Bringing Home Hope from China

We got the call! There is an opening for Hope to have surgery on Tuesday. Please keep us in your prayers, and we will post as soon as we have any info on Tuesday from her doctor!!!!!

Hip Hip Hoooooooorayyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know lots of you have been wondering how her eye exam at USC went today. Well, we have good news! The doctor is really hopeful that he can do a surgery to restore her eyesight to the point of only needing glasses! After examining her, he told us that he is going to schedule us on a day where he has the entire day to work with Hope. He is going to put her under anesthesia, and then give her a really detailed eye exam. If everything looks the way he thinks it is now, then he will do the surgery. If there are other complications, he will discuss them at that time. He said there is a possibility that he might not be able to do the surgery, but he seemed hopeful during our discussion that it might work out. Please be praying for her. We want a miracle! Whether it be through the hands of the doctor guided by God, or through the miraculous power of God Himself, we want her eyesight to be restored! The appointment will be in about a month…we are still waiting on the receptionist to call us back to schedule. We will keep you updated!

In the meantime, arent these pictures cute?

This little sweetie pie resides at Hope’s orphanage. We had the priveledge of meeting her when we were in China, and fell in love with her. She is 11 years old, and has been blind since birth. She has a sweet, gentle spirit, and loves everyone she meets. If you or anyone you know might be interested in adopting her, please contact us. We would love to answer any questions you might have, and hook you up with the staff at Bethel who can tell you more about her. She is a gem, and really longs for a family of her own.

Things on the homefront have been good. Just plugging along, doing summertime stuff with the kids. We had Hope’s bloodwork done, and the results came back today that she is healthy, and everything looks fine. But we had some interesting news. It turns out that after having her bone age x ray, her real age is somewhere between 3 and 3.5! So she is considerably older than was reported. She was abandoned as an older baby, so the orphanage had to just guess her age and assign her a birthday when she came to the orphanage. So it turns out that her real birthday is somewhere between October 2004 and May 2005. We are thinking of changing her birthdate to make it her adoption date. It would give her a fun birthday of 5-05-05. Easy to remember! We will keep you updated. Next week, we go to the pediatric opthamologist at USC who specializes in her eye condition. Stay tuned….

We have been enjoying the start of summer around here. Last weekend my parents took us to Palm Springs to celebrate Abigail’s birthday. We had an awesome time and Hope really got to bond with Papa and Camper (aka: grandma and grandpa). We had connecting rooms and she spent lots of time going back and forth and playing “uh oh” with grandma. ‘Uh Oh’ is a game that consists of Hope dropping an object, my mom saying “uh oh”, Hope laughing, my mom handing her back the object, and the fun starts all over again!

One thing we discovered is Hope LOVES to swim. She has no fear of the water at all. She sticks her face in and blows bubbles; something the nannies must have taught her at Bethel. She likes to splash, kick, and most of all, loves to be thrown up into the air, and dunked underwater. She comes up out of the water with a huge smile on her face, and a ready giggle. We have been having a blast with her in the pool back home too. She is a definite water girl. I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes a competitive swimmer, or something of the sort. She is strong, and I could just see her being good at it, among other things.

Hope has settled in, and we have watched her go from being really aggressive, and hitting us a lot, to now being a real cuddly little snuggle bug. She seems content to be with us, and she absolutely LOVES her siblings. It’s so sweet to watch them with her too, and I can’t imagine doing all this without having the older two kids around to be so much help. They have been amazing through this whole process, and I have to say that I am so proud of them!  Hannah too, although she is still figuring out what kind of relationship she is going to have with Hope. Hope is definitely not at a stage where she can play with Hannah, although Hannah would love it to be so. And Hannah is not big enough to really hold Hope, so we are trying to find ways for her to bond with Hope. She wants to cuddle with her, or reach out to her, but then ends up squishing her, or making Hope mad… but the neat thing is that Hannah always talks about how she loves her baby sister, so thats good!

Just wanted to post some cute pictures taken of Hope this weekend at the park. She has gained almost 3 pounds since she came home! Here she is:

Today Hope had her first trip to Disneyland! It all happened on a whim. It started out 2 days ago, when I prayed for a good idea … I wanted something fun to do for our oldest daughter Abigail’s birthday. I really wanted it to be special for her. Then, yesterday, we got a call from our friend Jenny. They had some friends in from out of town, who were at Disneyland, and they called Jenny to see if she wanted the second day of their 2 day passes, because they wern’t able to use the second day. Jenny immediately thought of Abigail, and said that she knew of a special little birthday girl who would love to have them. So we ended up going to Disneyland tonight, and the neatest thing of all was that we were able to upgrade the tickets into annual passes for only about $50 more per person!! So we got Disneyland passes for a third of the regular cost. We were amazed! We live pretty close by so we will definitely be spending lots of time there this summer!

