wild weather, perfect feet, and a quick getaway

It's been crazy around here lately: snow, ice, unexpected house guests, power outages, a weekend away, and an exciting trip to the doctor, all in the last 7 days!

Last week we had our first (and hopefully only) major snow event of the season, which meant no school, no work, and no driving anywhere for a few days. Then an ice storm hit, followed by more snow, which meant many downed trees and branches, causing power outages that affected us and over 300,000 other residents for two full days (and longer for some). In the meantime, we took in some friends of friends who were stranded in Seattle for three days trying to get back to Southern California. We love house guests and the boys were thrilled to make friends with Kristen and Karen, a mother/daughter pair from Orange County - great folks.





Anyway, the reason I'm bothering to blog about this is because in the midst of this big storm we still managed to make it across the city to Z's follow up appointment with his pediatric orthopedic doctor. I didn't want to drive that far in the ice and snow, but when I called to reschedule their next available was in May! Considering there was a possibility that Z might need surgery in April I was not about to wait that long, so we borrowed my parents' 4WD SUV and braved the roads. It turned out to be worth the trip because the doc took one good look at Z's foot and pronounced his club foot to be totally corrected! He recommended we continue to use his orthotic brace at night until he turns three, and he wants to see us again in a year, but other than that we are DONE. Praise God!

In other exciting news, last weekend J and I had our first overnight trip away from the boys since Z came home. We went to Vegas for... wait for it... a baptism. Isn't that why everyone goes to Vegas? Our dear friends Mike and Nicole (who live there) asked us to be the godparents for their beautiful baby boy, who happens to share a name with Z. We were honored, and happy to come out for the baptism (OK, and a little fun at the tables too -- we actually won $70!).



This was our first time leaving Z for that long, and he did great. My parents were out of town too, but thankfully Z's preschool teacher is also a close family friend and one of the few people we would completely trust with all 3 of our boys, so she and her husband stayed with the kids and the weekend went well (aside from a few potty accidents... sorry Colleen! You're the best!). We've been back two days and so far I haven't seen any signs that our time away had any negative impact on Z or our attachment process... which means we should do it again soon, right?!

When I think back to where we were about 9 months ago, these two milestones seem utterly unbelievable. At that time Z's foot was in a cast, he hadn't been put to bed or fed by (much less left alone with) anyone but us since coming home, and I could just barely make out a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel. I am so humbled and thankful for all that God has done to bring us from there to here!

cast off

Z finally got his cast off yesterday! After 8 weeks of sponge baths and plastic bag solutions during muddy park and beach outings, he is finally free. We celebrated by introducing him to what will be his second home this summer: the pool!







Z is a water fanatic and loved every second!

I haven't written much about Z's club foot treatment, mostly because it hasn't really been a big deal. But since many people don't really know what club foot is (I didn't either before we got our referral), I'll give a brief explanation of the condition and its treatment. This is based on my observations and experience, not on medical science -- I wouldn't go writing your physiology term paper from it or anything, but hopefully it will be helpful to those who are unfamiliar.

Club foot is a fairly common birth defect that can affect one or both feet. It doesn't run in families and it is more common in developing countries, but does occur in babies born all over the world. The foot is not deformed or missing any critical parts (as I once assumed), but is simply oriented incorrectly due to shortened tendons and ligaments. A club foot typically points inward and downward and has an extremely high arch. If untreated, this condition makes walking very difficult, and basically impossible when it affects both feet.

In most cases (including Z's), club foot is 100% correctable. In fact, there are many professional and Olympic athletes who were born with club foot! The most common treatment method is called the Ponsetti Method, which involves using serial casting to gradually stretch and reposition the foot. For Z, they put a cast on his foot and lower leg, took it off each week to see the progress, then applied a new cast in a slightly adjusted position. It took 8 weeks and 6 casts to stretch his foot to a normal position. Now he will wear an orthotic brace under his shoe for a few more months to keep the foot in place, as well as "Ponsetti Shoes" at night for a year or two. The Ponsetti shoes are shoes that are connected by a metal brace, which keep his feet oriented correctly while he sleeps (think: skinny snowboard that you wear to bed). He may need a small surgery on one of his tendons at some point, but I'm hoping we can avoid that.

Though I'm glad Z is done with casts and I won't miss the drive up to Children's, dealing with this has honestly been easier than I thought it would be. 'Minor correctable special needs' might sound a bit daunting on an adoption form, but in real life (at least for us) I am happy to report that it has been no big deal.

