Update on EmmaLin

It has been a while since I have posted anything on EmmaLin so here we go.  Since my last post a lot has gone on and it is starting to seem like she has always been with us.  Its only been a couple of months, I know.  She is pretty much warmed up to all of us now, however I still think Lisa is her favorite for the time being.  I am sure Lisa would think it is me sometimes too.  Funny though she still gets a little jealous when Lisa hugs or kisses on the boys.  She will pout till it is her turn, then she is happy again.  She is adjusting very well having only been here a couple of months.  She is going to a preschool at a church right across the street from us.  She loves it.  I think it is mostly because of where she came from and being in a group setting helped her a lot.  She can already count to 10 and is learning other things well.  We are still working on sign language with her.  Basically when we need to tell her something or need a sign for something, we go look it up and all learn it together.  She is very smart but I think is still being held back by her lack of hearing.  We have already made a trip to Shands in Gainesville, FL. to see what our options are.  What we got from that trip is that she is not a candidate for reconstructive surgery to her ears.  There are nerves and components that are in there that are not fully formed or are not in the normal places and if they were to go in there they might damage the hearing more or other facial nerves.  Since she already has a facial paralysis and do not want to damage her hearing nerve any more, we decided not to go that route.  Our next option is a BAHA (bone anchored hearing aid) or something of the like.  What that is is a screw that would be put in her skull and then a removable hearing aid attached to it to vibrate the skull and in turn sending sound to her hearing nerves.  The doctor said something is about to come out very soon that might be an alternative to this device and that we should wait to see what it is.  So for the time being, we are going to see about getting her a headband hearing aid which would hold a hearing aid to the side of her skull.  This can be worn and removed much like the BAHA.  This can be gotten from a doctor here in Tallahassee which is nice.  I think this will help her out tremendously with her learning the English language and just being respond in speech and requests that we make of her.  Our next steps along this line is to see about whether we try and get her some ears.  These can probably be grown by her or we might look into prosthetics.  The thing about the prosthetics is that they can incorporate the BAHA into the prosthetic ears and it would serve two purposes.  This appointment will be in about a week back over at Shands.  That is about it on the Dr's part on her.  One funny thing about her we have witnessed her doing lately is getting up in the middle of the night and roaming the house.  Sometimes we will hear something and go find her in the office chair doing something or we will find her asleep in the chair in the living room.  Not sure yet what is going on there but we have to keep an ear out for noises in the night because it is probably her.  She is a fascinating child and we love her greatly.  Hopefully around Thanksgiving some of you will finally get to meet her for the first time.  That is about all I have for now.  I will try and keep updates on here when we hear more about our DR's visits.

Friends from China

We just had a wonderful visit with two of my coworkers and their daughters.  They brought us gifts for EmmaLin once again.  They are way too generous.  It was very interesting to listen to them talk to her in her native language, much like she was spoken to by her caregivers the short time that we were together.  EmmaLin could understand them and respond a little.  Everything hinges on the fact of whether she can hear you or not.  When spoken loud to, she mostly will respond.  Hopefully the ENT doctors will be able to tell us something this week when we go to meet with them.  Oh how we want her to hear more clearly, but if that is not what is meant for her, we will take a different path.  We have already started signing with her and that helps the barrier in communication for now.  That, she can always hear.  I took some pictures while my coworkers were here and then a video at the end after they had left.  Her in her dress and plastic clop, clop dress shoes.  Oh and don't forget the shopping bag, sister has to sport all of the accessories while out shopping.  Too funny.  Here's the pictures.

Playing with Dolls

Oh how she loves to work on both her dolls hair.  She has such finger dexterity that it amazes us sometimes what her finished product looks like.  Here is a sample.

First Week Back

Hello Friends and Family,
Wow what a first week back.  Travel in China was a good experience but there is nothing like being back in your own home and in your own bed.  Smiles from everyone in our household.  Living out of a suitcase and in different hotels is no way to live.  Now that we are back we can settle into somewhat of a routine, something that she can count on.  She is able to sleep in her own room and in her own bed.  She will seldom cry in the middle of the night.  After a quick visit from mom and a reassuring that everything is ok, she goes back to sleep.  For the most part she sleeps through the night.

For those that were not around to witness our arrival, we were greeted by many friends and family.  It was good to get back to see familiar faces and be able to communicate in our own language.  We were exhausted.  For those of you that have traveled soo far away from your own time zone know how jet lag is.  This is the first time for us to actually have that much of an affect.  It took almost a full week to get back into normal sleeping habits.  When we arrived at our home we showed her the picture in our album and she was happy to see it.  Then it was off to exploring her new home.  When it came to her bedroom I wanted to video it so that all could see her reaction to her new surroundings.  We also had a picture in her album of her room.  She was soo happy to see all that was hers.  She loved it all.  She especially likes princess type stuff.  Frilly dresses and there were some plastic dress up shoes that she loves to wear around the house.  You always know when she is coming because of the shoes clop, clop, clopping on the hardwood floors.  Things are starting to settle now and she is warming up to all of us.  For the longest time it was just Lisa and the three guys had to scramble for some time she would let us have with her.  Now all of us are starting to equal out.  She still loves mom the most and we are happy with that.  I did not realize how hard it was to have to keep up with all of the hair bows, rubber bands and clips just for her hair.  They are everywhere.  Her favorite dolls have their fair share too.  Crazy I tell you, crazy.  If you asked me what kind of girl she is, I would tell you that she is the girliest of girls.  She loves everything frilly.  We love our little princess.