I was kind of worried about Hope, wondering if it would be too much for her, with all the sounds, people, etc. Can i just say the girl LOVED it?! She had a blast on the teacups, the carousel, Casey Jr.’s train, Alice in Wonderland, and then the teacups one more time. She loved the spinning part, and all the music going on. She lived it up, and the other kids had a great time too!

I noticed today that her eyes seemed to be better. I don’t know if its my imagination, but I could have sworn there were quite a few times today where her eyes fixed right on me, gazed right into mine, and she smiled and held her gaze. Jonathan noticed it happened to him too today. She has had a large amount of prayers going up for her eyes, so I would not be surprised if they are getting better. Keep it coming Lord! 🙂

Here are some pictures of our fun day. Enjoy!!!!

June 11th – Disneyland

And here is a link to the slideshow.

I thought I would write a little update today of everything that has been going on. Lots of fun stuff!

First of all we had her ophthalmologist appointment and the doctor basically confirmed that her diagnosis from China was accurate. She has been diagnosed with nystagmus, microthalmia (small eyeballs), and possibly a partially detached retina and/or cateracts. The opthamologist couldn’t tell if it is a detached retina or just a cateract behind her eye so he has referred us to a specialist near USC who specializes in everything she has. The good part is that he also speaks Mandarin, so I feel better about that since he will be able to explain to her what he is doing. At this past appointment the doctor didn’t speak Chinese and Hope was terrified because she didn’t know what was going on. We had to lay her down and the doctor put a bunch of eyedrops in to dilate her pupils, then he had to use a metal clamp to keep her eye open while he looked. It was heartbreaking and I could barely stand to watch! She was screaming in terror, and I was supposed to be holding her hands and feet down. At that moment, I just had to take a deep breath, and surrender. It was so hard to watch, but then after the appointment was over, the nurse handed me a note that she had written to me! It was so encouraging because she said that meeting us had really encouraged her in her walk with God, and that she wanted to offer me her friendship. It was a really nice note, and totally encouraged me, especially after such a hard episode!

We have been realizing that Hope’s life is touching people and she doesn’t know it yet, but she is truly making a difference in this world! Some friends we met in China are pastors of a church in South Carolina. We spoke with them on the phone and they said that they talked about Hope in their sermon last week! That was so special to us to think that people in South Carolina are hearing about her and are encouraged by her little life!

We were also contacted by a wonderful woman who has been following our blog. She is an author and is writing an article about Hope in a magazine for the visually impaired. I will post links once it is written.

The other day, I started telling Hope in Chinglish that we know all her friends from Bethel. I started to name them off, and she got a shocked look on her face. It was like she had no idea that we knew about her former life. She got really quiet, and listened to me intently. Then we went to the Bethel website, and listened to the audio files of the children singing together. She had such a huge smile on her face, and she was laughing and clapping to the music. I think it helped her to process everything, hearing familiar voices, and hearing me talk about her life at Bethel. Since then, I have noticed that she is much more surrendered to being here, and her aggression has lessened. She seems much more content. Now, we listen to the music off the website together every day, and she really enjoys it!

We had another neat moment the other day when I took Hope to a Chinese market by our house to get some of the things we miss from China (noodles and toast)-the toast is hard to describe, but you cant find it in any US stores the way it is in China, and Hope loves it. The checker was a nice woman who speaks Mandarin. I asked her to tell Hope in Mandarin, “Your mommy told me to tell you that she loves you very much and will keep you forever, and that she is so happy to be your mommy.” When Hope heard her begin to speak, she stopped, leaned forward, and her eyes started moving back and forth really fast. She got a little smile on her face, and then she said, “Ma!” It was cute. It felt good to communicate to her in a language that she can actually understand. I really want her to know that we are keeping her, and that she doesn’t have to worry about someone suddenly taking her away.

She is also gaining weight, and I am happy to report that she has gained 4 ounces in the past week!

