Our Newest Little One

It has been a few weeks since we said "yes" to our next little one and truly we could not be more thrilled!  I wish I could show you a picture of her...we must wait until we receive our LOA, which I believe is when China officially considers us matched with our daughter.  It is so fun that the boys understand now what it means that we will adopt her and that they really grasp the idea that we will be her family forever.  Starting this journey again has opened up lots of conversations about adoption and our family and it has been so good for the boys, especially Nathan.  He remembers Hannah coming home and this time it was just so obvious that he gets it.

A few days after we looked at our little girl's file and medical information we were still struggling to find a doctor to review her CT scans.  Our little peanut, who we are naming Olivia, had brain surgery at 6 months old and at that time had CT scans and an MRI done.  This was the basis for her "brain tumor" diagnosis.  We obviously wanted more information and needed to know more to make a good, informed decision for her and for our family.  The crazy part - we were both ready to say yes anyway.

We tried to contact a neurosurgeon that Nathan recently saw at the nearby Children's hospital, but I could not get past the nurse to ask him :)  And she said he "might look at it or he might not, but we were welcome to send the scans".  We did not want to take scans somewhere not knowing if they would be looked at or if we could get them back.  Our agency was amazing and managed to get pictures of the scans and email them to us.  We thought and thought about what we could do, wondering if our pediatrician would help, wondering who else we knew with connections, when all of a sudden it occurred to me that we know a radiologist!  We are still in touch with a dear couple who traveled to China to meet their daughter at the same time we were meeting Hannah, and the husband is a radiologist!  I quickly emailed my friend and asked if she thought her husband would look at them for us.  She said YES! She told me to email him because he was at a conference.  I sent off an email and wondered what we would learn about our little girl.

I heard back from him very soon and he said he would be happy to look at the scans, and that he was in fact staying at the conference with a neuroradiologist (who specializes in reading brain scans!).  Amazing and such a gift from God.  They looked at the scans for us and shared that they did not believe it was a brain mass but rather fluid, and that she has a repaired meningocele.  We are just beginning to learn more about this but from what we have read it seems that this is a type of Spina Bifida.  Meningocele is a protrusion of the membranes that cover the spine and part of the spinal cord through a bone defect in the vertebral column.  Olivia had surgery to repair this and seems to be doing well.

We were also blessed to be directed by another adopting couple to the information for contacting the head of neurosurgery at the Children's Hospital!  I was so thrilled to be able to email her directly and was shocked when she responded within a couple of hours.  She looked over the scans and agreed with the previous information given to us.  She also added that she would guess we are looking at normal intelligence with Olivia.  We were thankful to have three people who all agreed on the diagnosis from the scans.

Here is the truth: we do not know much more about the medical condition of our precious little girl, and there are many unknowns ahead.  We are okay with that.  She may have delays, need therapy, face challenges we don't know about yet.  We are okay with that.  We love her, we want her, and we want to face any challenges she may face with her and help her as much as we possibly can, just as we do with all our kids.  We have seen a video of our little sweetie and she is able to stand, sit, reach for toys, and interact with people.  She is just so darling!  I wish she could come home tomorrow!

It amazes me that we get to bring home another treasure.  The three we have now are the absolute joy of my life and I think we are so blessed to be able to grow our family again.  God has truly blessed up beyond our wildest dreams!