Heart Surgery Date

Thursday, January 29, 2009. Please mark this on your calendar and pray for our little girl.

The surgeon has decided that it would be best to wait at least 3 months after this surgery before operating on her cleft lip. So, we’ll know about that later, right now the only priority is her heart surgery.

We will be heading down the evening of the 27th, so we can be at Vanderbilt the morning of the 28th for the consultation and her pre-op. We’ve been told that we can expect Audrey to be in the hospital 5-7 days. We’ll have other posts between now and then, but we’ll try and post daily while we’re there, if that is possible.

Thanks for your prayers.

First Steps!

I guess it's time to seriously baby-proof the house. Audrey took her first steps tonight! It won't be long before she's all over the house. We're so glad that we got to share this first with her. Check out the video:


Bonus video - first taste of coke. Not quite the same level of landmark. From the looks of this, she's not going to share her dad's addiction to Coke.

With Thanksgiving in our hearts

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!

His faithful love endures forever.

Psalm 107:1

Audrey's First Thanksgiving

Today was our first Thanksgiving with Audrey, and we enjoyed celebrating the day with my (Julie's) family. We celebrated with Aaron's family this past Sunday. I think it very appropriate that Thanksgiving is the first holiday we are celebrating as a family with Audrey because our hearts are so full of thanks to the Lord for blessing us with her. We waited so long for her and can't imagine a day without her now.

Today I am mindful of the many things I have to be thankful for. I am blessed in more ways than I can even count. I have an amazing husband, 2 awesome kids, wonderful family and friends, and a job working in a ministry I love. I am thankful for freedom, good health, and life's many simple pleasures. Most of all I am thankful for Jesus who died for us and gives us eternal life and a relationship with Him even though we don't deserve it. I praise Him for the work He has done and continues to do in our lives. I am thankful for His body, the church, that I am forever a part of.

I hope your Thanksgiving Day was as Happy as ours!

Cardiologist Visit

The visit went well. The doctor confirmed the diagnosis she received in China back in March that we received with her referral. He was able to give us more detail of her condition. She does have Tetralogy of Fallot and the VSD (hole between the ventricles) is large but he did say the size was not a concern. He said he was able to see how much the ventricle is blocked leading to the valve and said it was “moderate”. This blockage is a thickening of the muscle, not some sort of build-up. So the VSD will need to be repaired as well as this blockage.

This is open-heart surgery. The doctor said she is old enough and strong enough to have the surgery now, and while we don’t need to rush; there is no need to delay either. So, he is going to forward her medical info to a surgical team at Vanderbilt and schedule the surgery for, mostly likely, before Christmas or right after.

Audrey will have her first visit with her Pediatrician on Wednesday. This doctor has also adopted a little girl from China and will be able to advise us as to whether or not Audrey will be adjusted enough to her new home life for the surgery this soon. If she feels that we need to delay the surgery and that it is safe to do so, we’ll then talk to the Pediatric Cardiologist about postponing it a month or so.

Obviously we didn’t get the answer we were really after, but as I said before, God has this all in His hands. Open-heart surgery on a 15-16 month old baby is serious and sounds scary, but we trust God completely. Please continue to pray for her and us.

Please also pray for Alex. He is still recovering from jetlag and is behind on the school work he needed to do to catch up. He was absolutely great in China, but at the end of each day there he was tired and didn’t get to do much of the work assigned while in China.

Well post how the Pediatrician visit goes sometime Wednesday evening.

Please Pray

On March 30th of this year a doctor in China diagnosed Audrey with Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart disease. As far as detailed info from China, we do not have much. We had spoken to a Pediatric Cardiologist here in the states when we first received her referral. The doctor said, based on the info we had been given, he couldn’t tell us much more and we would know the extent of her heart defect when seen by a Pediatric Cardiologist when we get her home.

That is today at 9:30am. I meant to post this yesterday, but didn’t get the opportunity.

We have been told that this is the most common heart defect in children, but it is not minor. The doctor we spoke to here said it could be corrected with one surgery and never have a problem again or she could have multiple surgeries with little to no effect.

Please join us in praying that the doctor today runs the test and says, “We didn’t find any evidence of this condition. Her heart is fine.” This would mean either the doctors in China were incorrect or God intervened. I believe if this happens it will be because God heals her heart. This obviously is our first prayer.

If she does have this condition, please pray that it is as minor as it can be and that all treatment will be successful.

From the time we received her referral, we’ve had no doubts that God has chosen her as our daughter, regardless of any “special need”, and we have had no doubt that God has her heart, her lip and every one her needs in His hands. Please pray that we continue to be this faithful.

I will report back later how the appointment goes and what the test results are. Thank you for your prayers.

Last Day in China

I didn't get to post this yet because we didn't have internet in our room the last day and were busy getting home.

For our last day in China, we started with group pictures in the lobby of the hotel. This is all of the families in our travel group.




After the group photos, we headed to the US Consulate to say swear to the fact that all documents provided and all answers to questions were accurate. It was kind of an odd moment, mostly because I expected something more formal, you know he says a phrase, and we repeat, and continue doing this until we’ve repeated some ”swearing in” type of thing. The director did all the talking and then all of the families (there were lots of them) said, “yes” in unison. This finalized all of the official business in China.

After this we headed back to the hotel to hang out and pack. We went to dinner that night with several families and ate an authentic Chinese restaurant without the help of guides. This was a fun experience. We laughed a lot and we all hope that the waitresses understood that we were laughing at our own inability to communicate and not theirs. They were great, as everyone we encountered was.

I did have to snap a couple of pictures from the menu. My apologies to those with a weak stomach.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel to pack. We finished packing, emailing parents and checking out by about 12:30am and had to be ready to leave by 6:00am. It was a busy, but fun day and tough to say goodbye to our new friends. We miss you all.

Homecoming

Well after nearly missing our first two flights due to long security and a ridiculously short layover in Tokyo, we survived the 22 hours of travel and made it home safely. Thank you to all who have been praying for safe travel.

We arrived in Knoxville and were met by all 4 grandparents and our friend Heidi Hodges and her kids. It was great to see everyone. We spent a little time letting Audrey meet everyone, actually a little too much time. We missed baggage claim and they locked our bags up.

We left the airport and stopped at Crackerbarrel for some much needed American food. We weren’t really that sick of Chinese food, we just missed food from home and couldn’t wait to get some sweet tea.

We then headed home and Audrey got to meet her Great Grandmother, Gaden (Gladys actually, but Alex presented her with this name when he was Audrey’s age), and Audrey’s Great Aunt Randi.

Please come meet Audrey when you can. Just give us a call and make sure we’re here and awake. Our days and nights are still turned around a bit. It is great to be home, and Audrey is still adjusting well. Thank you all for your prayers.

Audrey meets Nu Nu (Aaron's Mother)

Audrey meets Mom Sandy (Julie's Mother)

Audrey meets Papaw (Aaron's Dad)

Papaw & Nunu (Aaron's Mom & Dad)

Mom Sandy & Daddy Jim (Julie's Mom & Dad)

Audrey meets Gaden (Julie's Grandmother)

I like my new bed

Home Sweet Home