Well, thats it for now! We will write more soon! 🙂

Love,

Kim

Here is a photo album (41 photos) from our family trip to the park yesterday where Hope played in the sand for the first time ever. It was neat because we took her to the beach one time before where she was a little afraid of the sand and wouldn’t touch it, and even when we got to the park yesterday, she still wouldn’t let her feet touch it. But then after a while of our fruitless efforts, Abigail stepped in and after some time playing with her and taking her down the slide, she just plopped Hope down in the sand and then she was good to go, and even got mad after that when we tried to take her out of the sand… Click here to view this photo album as a slideshow instead.

We’ve learned about Hope that she needs two or three tries at things before we all know if she really likes something or not. So far she has been this way with everything new that she’s tried. We are guaranteed she will throw a new food item to the floor at least a couple times before it has a chance to stay in her mouth for a chew… 🙂

Just wanted to give a little update on Hope. We are really enjoying having her here. The kids just love her, and are doing so well helping out with her. They love to dress her, feed her, carry her around. Hannah is so funny, she treats her like she is a little baby saying, “Here you go little sweetie” when she hands her things.

We saw our pediatrician today who said that she has seen Hope come a long way in just a week, since the last time we were there. She actually has gained a pound since we were in China, which we can definitely tell when we hold her! Hope was being so funny today at the doctor’s office. The first time we were there, she was clinging to me and wouldnt face the doctor… today she was trying to make her laugh by doing her little funny noise she makes with her mouth.

She goes through spells of aggression where she will suddenly lash out, but the episodes are getting fewer and farther between. She just learned to point to her nose when we say, “Where’s your nose?” and we realized today that she is understanding more than we realize, and we need to be careful of what we say around her!

She has learned how to say Daddy, Wow, Doggy, Mommy, Gu-Ga (brother in Chinese), Hao (good in Chinese) and she is starting to sing the word “daddy” in all kinds of little tunes she makes up. It’s so cute! She is also REALLY flexible, and can lift her feet all the way over and around her head. We think she could be a great gymnast! She loves to do somersaults, and loves us to flip her into back and front flips. She also loves to stand and balance on our legs. Tonight as she ate dinner she looked up to the ceiling and started smiling really big. Then she started laughing. We enjoyed watching her do this for about 5 minutes and were wondering what she was seeing/thinking about! 😉

Next week is the opthamologist appointment, and we will keep you all updated!

Much Love,

Kim

We were so saddened to hear the news last night, that the youngest daughter of Steven Curtis Chapman has tragically passed away. This family has done so much for the adoption community, and touched our family by enabling us to receive a grant for our adoption. Our hearts ache for their loss, and we know that they need all of our prayers right now. Please pray for them, and you can express your condolences here:

www.stevencurtischapman.com

Here is a last batch of photos from our last day in Guangzhou, China. The photos at the top of the album were taken during our bus ride to and fro the US Embassy in Guangzhou where we finished up the adoption process, and the rest were taken in and around the White Swan hotel.

Photo Album
Slideshow

And a final photo album from our trip from our layover in the beijing airport on May 14th:
Photo Album
Slideshow

And once more, the link to the top level of the photo gallery for our China trip. (3,094 photos!)

We have been so enjoying having Hope as a part of our family. She really is a treasure, and we have really been enjoying our time back in the United States. We still have total jet lag, and the kids have been going to bed at midnight and sleeping until 11am. Todd had his first day back at work today, and he is soo tired! It seems that Hope feels more centered and settled, and she is really starting to bloom. She has been so much more at peace, and the hitting and head butting have almost subsided. Her kisses are now gentle. She loves to be held, and she has learned how to say Daddy, Mommy, God, GuGa(brother in Chinese) and Doggy. Its beautiful to hear this little voice speaking, because up until now in her life, she didnt speak. I think she is feeling safe, and I get the general sense that she feels that she belongs. My heart just wells up with so much joy and pride when I think of this brave girl, who went halfway around the world with a family that doesnt speak her language, to a whole new reality. She truly is a strong soul, and it comes out in the way she explores her world. She is really nimble, and can scout out a new enviroment really quickly. When she falls, she doesnt cry much, she just gets up and tries again.

