IAC Appointment

,I’m behind on my blogging so there will be a flurry of blogs separated by topic. First is the IAC. We arrived at 8:00 a.m. so we could be registered. Shockingly no real paperwork, but we don’t have any real medical history so that makes sense. We did laps in the lobby while we waited. Then we were taken to a scale that Hope would NOT stand on alone so I held her. Next we went to our exam room which is where we stayed for the next 2.5 hours. But she did GREAT! Praise the Lord she is an amicable child. She sat in our laps and played with the toys I brought, she drank a bottle and let Dr. Chambers examine her (for the most part). Hope has gained 4 pounds in 5 weeks. She is 10th percentile for height, 25th percentile for weight and her head is in the 50th percentile…my sweet bobble head girl. Dr. Chambers even remarked her head only seems big because she is so short. The attachment counselor, Kelly, was super. She let us know that she felt Hope was attaching very well. She told us we were doing all the things that they would recommend and asked if we would consider doing a parent seminar on, “Please do what you are told.” She also gave me another jewel of information about Hope from Chongqing. Kelly was in the group that got to visit Hope’s orphanage in April. She told me she was very excited to see Hope again and that when they were at the orphanage they actually saw her a lot. Not as in, “kept examining her,” but that Hope was out and about a lot. They saw her often with one nanny and one other child. They were walking her around with Hope holding their fingers. Kelly’s point was that Hope wasn’t just cooped up in the special needs ward. See…another jewel that I treasure in my heart. She was very impressed with the orphanage and told us some more stuff about the facilities and what the new partnership is looking to do. She also gave us a website where we could find more photos of the orphanage that she took herself. Awesome! She had on really good suggestion to help with night terrors and then it was on to Dr. Chambers. Dr. Chamber’s is so good at what she does. She was able to almost fully examine Hope without upsetting her. Which is really a miracle since Dr. Chambers was touching all over Hope. It was only at the end when the ole’ tummy got touched that Hope started to cry. Dr. Chamber’s declared her healthy and well, except that Hope has to be on baby food by August 8th. YEAH, RIGHT? Hope has oral hypersensitivity and for these kids it is a big challenge to get them to eat food. So we were given some things to try to do at home to desensitize her mouth…it is slow going and I don’t see how we will meet the Aug. 8th date but we are trying and praying. We also had the chance a couple days later to talk to the feeding specialist by phone and got a bit more direction. After our time with Dr. Chambers it was time to go get 8 vials of blood!! Dr. Chambers even warned us that she used to get calls from the lab that said, “Did you really mean to order this much?!” Yes. Yes she did, they can handle it. So that was pretty horrible. Her little arm gave out about the 7th vial and she was so pitiful that the two nurses decided to use the blood in the tubing and skim off the top of the other vials to get the 8th one, instead of poking her other arm. Thank you, dear ladies. Then we were done. She slept well for her nap and had no night terrors that night thankfully. We got a call from the health department on Thursday letting us know that Hope has Giardia…intestinal parasite. Not uncommon for our IA kids and Chongqing has some of the worst water on the planet. Since it is highly contagious we contacted Eden’s and Noah’s doctor and while discussing what to do with Eden, we discovered that we think NOAH has it too! So we have been stool sample central around here this week, hoorah! And when I spilled one of the vials with pink liquid in it all over my beige carpeting, I was so pleased…And I got to go back to the IAC for another pink fluid filled vial. The picture below is for my friend Julie…I put a quarter in the top of the pink lid so you can see how wide the vials are in diameter. Good times.

So now we are waiting for the antibiotic to be called in and compounded for Hope and waiting to see if Noah has Giardia from the water in China and if he needs an antibiotic. We have our follow up appointment with the PT and OT specialists on Aug 8th (we will evaluate her oral hypersensitivity at that time as well.). It was an overall good appointment except for the blood draw. Couldn’t have asked for a better appointment, thanks for all the prayers, our God answered them faithfully to our pleasure!