Summer Fun

Forget all my toys, I like these rocks!

We have a date for surgery

I got a call from the pediatric heart surgeon's office yesterday afternoon, Jadyn is scheduled for surgery next Thursday, September 3, 09.

Our emotions are all over the place, I'm happy she is such a great candidate for repair, I'm stressed what she will be going through, I'm happy she will feel like a normal active 2 year old once it's over, most of all, I just want it to be over and her to be home healthy.

She has to have some blood work done on Wednesday morning and then we are free to do whatever the rest of the day. We will check in to Sacred Heart Children's hospital Thursday morning.

I will update often, as I know we have lots of people following her care. Thanks everyone for your kind e-mails, they mean a lot to us.

Some Pre-surgery testing

Waiting for our turn

Jadyn is having a heart cath and another echo today(Tues.) we had to be at the hospital by 10:00 am, she was scheduled for noon, but her doctor had an emergency patient, so Jadyn was pushed back, they finally were ready for her at 3:30 pm. The poor girl was not allowed to eat anything; her last meal was dinner and a snack last night. Her procedure is expected to last 2 hours.

This was what we did while we waited for over 3 hours

They gave Jadyn some medicine to relax her before they gave her an IV, it did the opposite, she was a wild, floppy, silly girl. She was so funny. It only lasted about an hour, thank goodness.

The worst part of the day, 2 attempts at the IV

They had a hard time getting an IV line placed, finally having success on top of her hand, she was then able to sit up and play while we waited for the anesthesiologist to come get her.

The Doctor still is not sure what procedure will be best for her, that question will be answered with the test results from today.
He did tell me that whichever correction they give her, she will get the same result, a great working heart!

I knew this was going to be hard, but to see them carrying away your new daughter is very difficult. I feel so bad for her; all this scares her so much.
I will update more when she’s out and I see the doctor.
Update:

Her cath and echo went great, no surprises, he didn't expect to find any, but I was happy to hear him say it again. They had a very hard time getting her oxygen level to climb above 55. It was probably due to her being upset all day. She is so scared of anyone in scrubs. They decided to admit her and watch her oxygen level and possibly do her repair surgery in the next few days. Once we learned this, Ames drove to Spokane to be with us for the night.

all tucked in

Jadyn had a great night, she slept well and her oxygen level rose into the 70's, her Doctor was very happy to see this and sent us home around noon. She was so happy to leave, we told her it was time to go bye-bye and she started waving good-bye to the nurse. She has some tape burns and some bruises from the needles, but other than that she looks great.

They will have her scheduled for surgery within the next 2 weeks.

They are planning to do a Glenn procedure at this point. According to her cardiologist this is a "easy surgery" relatively speaking. Her surgery will be followed up by the Fontan procedure in about 2 years.

More testing

Jadyn is scheduled for a heart cath tomorrow at Sacred Heart Hospital, they told me to expect to be there the entire day. This is a standard test they do prior to surgery, they will also do another echo while she is asleep.

She is doing so well with bonding and feeling secure, I hate to scare her, but it has to be done.

G had a picnic with his new hockey team yesterday at a local park, she was so happy to walk around and explore. She would look back to make sure we were still there, and continue walking around. This is a big change for her.

I will update tomorrow when she is done with her testing.

Getting back to normal

Sharing a drink with Daddy

Wow... this week has flown by, besides Ames & I not sleeping well, we are trying to get into a normal routine. Jadyn is doing awesome, she is such a happy little thing. She sleeps all night long in her own crib. We moved her crib into our room the day we got home from China, but found she really does not need us that close, she is a great sleeper. I have had to wake her up a few mornings after 9 am.

She is still a little leery of Garrison and our dog, but she is warming up to them both. Garrison just loves her and is always trying to hold or kiss her, she gives him a big "no thanks" grunt.

On Tuesday she had an appointment with our family pediatrician, she has gained 2 pounds in 2 weeks! She is now a whopping 24 pounds. She needs 4 baby shots, but he has decided to hold off until the cardiologist decides his treatment plan.

Wednesday we saw the cardiologist, they ran lots of test on her heart and spent a great amount of time doing a echo cardiogram. Besides her VSD being very large, her heart, valves and lungs are in awesome shape. We felt so relived to hear this news. She will have surgery some time in September to correct her defect. The things doctors can do is downright amazing.

We will know the exact procedure next Tuesday, that's the day her cardiologist meets with his 4 partners to go over new files. We left his office feeling very assured that our daughter will live a long healthy life, just like any other child.

We are so happy to finally have Jadyn home, she fits into our family just perfect!


