why they did it or what their thinking was. But it now needs to be enlarged because it is putting pressure on the heart and could keep the lung on that side from developing correctly as she grows. He is 90% sure that the stress is caused from the pulmonary artery being to narrow. The other 10% chance is that there is an obstruction between the pulmonary artery and the right ventricle from the TOF repair. He will not be able to know this unless we do a Heart Catheritization to enlarge the ventricle. If the Heart Cath works, then we know it was just that the artery needed enlarged and we are done. If it does not work, then we will have to talk about heart surgery to remove the obstruction. We did not talk details about a surgery, he was not letting me go down that road yet and he said he feels pretty sure that we will not have to worry about it. We talked about the heart cath a little bit and I think it will be done with in the next month. He will consult with a team of doctors and then we will set a date. He also said they will do some lung test to check her levels before and after but he lost me there. He said the heart cath will be one day, she will be sedated, and it will be done at Childrens Hospital.

As for the bump, he said that is purely cosmetic as we assumed. He said that when they close up the chest, if the bones are not put together well, they will do that. Sometimes it will get worse, sometimes it will get better as they grow. There is nothing to be done till she is done growing(because her bones must be done growing), then she can make a decision if she wants it fixed. If she would need surgery now, they would fix it then.

This was our first time to meet this doctor. We were given his name from our friends who also adopted a daughter with TOF. He really was wonderful, took so much time explaining things. Told me NOT to go home and get on the Internet, if I was worried or confused to just call him and he would talk to me and explain things. We were both impressed with him. He was calming, which we needed. He told us how beautiful and smart Mavery was, which was very sweet. He said "I can see she is very smart, very good brain. That is good, I can't fix her brain, but I will fix her heart!". He told us she is healthy and to treat her like any child, no restrictions, nothing to worry about. He said we would not see any symptoms for these problems she has, till she is about 10, then we would see her winded and tired because of the affect on her lungs.

So, all that technical stuff aside... To say we were shocked is an understatement. You know we expected to walk in there and hear she is fine and be on our way. Neither of us ever expected any different. Which is silly I suppose. And I think that is the thing with heart babies. From the outside, you would never know anything is wrong with them. So my emotions have been all over the place today. The thought of putting her under scares me to death. The fear of something going wrong during the procedure. The what if's, whys.... But I am trying not to dwell on any of those. I am trying to rest in the verse in Psalms, 147:3 HE HEALS the broken hearted. I know that Mavery is going to be fine. I really trust that God is going to take care of her. We know that this procedure is very common and even if it came to heart surgery, she will be ok. It is just the mommy part of me that knows she has already been through enough in her 3 little years. I want to protect her, I want to keep her tears away. I do not want her to have to go through any of this. And yet then I think, at least this way I can hold her and comfort her. Who would have done that in China? As he talked about her heart today and I pictured that first surgery, my heart broke all over again. Who cared for her after that? Did a nanny that she knew stay with her, or was she sent alone to the hospital. It is to hard for me to visit those thoughts. So in many ways I am thankful that this problem was found now I suppose. Still hard though.

We ask for your prayers as we prepare for the heart cath. Our prayer of course is that this will fix it and we will not have to think of surgery at all. I will let you know when it is scheduled. Thank you for thinking of us.