So, you might be wondering how Z is doing with his new orthotic brace and sleeping snowboard... Unnervingly well. The orthotic is really minor and he's totally fine with it, but I was worried about how he'd do with the shoes at night. If at age two N or D had suddenly had to sleep with their feet in weird connected shoes, I can tell you right now they would have freaked out. Not Z. All the way through the doctor visit when we tried them on, as well as in the evening while I did his whole bedtime routine and up until he fell asleep, Z basically ignored the fact that he was strapped into a strange contraption. Didn't so much as touch it or look at it, just completely took it in stride. Which is nice... and tragic. There was a line in the book Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child that absolutely jumped off the page at me, spoken by a 9 year old girl who was adopted at age 3 about her adoption day: "That's when I learned that anything can happen." What does it say about my son's life that he doesn't even seem to care or notice something like this? Weird new things are the status quo for him. Sigh. Of course resilience is a great thing, I just wish he hadn't had to go through so much to get it.


sleeping with his snowboard

in which i cry over spilled medicine

This morning I had a major mama melt-down. It was over the smallest thing (isn't it always?), but my reaction was so dizzyingly disproportionate that I was forced to stop and think about where all the tears and frustration were really coming from.

The trigger event was giving Z one of his two twice-daily meds. One of the meds is easy, one is hard. Giving him the harder one can sometimes require pinning his arms over his head, plugging his nose, squirting the medicine into his mouth and squeezing his lips closed until he swallows. Yes, good times. And this morning I was not quick enough with the lip-squeezing and he managed to spit out a whole dose before I could stop him.

This has happened before and it is really not a big deal. We wipe it up, we give him a break, we try again later. But for whatever reason, today it just broke me down. I hate it -- I hate restraining him and giving him something he doesn't want, which of course is natural and understandable. But the raw power of the emotions I was feeling told me there was more going on. Why did such a small thing make me feel so shattered?

It took me a few minutes, but then the pieces of the puzzle slid into place and I understood. It wasn't about the medicine. It was about adoption and trauma and fear and me and my son. Holding his arms, knowing he doesn't understand, forcing something on him that he doesn't want but unarguably needs... it is all too familiar. Z doesn't understand his adoption and the events that led up to it any more than he understands why he needs to take medicine. He does not think to himself, "Well sure, this is difficult now, but it will be best in the long run." All he knows is that something decidedly unpleasant is happening and I'm the one making it happen. When he spit out that medicine, it uncovered my deepest fear as an adoptive parent: that despite my good intentions and love for him, he will reject me, reject his adoption, spit us out like bad-tasting medicine. And now at least the torrent of tears makes sense.

This fear is real and it is normal, but it is not based on truth. The truth is that, although there may have been and may continue to be parts of Z's adoption that he experiences as traumatic, it is mostly not trauma. Right now it is mostly tickles and warm milk and peek-a-boo. Right now we are seeing signs left and right that he is not rejecting us, but falling in love with us and with his new life. He is soaking up the love and affection and devotion of his mom and dad and brothers like a happy little sponge. Yes, there is trauma and loss, and it is critical to his development that we acknowledge that and help him process it. But ultimately we are not holding down his arms and plugging his nose, and thanks be to God, he is most definitely not spitting us out.

the bright side

before surgery

looking way better just a few hours after surgery


home and happy

We are home! Thank you, thank you, thank you Lord. Ohhhh, it is so good to be back with my husband, my kids, my bed, my fridge, and my TV. (Yeah, priorities.

I am not going to sugar-coat the utter awfulness of the last 5 days. Being in the hospital with your newly-adopted toddler, watching him suffer, holding him down so strangers can poke him with needles, hearing his terrified screams from the post-op recovery room - UGH, it was horrible. If eating and sleeping were challenging for us at home, they were 10x harder in our unfamiliar hospital room with beeping machines and a steady stream of strangers coming in and out at all hours. To top it all off I had some wretched flu/cold bug the whole time, starting with a fever the whole first day and rounding out the weekend with a hefty dose of steroids to get my lungs working again.

BUT.

As awful as it was, there is always something to be thankful for. In the dark moments, God gave me little reminders of all the ways that his goodness and faithfulness and blessings were still with us.

