Happy 9th Birthday Sarah!

My Peanut is 9 years old! I can't believe it! Sarah turned 9 on Tuesday. We celebrated with our immediate family that day. Then today we celebrated with Mimi, Grandy, and Grandma. We started the day with a trip to the National Zoo. It was a perfect zoo day and everyone had a great time. This evening we had cake and ice cream. Sarah and Emily decorated the cake all by themselves. It was beautiful.



Sarah with 2 of her presents this year. She has been trying to master the hamburgers on "Cooking Mama-World Kitchen" all week.

Anna had the best ride at the zoo....Daddy's back! Look at that pretty little face 2 weeks post-op!


My 4 girls with their Great Grandma. I am so glad Grandma was able to come up this weekend. She enjoyed the zoo as much as the girls did. Well, actually, she enjoyed it more than Lauren. Lauren slept through the majority of the zoo. I think she saw the reptile house and then fell asleep.


Mimi brought Sweet Sixteen--Anna's favorite! And for the record, Anna still has stitches at the base of her nose(inside and out)...it's not that her mama isn't cleaning her face.

1 week Post-op

Still loving that baby!


Well, we made it through the first week. Anna Grace hasn't busted open her lip but she has pulled the bow off once and managed to pop a stitch on her nose. Yep, this morning I went to get her out of bed and she only had one stitch in her nose. The other was in the floor. I have no idea how that happened. She had the no-no's on her arms, pinned to her back so she couldn't escape. Her nose looks fine. She managed to get this one out on Day 8 and they can be taken out on Day 10 so I am not too worried. Might as well not be, what can I do? My best guess is that she was on her tummy and rubbed her nose back and forth on her pillow until it came out. Any other guesses out there? I took some new pictures so everyone can see her progress. Her nose is relaxing a bit, which is a good thing. I think it is looking more and more natural. The stitches in her lip are dissolving and we still cannot get in there and clean it up really good. So the yuckiness on her lip? Well, its yuckiness on her lip. Trust me, as soon as her daddy can clean it up, he will be on it!



Sarah took this photo...I think it is one of the best we've gotten since surgery!


Lauren is officially homeschooling now. She has been working on an apple unit this week. She has tasted apples, counted apple seeds, painted apple prints, and tomorrow she is making applesauce. We hope to visit an orchard next week. Lauren has also been reading Ten Red Apples this week but prefers Goodnight Moon. That is the current favorite and she asks Dino to read it several times every day. She is also working on the letter A, counting to 5 and the color red. I love having her home and I think she is happy too. Preschool starts next Thursday but she will only go 2 mornings a week. I think it will be a great balance.

Lauren and Dino during reading time. She turns the pages at just the right time! Her favorite page is "and a quiet old lady who was whispering Hush!"


Making apple prints...this might not look like much but she doesn't really care for crafts. Why would you when your hands don't always do what they are supposed to? But she did really well with this activity.

Our Strollathon is 2 weeks out. We are praying that it will be a successful event and that we will raise lots of money to fund research. Go to www.rettsyndrome.org for more details on this disorder. As always, thank you for your prayers. Lauren continues to do well. She is happy and healthy and we are so thankful that we get to be her parents.

Day 4

Anna Grace continues to improve....and good news, her mama is finally thinking she looks like Anna again! Today her eyes are sparkling and she is full of energy. That is the Anna Grace we know. We kept her home from church because it would have created quite the scene to have her there with the bow on her face. She is too aware of what people are saying to do that to her. So Mama and Anna stayed at home while Daddy took the 3 big girls to church. It was promotion Sunday so we didn't want everyone to miss. While they were gone, we played and I snapped this picture of her rocking in the chair. I even caught the glimmer of a smile. Soon we are going to have all that stuff off her face so we can see the whole thing. I can't wait!