Bring on the food, Mom



Look at those little blue lips, she gets cold in the bath tub

A long, long day

In fact we’re into the next day of travel. We are sitting in the LA airport right now; we have a 5 hour lay-over. The worst lay-over of this entire trip happens to be our last leg. We are all so tired. Ames, Jeron and Jadyn are all asleep on the benches. Kim and I have not slept in over 24 hours, so forgive me if this post is a mess. I’m afraid to fall asleep in an airport with my kids here, plus I would probably slobber or something.
Jadyn was excellent on the international flight, the poor little thing just could not get comfortable, I would say she slept a total of 2 hours the entire flight. Jeron can curl up anyplace and sleep. Sure wish I could, Kim and I are at the point of miserable right now.
We passed very quickly through immigration with all Jadyn’s paperwork, what a relief that was. As soon as her little feet touched the ground at the airport she officially became a US citizen.
Update to my un-posted update….
As I was typing the above post Ames was asleep on the airport bench, he started making some weird noise, I tried to wake him and knew right away something was wrong. I began shaking him and he was very stiff, about this time he fell to the floor, paramedics were called and they started an IV and checked his heart and blood sugar. They could not get him to respond well enough and he had to be transported to the hospital. Kim & I decided to have her and Jeron continue with the flight to Portland and the airport attendant re-booked our tickets.

The hospital did numerous tests on Ames’ heart and lungs to make sure he didn’t have a blood clot from so many hours of flying. We are happy to say it was an ugly case of severe dehydration, with no lasting effects from the seizure. It’s a wonder what plain water does for your body! He and I have both learned a good lesson from this, drink lots of water (not wine) if you plan of flying for several hours straight.

We are all home now happy and healthy. Jadyn is doing extremely well; she loves her new home and toys. She is still a little leery of Garrison, I told him to give her a couple days and she will be fine with you too. She is such a joy.

Were ready to come home!

We went to the oath ceremony today, got Jadyn's passport back with her visa stamped inside, our room is packed and we are ready to head home. Our first flight is 9:15 am, we land in Portland Oregon about 28 hours later. Oh the sound of that is just gross!

We have had such a wonderful time here in China, we stayed in 3 different cities, each one very different from the last. I would have to say Jadyn's province, the city of Nanjing, was our favorite. It was just so authentic China, the Chinese people have been absolutely wonderful to us, they are very thankful for us adopting the orphaned children.

We have met some wonderful families here and will stay in touch in the future. This picture is our travel group, we have done all our appointments together, received our kids the same day ect. Great bonds have been formed.

Jeron had a great time here, and was an extremely good boy, he's a great world traveler!

Kim also enjoyed her time here in China, we will always share the great memories of traveling together during this journey for our daughter and her niece. It's been wonderful having her here.

I would like to thank our family and friends who have had to endure the last 3 plus years of waiting with us, you all have been great. You will just love Jadyn!

One more Thank you, to my great friend and waiting mother Tricia, for all her adoption wisdom, friendship and posting of our blog updates while we have been in China! You're next girl!

It's been a stressful day

Today was the day our coordinator submitted all our paperwork to the US consulate to apply for Jadyn's visa to permit her into the USA, as I mentioned in our last post, I was afraid we were missing one piece of paper, or just 2 words that the other families had on their paperwork that we didn't have. I was right we were denied Jadyn's visa today.

We instantly became very worried and contacted our local immigration office back home. Long story, in a short version, the US consulate called our hotel room late in the afternoon and they are going to approve her visa after all with the paperwork we have supplied. We will now be able to take the oath with our group and head for home, with our daughter, on schedule.

Beside that drama, we had a nice relaxing day, we sat at the pool with Jeron. Kim, Jadyn and I took 3 cabs around town to finish up the gift shopping we wanted to do. We are ready to go home to our family, we have been gone 14 days so far.

Jadyn continues to do very well, she is very leery of strangers coming too close to her or us going into small shops. I think it may remind her of her medical exam. Boy can this girl scream. When your a white lady holding a Chinese baby screaming out Mama in China, people look and not in a nice way.

Oh by the way, Jadyn's TB test in negative! Once we go to the oath ceremony tomorrow, all our paperwork and adoption appointments are done.

(two new pictures below)

Guangzhou

Quiet Day

Today was a day to relax and do more paperwork, our guild will apply for the visa's to permit 18 new children into the USA, we sure hope all is ok, this step has to be 100% correct or ?? we won't think about it. We may have one piece of paper missing that our local USCIS in Washington state did not send to us to verify that they had all of Jadyn's information and in turn forward it all to China. They confirmed to me they had in an e-mail and that e-mail is all I have. Stayed tuned, I'm not leaving this country without her!