Today was her first doctor visit. She definately didnt like it, but the BEST part of all was after they injected her for her TB test, she started screaming, and she yelled out, “Mah-MEEEEE!!!” and clutched me so tight. It was a really neat moment for me, because although she would repeat “Mommy” if you tell her to say it, this was the first time, she called out to me using my name. I was so choked up, it was a great moment! The doctor and nurse both said that Hope appears to be 3 years old, not 2 1/2 like her medical reports from China. She was abandoned later in her life, and the orphanage just guessed her age was 8 months at that time, and gave her a birthdate of 10/01/2005. I have always suspected she was older, so it was a good confirmation today for the doctor to say the same thing. She is really tall for her age, but VERY skinny. Only 23 pounds. We will be working to fatten her up by giving her lots of avocado and other high calorie foods.

As far as her vision goes, it seems like she can see a little out of her left eye, but has trouble with the right. Its hard to tell how much vision she has. At times, when the sun is out, she navigates really well around things, and avoids tripping and bumping into things. When the lighting is dim, then she tends to bump into things. She always turns her head to look at lights, and she enjoys waving her fingers in front of her eyes. Because she has nystagmus, her eyes move back and forth, but its not as fast as typical cases of nystagmus. We think she might have a combination of nystagmus and strabismus, but thats just a guess. We will be going to a pediatric opthamologist in 2 weeks, and we are really looking forward to getting more information on what we can do to help her!

It has been really great to be back home, and we appreciate all the love and support you all have given to our family. It has been fun hearing from people we have never met who have somehow found our blog, and we are so thankful for new friendships we have made through this amazing journey.

We will post updates later!

Love,

Kim

Our friend Kimmie asked in the comments of the last post how our flight home went, so I (Todd) thought I’d write a post about it.

After our last buffet breakfast at the White Swan hotel, we left at 10am for an hour drive to the airport in Guangzhou. This was a very special ride for our family, because our guide Helen was able to translate between us and Hope, and so we were able to have some very special dialog with Hope for the first time. It started when we had Helen tell Hope in Chinese that we will be taking her to the doctor to get help for her eyes when we get home, and she asked Hope if that was ok, and then Hope got a big smile on her face and gave a big huge nod of approval! It was special beyond words. It was so exciting for us all to be able to actually communicate to each other using language after spending almost two solid weeks together!

There were a few questions like this before I remembered to turn on the camera, and caught this video of some of the rest of our ‘conversation’ with Hope (the audio is probably going to be hard to hear with the engine/road noise and the degree to which youtube whacks down the quality, but at least you can see her priceless head nods if you can’t hear the talking, and you should unfortunately be able to hear my embarrassing gushes too, lol):

These wonderful transactions with Hope and the fact that she was seeming to be a lot more gentle and comfortable in general with us brought us a lot of initial encouragement. I was now thinking that this was a reflection on how our flights were going to go. I couldn’t have been more wrong! Hope started to get pretty fussy and screamy at the airport and these activities escalated in frequency and intensity on the three hour flight to Beijing. The pictured watermelon lollipop helped us for a while, but we couldn’t teach Hope to lick it. She would only chew and bite on it, which made it not as long lasting a diversion as we desired, though Kim said they did develop a fun game of “ew” with it. (Saying “ew” and then dropping pieces of it to the floor). By the time we got to Beijing, we knew our flight home was going to be tough!

We had a five hour layover in Beijing and almost that entire five hours was full of stress. Hope was often upset and hitting us and herself and screaming. We had all of our stuff with us including luggage because we couldn’t check our luggage in until three hours before the flight. I wanted to charge batteries so the kids would have the laptop on the flight, so we stopped at the Haagen daz store and had some ice cream, hoping to pass a good chunk of time to charge the battery, but Hope couldn’t calm down, so thankfully Kim took her and walked around with her for a while, and endured. We were all completely burned out with all the screaming and all the staring from all the concerned onlookers at that point.

Then we had a very tasty dinner at a Thai restaurant in the airport there. Well at least everyone except Hannah, who had her China food staples, (Burger King) fried chicken nuggets and french fries. 😉 The stress continued to escalate during dinner, as Hope’s outbursts were happening more frequently and with greater intensity. During these outbursts we can usually not find anything to console her and just have to do our best to try and comfort her and wait out the storms.

A cute moment happened while we were getting through the airport security. We were filling out some forms and meanwhile the kids were walking and skipping around the area holding hands and playing, and Hannah was happily singing a song she made up called “We are kids!”. It was so cute! It was also fun at the security point because I was getting noticed for proudly wearing my souvenir Ba Ba (Daddy) shirt, and Kim was making jokes with the checkpoint workers about it.