We have our annual fundraiser for Rett Syndrome in just 3 weeks! Would you please consider donating? All money we raise will go to the International Rett Syndrome Foundation to fund research. Rett Syndrome is such an ugly disorder. There is currently no treatment or cure...and it is spontaneously occurring so that means anyone's daughter could be stricken with it. For more information go to www.rettsyndrome.org or e-mail me. I would love to share more with you. Lauren was diagnosed 3 years ago and not a day has passed since that I haven't thought about how wonderful it would be to find a treatment, or better yet, a cure. I have never heard Lauren say "I love you Mama" and she is 5 years old. The very sad thing is, I probably never will...UNLESS researchers find a way to help our girls. They have already found a way to reverse the effects of Rett in mouse models. That gives us great hope that a cure is possible. But it takes so much money to fund the studies. Would you consider helping us? I know this is a hard year to ask for money. But even a $10 donation would help.
This sweet girl is depending on us to help her. Look at her face. I KNOW she has so much she wants to say. I am doing all I can to help make that happen.

Happy Labor Day!

Each day is better

Anna Grace and her baby, who also has a bandage on her face. And yes, that is drool on her chin. I'm not good enough with editing to get rid of that!




Today is our best day yet! Anna Grace is happier and more stubborn, which is totally normal for her! : ) She has played with her toys more today and eaten better so I think she feels pretty much back to normal. And Emily and I both agree she is looking like Anna again. I can't wait for everything to heal and all the swelling to go away so we can see her sweet face. We got some cute pictures today. She has a baby doll that also had an operation on her mouth by Dr. Daddy. You will see that the baby has similar bandages. Anna Grace has been playing with her a lot the past 2 days. This afternoon we had to change the bow. It appeared to be sliding and was pressing into her mouth. Changing it is not a problem; they actually taught us how in the hospital. Its the ripping off by a child that we need to avoid. Thankfully, since Thursday night we haven't had any more incidents like that. But of course, while we had the bow off I took a few pictures. It is still hard to get a real idea of how it will look in 2 months but at least you can see her face. Thanks for all the prayers over the past few days. We are all doing well.

Anna and baby dancing


Anna Grace's 15 minute break with no bow. She is singing! See how irritated her cheeks are? I hated to put it back on....but we did.

Our night!

So, we put Anna Grace to bed around 8:30. About 45 minutes later we hear her cry out. Shawn goes back to check on her and I hear him call me....ummm, not good. He comes walking down the hall with Anna and her bow is in his other hand! Holy cow! She managed to pull her arm out of the arm restraint(I have no idea how!) and then proceeded to rip the bow off her face. And we were worried about Lauren doing that.... We quickly took her to the dining room table to look her over. Everything looks fine. The stitches look exactly the same so I don't think she did any terrible damage. We did have to replace the bow. Shawn did an excellent job of that. Anna Grace then went to OUR bed for the remainder of the night. Clearly, she could not be trusted in her own bed. So Mama and Anna had a very LOOOOOONG night. I think our best sleep was 4:25-6:17, at which time Anna continued to sleep but Lauren decided it was time to get up! Joy! So here's hoping for a better night tonight. I think I may go downstairs and give Daddy a turn with her. : )

We are home!

While Anna was waiting to be taken back she took really good care of her baby!


CHEESE!


"I'm hungry! It is 11AM and I haven't eaten since last night!"



We are home! Check out my cute little nose! There is still a lot of swelling so we will not get the full effect for a while.

Here is a "before" photo so you can see the difference!


We left the hospital at 9am! Yay!! Anna Grace woke up very happy this morning. She was smiling and dancing 15 minutes after waking so I knew she was okay to go home. She is very strong willed and we have already had a few battles over her letting us feed her. Please pray for that to get better as we have to feed her for 3 weeks. Dr. Boyajian said the diet is not the issue this time around, its the delivery of the food that is important. Nothing can stress the lip so we have to feed her so she isn't jabbing the fork or spoon on it. Should be fun! : ) The other thing you can pray for is that Lauren will not get her fingers on the bow that is taped to Anna's face. We know if given the chance, Lauren will grab it and rip it off. She doesn't like things on us. If she sees a bandaid on one of us she picks at it until she gets it off. So I know the big silver loop on Anna's face is going to drive Lauren crazy. I think that may be our biggest challenge...keeping Lauren away from Anna. She can be quite determined when she wants to do something and those hands can be amazingly accurate too! Anna seems to feel pretty good. She is only on Tylenol and really doesn't seem to be in pain. She and I are both tired and in need of a good nap. Hopefully we will be able to get that in today. Enjoy the pictures. Check out that little, round nostril! Dr. Boyajian is a gifted surgeon.