Our group went out to dinner tonight to a local Cantonese restaurant, it was very delicious. Our eyes about "popped out" when we walked through the door, as there were tank after tank full of live "things" to order for dinner. Turtles, snakes, all kinds of fish, alligator, ducks, eel and the worst of all......giant worms. I made it very clear to our guild I wanted boring, normal food! and we did, we had a wonderful dinner, Ames enjoy several beers with another Dad, it was a great night.

Jadyn is such a love bug, she will now walk back and forth between Kim's room and ours, our rooms join so it's very convenient. We rented a stroller today, to take shopping tomorrow, but she will have nothing of it. She screams and cries my name. I just cant do that to her, so back on my hip she goes. it's hard to carry her when it's 110 out. She has had so many changes lately, I wont push anything on her yet. She loves Jeron now and will follow him all over the hotel, she even lets him kiss her. Jeron is very happy about it.

Ames & Jeron enjoyed to hotel pool today while Kim, Jadyn & I did more shopping. The leather baby shoes here are adorable and only $6.00. Plus im getting her the traditional Chinese dresses in many sizes for future years to wear for Chinese New Year. The silk dress are about $8.00.

(A note from Jadyn) translated by mommy- I cant wait to meet everyone, Im shy but I'll warm up to you with time.

I'm getting a lot of e-mails about the typhoon, we somehow by-passed the storm, the eye of the storm is in the province we left a few days ago. Were safe and under full sunny skies.

First smiles for Dad

Gross food

• our smiley girl 

Guangzhou Fun

We are now in Guangzhou, and lovin’ it. Jadyn did just fine on her first plane ride, about a two hour flight from Nanjing. Our hotel is so fancy and beautiful, we feel like the rich and famous. We are staying at the China Hotel Marriott. The heat and humidity is awful, today was 95 degrees with 100% humidity. Girls are not supposed to sweat!

Jadyn had her medical exam today; three different stations with some crazy exams. The first station was the ear, nose and throat station, where the nurse squeaked a toy next to her ears to see if she can hear. The next station was to listen to her heart and lungs and check for 10 fingers and toes. The third station was to check height and weight. She is 34 inches tall and weighs 22 pounds. My girl needs to put on some weight. She also had to have a TB test, and didn’t even cry!

After the medical exam we went shopping, where Miss Jadyn got 9 pair of squeaky shoes and some Chinese dresses. She loves her shoes.

Jadyn has opened up so much today. She is laughing and playing with Kim and Jeron right now. This is a first; her open mouth laughs and giggles are priceless. We’re beginning to get a real sense of Jadyn’s playful personality. When I put her down she says “Momma” and reaches up for me, I could just cry, she is a little angel and we just love her to pieces.

Our last full day in Nanjing

We started our day with more sight-seeing today. We went to the Nanjing Museum. I know, a museum? But it was very interesting; some great handcrafted items that left us wondering how any human could be so talented. It was an interesting place, and Jeron did not get lost. We tried putting Jadyn in a stroller just for the tour and she would have none of it, so we carried her around and she was happy.
Our second stop was at a Jade factory. Jadyn’s Chinese name means Beautiful Jade, and of course with her new name being Jadyn, this was a neat place to see. All the items there were made in her province and from Jade rock found here as well.
We purchased a Jade bracelet, baby size, which is still a little too big. Our coordinator bartered a great price for us, so we put her to work a second time for Kim. We ended up with two beautiful pieces for a fraction of the asking price. Jadyn is all girl and loves pretty things. Her arm was ready and waiting to try it on.
We will spend a good part of the afternoon doing paperwork for her visa and passport. We fly to Guangzhou tomorrow evening. We are sad to leave Jadyn’s province, but hope to return when Jadyn’s is older and can enjoy her history.
I’m including some pictures of our little Jiangsu Beauty (as the girls are known here) She tries so hard not to laugh at us silly acting parents. Jadyn is opening up slowly; you can just see the grieving on her sweet little face, it breaks our hearts. She adores her silly Aunt Kim, but we are being careful not to let her bond to her before us. She is willing to come to both Ames and I every time we ask her. Ames got her to walk alone in the lobby today for a good 10 minutes; it was great to see her be independent.
We heard rumors that a tropical storm is headed for Guangzhou tomorrow; please think of us, as we have a 2 hour flight there. I’m not a turbulence lover and this will be Jadyn’s first flight!