Once through security we took a twenty minute wrong turn in the terminal and had to then sprint to the gate while trying to keep Hope from jumping out of her stroller, so that even with a five hour layover we managed to almost miss our flight!

From the beginning of the thirteen hour flight home that took off at 9pm, Hope was a complete mess. By this time she would only let Kim hold her, and wouldn’t ever tolerate being in her seat. Kimberly had to go through the whole flight holding Hope and had to deal with many periodic outbursts. The hardest part of these tantrums was the people around us who would look and stare and glare and who we knew were all trying to sleep! Kim had a few times where she needed to take potty breaks, so I would hold Hope and she would get so upset that I just had to lay her on her chair and cover her to try and block as much of the sound as I could with my body! Stressful!

I had much respect for Kim swelling up in me throughout the flight. She handled this most stressful circumstance so well! When the screaming fits would get real bad, she’d take Hope to the back corner of the plane where it would effect the fewest numbers of people. Sometimes she’d have to do this on a moments notice from the napping position… At one point Kim came back to her seat crying and this was actually a seemingly helpful breaking point because Hope settled down for a little while, though she still insisted on being held. We were thinking that maybe she was processing Kim’s emotional response and had some sympathy! I also feel like God used it because it was also her same trip to the back of the plane where I was crying out to God in my spirit with the most intensity. I felt like I was past the limit of would I could take, and really needed some kind of solution, and all I could do was sit there and holler to God about that! Then Kim came back crying and Hope was quiet! She was then quiet long enough for us both to get a little nap in…

It’s all in the past now, and fortunately we don’t expect to have to relive any of that any time soon! When we landed in L.A., Kim told Hope that she was going to meet her Ni Ni (Grandma) and Ye Ye (Grandpa) who were waiting in the airport, and Hope smiled and started holding pieces of her hair up. We realized that she was wanting us to put ribbons in her hair like they did for her at Bethel on Gotcha day! 🙂

From the moment we got off the plane, Hope has seemed to be in a much better place than ever in our short time of relationship. Let me also mention that our other kids did wonderfully on the travel day. They were very compliant and helpful the whole way, and did very little complaining. I was glad for them too because they slept through much of the final flight.

Our friends the Winters picked us up at the airport and they have helped us so much! Among many other things they watched our dog for us for two weeks and hosted us for two nights when we got back. This was very helpful because our house was a mess and we just felt like we needed an easy place to begin recovering from our jet lag. The English speaking company was also very refreshing. And whenever Hope would act up, instead of staring and giving us looks, the Winters were there to lovingly help us calm her down! We can’t thank the Winters enough for all their support and for taking such good care of us when we got home!

Hope really seemed to be enjoying the Winters and their home. We walked to the beach near their home on Thursday to let Hope experience the ocean for the first time. It wasn’t quite the response I had imagined from her at first. I thought she would be fascinated by the sounds and smells but she didn’t really seem to notice it or want to be there, and wouldn’t even let the sand touch her feet! After a while though, the ocean overpowered her and she relaxed and fell asleep in Kim’s arms!

On Thursday evening, our friends the Hursts were able to stop by the Winters house, and some other friends of the Winters also came over, and we all shared a meal and had a nice worship/prayer time. This was a very refreshing time for me personally. It was also neat to see all our kids playing together once again and having fun!

Hope has been adjusting well since we got home and has really been seeming to relax and enjoy herself more, and the frequency and intensity of her outbursts are decreasing every day! God is good! 🙂

We got home Friday morning to our big mess called a home. Our internal clocks are all whacked out and we’re having a hard time taking care of business, but that’s ok! The first two nights at the Winters we were still up all night, and hungry and going out for fast food at 3am! Last night Hope was all wound up ready to party! If you could have been in our house you would have heard sporadic yelps from Kim and I from our bedroom as Hope was playing on our bed bouncing and jumping all over us and having a good ol’ time until some time after 4am! We are still wandering around feeling like we are in the twilight zone! Right now it’s 10:11pm and the kids are playing and Hope is on the floor enjoying a bottle, and Kim is out getting us frozen yogurt, and this all feels like what we would normally be doing in the afternoon, and it doesn’t feel like any of us are going to bed any time soon.. Oh well!

Update: It’s 6am the next morning and I went to bed at 2am and woke up at 5am. I am glad for everyone else in the house including the dog who is still sleeping soundly and I suppose this is good for me because I have to start back at the office tomorrow morning. 😉