Tomorrow will be our first pediatricians visit.  Hopefully we will get a good start on finding out how we can help her hear better.  This will be crucial as to her being able to pick up English quickly.  We are not rushing things, but the sooner the better.  We are still awaiting a SSN for her to get her on our insurance.  Hopefully this will come soon.  Thank you all for your kind words and comments on the blog and of all of all of the pictures.  We have slowed down on the communication here but I will try to keep it updated because I realize that not everyone on here lives in Tallahassee and can see her progress.  Things are going just as expected. 

We had our first trip out on the water on Saturday and it was good.  She wasn't too sure about being out in it alone but did sit on Baba's belly in the water.  Soon she will be swimming like a fish.  Here are some pictures we took while out.

For those that followed our blog all the way to the end and see how God's hand was at work as we traveled back to the states and Tallahassee you will know we met an amazing family along the way.  She posted in her blog about us today.  You can see it here.

Travel Home

Amazing how the Journey ends.  It all began Thursday night at 5pm Tallahassee time.  That is when we woke up to Travel to the airport to get on our flight from Shanghai to Detroit.  Everything was going as scheduled.  The flight, even though extremely long, went very well.  When we arrived in Detroit at 1pm, they were having quite of a storm.  Little did we know that right after we arrived that no flights were arriving or leaving the airport because of rain and lightning.  Delay after delay was starting to wreak havoc on our flight plans.  After I saw that we were not going to make our connecting flight in Atlanta at 2:40pm  I headed to the counter to see if there was another flight that we could get on.  There just happened to be one more flight that left Atlanta at 8:48pm.  We booked that one as we waited to see when we were going to get to leave.  We boarded the flight at about 6:40pm and the flight did not leave till 7:20pm.  It was going to be close but we thought there was a good chance that we could make it.  Still after getting to Atlanta the getting to the gate seemed to drag on and delay more and more.  We finally got off the plane at about 9:10pm.  Our only hope was that if that flight was delayed that we were supposed to get on.  Once we found the TV’s with the flights on them, ours had already left on time.  There were no more options.  All that Delta could do was to get us a discounted room at a Holiday Inn Express.  That was still going to be $140 for 2 rooms.  We headed out to find a taxi and with talking to the attendant there she said it was about a 30 to 40 minute drive.  We stood there confused as to why they would put us in a hotel that far away from the airport.  I so wanted to rent a car and drive home.  Lisa said none of us are in any shape to be driving with no sleep.  As we tried to find out what to do, a lady that lives in Atlanta steps up seeing how we were so confused on what to do, where are you trying to go?  We told her the name of the hotel and she wondered why they would do that to us as well.  Wanting to help we talk with her for a minute or so and out of no where she says, why don’t you come stay at my house tonight.  She said, I have to take a cab anyway that work is paying for.  Lisa and I were a little taken back by it all and kinda looked at each other like, what should we do.  God had his hands all over our plans.  We still do not know why were not supposed to fly back to Tallahassee last night but it just wasn’t mean to be.  She has a large home and has 10 children of her own.  Two that were hers and the other children were adopted.  She told us how active her church was with adoption. Most of her children are grown now and there were some empty beds.  She was even so kind as to give up her room us and EmmaLin since her husband was out of town.  How gracious can someone be.  As I sit and blog on the bedroom floor of a total strangers house, I realize how wonderful gods plans for us are.  He had it all under control as we ran around trying to make it all work.  We have gotten a few hours sleep but could not sleep very long cause our bodies clock think it is in the middle of the day still.  She will take us back to the airport for a 11:20am flight and we will finally be able to make it home.  Thank you Lord for watching over us.

Last night in Guangzhou

Rain, rain go away. It has been raining for 2 days. It even rained out the dinner river cruise we were supposed to take last night. Today we finally asked if we could swim in the rain just to get out of the room for a while. Cabin fever. I guess it is good that we did not have any plans today because Drew has been in bed all day. He must have gotten what Devin had. It has lasted longer than Devins though. Pray that he will feel better tomorrow. Today at 4pm we finished up all of the paperwork we are to do here. It is all finished. Hallelujah. Now just to get her home. We fly back to Shanghai tomorrow. After a night at the hotel there we start the grueling 15 hour flight back to Detroit. Once we set down on US soil there she will be an official US citizen. Then 2 short flights after that we will be back in Tallahassee. We cannot wait for that moment. Don’t know how much more we will be blogging about the trip. Time and internet access will be against us from now on. Pray for our safe travels back to the US. We will see everyone soon.

Blog from Lisa

Hi everyone. This is Lisa - Chris has handed over the reins to me for today. It’s 11:30 am here and we just got back to the room from our visit to the US Consulate for our Visa appointment and oath-taking ceremony. The process was long but painless. We did our oath as a group of 12 families. They asked the parents to stand and raise our right hands. I looked down at EmmaLin and she had stood up and raised her left hand. She stood there the entire time. It was so sweet and she had no clue what she was doing but we did. I must admit there are tears in my eyes again now as I realize this day has been the culmination of a very long process. The application they had in our packet we had completed several months ago. We are coming into the home stretch and are very excited and exhausted and ready to bring EmmaLin home.

Today is Drew’s birthday. He’s 14. However I keep telling him that since we are 12 hours ahead here and he wasn’t born until 9:30 pm, he won’t be 14 officially until tomorrow morning at 9:30. He’s not buying it so we’re celebrating today. Our third cake should be delivered this afternoon from our friend, Lin’s sister. We had such a nice dinner with them last night and they were SO gracious and generous. We would still have cake when we fly out on Thursday afternoon if we ate it for every meal between now and then. But our kids can’t say their birthdays didn’t end with the traditional sugar-induced coma…for three days straight.

I know Chris has extended our most sincere gratitude to all of you for your support and for your prayers. We feel them every day. I can’t wait to land on US soil, enjoy some good Italian or Mexican food and see all of your faces – not in that order of course. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you all more than I can express.

~Lisa