Sight-seeing

Today we woke up and went sight-seeing with our coordinator to a beautiful silk broadcloth factory, the machines used to make this fabric were completely mind blowing; it takes 2 works an entire 8 hour day to make 2” of silk fabric. They use to use these machines to make the Royal family clothing; they are now used for framed artwork. They are ran with pure manual labor, no electricity. The work they do is extremely beautiful. I could not take many pictures as it was not allowed. Some of the items on display are many, many centuries old. It was fun to see and learn. Poor Jeron got lost in the building and by the time Ames & I realized each other didn’t have him, here comes someone from our travel group bringing a sobbing Jeron to us. I felt horrible, we held hands the rest of the tour!
We also went to a place called Nanjing City Gates, 600 years ago they built this huge brick and cement wall to protect the city. Each brick is stamped with the name of the man who made the brick so if it didn’t stand the test of time, they could located and umm… destroyed, to say it nicely.
Jadyn had a good time flirting with Kim and I during this tour, she loves to be outside, the little smirks you see on her face is her way of holding back a big smile. She is just so darn adorable and sweet. She really thinks her Aunt Kim is a funny person. She woke up today not wanting Ames to hold her, this makes him so sad. But by breakfast she was back in both of our arms. He carried her around both tours.
A little of what we have discovered about our little girl-
She sleeps very well and at night, 10 hours straight! She will eat anything we offer her. She loves congee cereal (it tastes awful, like over boiled rice water) but she will eat a large bowl every morning at breakfast. She is very thin, she looks so long but I think it’s just because she is so thin. She is about a year behind in motor development, right on target, if not above in mental, she is very smart. She LOVES her new clothes and shoes. Also toys and books, they hold her interest for a long time. She will sit in our laps and play for hours. She is afraid of Jeron, not sure if it’s the blonde hair or the fast moving boy. The pictures of them together, she had no idea he was that close to her! We can’t wait for you all to meet her.
Thank you all for your wonderful comments and e-mails, I love reading them all! 2 more days and we fly to Guangzhou for the last leg of our trip.

Sleeping Cuteness

We have had a busy day with lots of paperwork, but we wanted to share some more pictures. We will contintue to update!

We've got Our Girl!!

Jadyn is adorable! She will go to Ames & I both. She is very shy right now, but she loves her new toys. I will write more later, but here are a few pictures I know you were waiting for!

One More Day!

Today we flew to Jadyn's province, met our new guide and checked into another hotel. It is just as I pictured it would be here. Very authentic. Beijing seems to be much more modern than the rest of the area. Our hotel is very nice, we are on the 11th floor. Kim is right across the hall from us and is sharing her room with Jeron. After tomorrow I'm sure they will be glad of the arrangements. Jeron continues to be a huge hit in this province as well, he's getting better with the smiles but will not make eye contact at all unless we ask him to say hello back.

Today at the airport he was told he was a beautiful boy with beautiful eyes. he's not impressed at all, we think it is sweet, the local people just light up when they see him and he can have a crowd just standing around looking at him for several minutes at a time.

I unpacked Jadyn's suitcase today, ohh how strange this feels. We will actually have a toddler tomorrow morning. We will meet her at 10:00 am Please check for an update, I am locked out of our blog still but will try my best to at least send some pictures home to be uploaded asap!

Busy Day!

We left our hotel at 8:30 am with 18 other families for a day of sight-seeing, First we went to Tinanamen Square, A very beautiful place, but it was so hot and humid out, I felt sick. The crowds were so packed-in everyone kept loosing our tour guild. I was so afraid we would loose Jeron, he had to hold our hand all day. That didn't make for a happy 7 year old. Nor did the fact that he is like a little movie star here, people would literally walk up to him and stare and ask if they could take his picture, he started crying at one point, if you know Jeron he has a personal space bubble, and please don't pop it!. Our guild told him "the Chinese just love you boy, you so handsome, they like you white hair and you white skin" It makes me laugh just typing it. As the day went on he got better and better with it. One Mother actually took his hand and had him hold her daughters hand, so cute.We were treated to a awesome Chinese lunch, we all had duck and lots of stir fried veggies. The air conditioned restaurant felt so nice. And yes, Kim and I both used that hole, I mean potty. After lunch our group left for The Great Wall, it is just as beautiful as the pictures Iv'e seen. Kim and I climbed the first phase and that was it for us, Jeron and Ames kept on going and going, they were wringing wet once they came back down, Jeron was so excited. That has been by far his favorite. About an hour into the tour it started poring rain, thunder and lightning. We all headed back for the bus, the storm was so intense it took over 2 hours to get back to the hotel.We have to be out of our room by 5:00 am tomorrow the bell boy will be knocking at 4:10am for our luggage, we have a 8:00 am flight to Jiangsu Province. ONE more day! We have been told we will get Jadyn in the morning on Monday.