Recovery

First, I am sorry for the delay. We had issues with the in-room internet system and I had to wait until now to use the family waiting room computers. Anna Grace is recovering nicely. She went into surgery at noon and we expected her out around 2. At 3, her doctor finally came out and said all was well! He said it was challenging since it had already been repaired once but it will look good once the swelling is down. We can already see how different her nose will look. While I know she is going to like it so much better in the long run, I think I might miss her flat, little nose. One thing that we know for certain, Anna does NOT like coming out of anesthesia. She cried, screamed, and kicked us for a good, long time. The memory of her coming out of anesthesia the last time had faded. But as I fought to hold on to her I quickly remembered....kinda like childbirth....you forget how bad it was once it is over but when you do it again it all comes back very quickly! Thankfully, we shouldn't have another surgery for 5 years. As a result of her rough awakening, we spent 2 hours in recovery before being able to go to our room. It is now 11pm and she is doing well. She is sitting up, drinking apple juice, and looking pretty good, certainly better than the last surgery. Because this surgery was all external she has visible stitches. Some will dissolve and a few will have to be taken out in 10 days. I feel certain we will leave in the morning. Once we are home and settled I will post pictures. We got some really cute ones and a few pitiful ones. Thank you all for your prayers. We appreciate you all.

I do have to share one hospital story with you. As we were changing Anna into her gown this morning we hear an announcement over the intercom. Now remember, we are in a children's hospital....all children, no adults. This is what we heard. "Code Blue--Adult! Code Blue in west wing, 5th floor elevator." About one minute later we hear, "Code Blue--Adult! Code Blue in west wing, 1st floor elevator." Holy Cow! Someone visiting the hospital clearly had a medical emergency in the elevator. We didn't hear anything else for the rest of the day.

Thanks again for praying for our girl. We will update again once we are home.

Surgery is over!

Anna is in recovery and Shelley and Shawn are with her. I don't know many details yet, but she is stable and the surgery was successful. More details to follow.
Tricia

Surgery is starting

Shelley just called and said that they took Anna back at 11:55. The doctor anticipates a 1 1/2 -2 hour surgery. I will update as soon as I hear from Shelley! Thanks again for praying!
Tricia

Surgery delayed

Shelley called me about 10:45 and said there had been an emergency with another patient,and so Anna's surgery had been delayed. She was unsure at that time when they would take Anna back. I will post updates as soon as I hear from Shelley! Everybody was doing ok, other than Anna wanting to eat! :( Thank you for checking on and praying for them today!
Tricia (Shelley's sister)

Surgery tomorrow

Tomorrow we have surgery #2 for Anna Grace. Dr. Boyajian will re-do her lip and nose repair that was done before the adoption. We will go in at 8 and surgery is scheduled for 10:15. They said the surgery will last 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Anna Grace will spend one night at the hospital and we should be home by late afternoon Thursday. Please pray for her to handle not eating tomorrow morning. She wakes up EVERY morning and immediately says, "Eat?" She wants that before anything else. So it will be hard to hold her off until 10:00! Your prayers about that issue would be greatly appreciated! Pray also for the doctor as he operates, for the anesthesia, and for Anna's recovery.
I will update tomorrow through my sister so you will know what is happening. Thank you for your prayers! My four beauties....still LOVING having four girls!

Wrightsville Beach...I think Lauren likes it!



Anna Grace with Kylee~another little Chinese beauty who came home at the same time Anna did. We spent the second half of our China trip with them. It was so wonderful to see them while we were on vacation! Yes, this is the best picture of the dozen I took...2 toddlers...what do you do?


Mama and AnnaGrace in Birmingham with Karla, our social worker who helped bring Anna home, and Amy, our post placement social worker. Lifeline continues to be the best agency ever! I was so thrilled for Karla to meet Anna.

During our vacation we spent time at a cabin in Alabama with our dear friends from Cherry Point. We lined all the kiddos up for a picture in the matching tee-shirts that Ms. Jennifer bought for all the girls. What are those beautiful children on the right named?? Shawn, Emily Sarah and Grace....seriously, those are their names. I think it might mean we are supposed to live near one another to grow old!! (Yes, Michael, that was just for you!)

I have more pictures from vacation but I also have a child having surgery tomorrow so those will be posted later! Thank you for your prayers.