First of all, we were together - me and my son. I may have had to hld him down for needle pokes, but I was holding him down. I grieve over the hard moments of his life that happened before he came to us, and I wish the hard moments were all in the past, but they're not. The difference is that from now on I will always be there. That is a privilege I thank God for.

On top of me being with him, thank God he was with me here! If this had happened in Ethiopia I am not sure what the result would have been, but I can absolutely guarantee that he was far better off here. And thank God it did not happen while we were in Ethiopia with him -- if I was miserable being stuck in a beautiful, clean, American hospital I can't imagine how my wimpy whiny self would have fared at a hospital there!

I never thought I would be thankful for the 9 day hospital stay I experienced with D when he was almost exactly Z's age... but I am! Having been through a very similar experience with D was helpful on a number of levels. First of all, knowing a few tricks to keep a toddler busy but safe in a hospital room was nice. Being familiar with the schedules, routines, and protocols of a hospital was good too, though it didn't keep me from being thoroughly peeved every time a nurse or doctor disturbed Z's hard-won sleep. But the biggest benefit to having gone through this before is that it gave me perspective on Z's behavior. The question every new adoptive parent agonizes over is, "Is this behavior related to adoption, or is this just part of being (age)?" Having gone through a similar experience with a biological child of the same age gave me the opportunity to compare and realize that much of Z's behavior was textbook typical for a hospitalized toddler, adopted or not. Thank God!

I had a realization while talking to one of Z's doctors. She was explaining to me that the infection which led to the abscess was a staph infection. Staph is a very common skin bacteria, and these types of infections can happen to anyone... which means that this whole thing had nothing to do with his recent adoption and could just as easily have happened to N, or D, or me for that matter. Which made me think, thank God it was Z!! I know that sounds terrible, but if it had happened to any of the rest of us then I would have most likely had to spend 5 days away from Z rather than 5 days with him 24-7. We spent way more time interacting one-on-one and playing together in the hospital than we even can at home, because there was literally nothing else to do. I'm hoping all that face time balances out the trauma, at least in terms of bonding.

So there you have it. Sucky? Yes. A total loss? Nothing ever is, thank God.

update

Thanks for your prayers. Here is an update on how things are going...

This morning Z had a CT scan, which revealed an abscess near his lymph node. He went directly from the CT scan into the operating room where the abscess was surgically drained. The improvement in his condition has been significant since then -- his face almost looks normal again! My beautiful boy is back and I am one thankful mama.

Now the plan is to stay in the hospital at least until tomorrow afternoon as he heals from the surgery and gets more IV antibiotics. If he is continuing to do well over the next 24 hours we will be headed home! We'll continue a 2 week course of antibiotics and hopefully that will be the end of it.

The abscess was most likely caused by bacteria getting into his lymph node, which must have already been swollen from fighting a virus. The bacteria caused an infection in his lymph node and surrounding area, which then led to the abcess. I feel like this is the weirdest thing I've ever heard of, but the doctors tell me it is not an unusual occurence in toddlers. They will run tests on the stuff they drained which will tell us whether the bacteria is "typical" (which means he probably got it here) or "strange" (which probably means he brought it from Ethiopia). That will certainly be interesting to find out.

Anyway, we are all doing much better than we have been for the past few days and we very much appreciate your prayers. Hopefully my next post will be written from home!

please pray

Oh man, what a rough few days we have had... On Thursday morning I got Z out of bed and found that the right side of his face was swollen and he was running a fever. We went to the international adoption specialist pediatrician, who sent us over to Children's Hospital, where we have been ever since.

On Thursday afternoon he was admitted to Children's and began receiving IV antibiotics. By Friday the swelling had spread to his neck and up around his eye and only steady doses of T.ylenol and M.otrin would keep his fever at bay. Today not much is different, although thankfully it does not seem to be getting worse.

The doctors do not know what is causing the swelling, and it does not seem to be responding to the antibiotics. They are running a few tests, and plan to do a CT scan in the morning if he doesn't make drastic improvements overnight.

Do I need to tell you how scary and downright awful this has been? Here is a kid who was just on the verge of settling into his new home, beginning to trust the strange pale folks who take care of him, starting to get the hang of his new life, and now he is thrust into this terrifying situation. Oh, my heart is breaking for him.

All I can do is take a deep breath, keep praying, and trust that God will bring us all through this. And when he does, all the glory will be his. This weak servant is resting with all her weight on the only one who saves, who redeems, who sustains and blesses his people as they trust in him. Please pray with us...