Healthy Babies

Our four heart babies are back home. Thank you so much to the doctors and the staff at the Zhejiang Children's hospital! They do an awesome job of taking care of the babies and Dr.Li is still my favorite man in China and becoming more so. I also want to thank all the volunteers who came to bring food, take care of the babies and talk to us.

My very special thanks to Bethany Britton and Jenni Anderson. For two 17 year-olds, you rock. You really did some exceptional volunteering and helped me so much. Living with the babies in the hospital while they are recuperating takes so much and I am so thankful that you so willing gave your time and effort. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Danielle is all pink!!! What a wonderful thing to see. She looks so different from the blue baby that we were used to. I was expecting her to look really frail but she looks so good considering the ordeal that she has gone through. Rachel also came back last week Monday. They are both doing well but are both really high maintenance at the moment. That is totally understandable since they recently has massive heart surgery. Like I said before, Rebecca just bounced right back and you cannot tell that she has had surgery. Olivia on the other hand has been a drama queen and has made up for Rebecca. I found that it takes them a while to get over surgery as I learned with Susan, Jade and Benjamin. So we are spending a lot of time holding Rachel, Olivia and Danielle, who is also cutting five teeth at the same time. However, Olivia takes the cake, she is cutting eight right now. All four her incisors and then the next four molars. There are these great big bumps all over her gums. She is also going to have a mega watt smile. I think of Julia Roberts when I say that. Olivia by the way is taking more and more steps on her own and she is going to be walking soon.

Last night I saw Jasmine to a sit up!!! That girl has the body of an Olympic gymnast. I am going to have to film it so I can let you see. She wants to stand up all the time and when she is sitting she does the splits and pulls her legs around her so she basically does a circle. She was also crawling some this morning. Jeannie is also wanting to pull herself up and Sean is pushing himself over for a few days but he sort of gets stuck with his leg under him so he cannot get onto his belly. I think the leg might be too fat. What a wonderful thing to be able to say!

Ever since Jonas/James left I have had a tail. I cannot move without falling over Antoinette who follows me from room to room. She has just needs some extra love and attention. She is beginning to talk and is amazing for me to see that she is doing it in the same way that Nina/Flower did it. She is speaking a mixture of Chinese and English and it is too cute to hear. Nina loved Olivia and when she said her name it was so great to watch, well Antoinette loves Rachel and her mouth is so darling with her lips sticks out. All the time the we have spent together and everything she learned from us is now coming out. She is growing taller and thinner all the time and there are so many people who come to see if the can adopt her.

Life has been somewhat stressful and it has not helped that we have had a diarrhea bug going around. There has been a lot of crying and when you talk about Gabriel and Angel crying at the same time, you need ear plugs. They are so loud and not only that, but they seem to have so much endurance, marathon criers. They can keep up the noise for long periods of time and when that is at 3:30am and all the other babies are sleeping it can be a tough thing to handle. It took Gabriel two hours to go back to sleep, screaming at the top of his lungs the whole time. It is so hard to find something to comfort him. Add the heart babies and the teething that is going on and you can imagine what is happening in my house. I guess this is all part and parcel of what it means to have a foster home.

This week we also remembered Jonas/James and Laura Joan's second birthdays. I cannot believe how time has flown!!! Last year this time, they had just had the CLAP surgeries and here we are and look what has happened to them. They have families and siblings and the are living in the US. What a joy to know that this goal was realised this past year. Having had four adoptions is a great accomplishment for all of us who are associated in which ever way with the foster home.

I am so grateful for all your love and support. These last two months we have seen ten children have surgery and we have had one adoption. That means that there is no-one in the foster home that needs anything major. Gabriel and Michael still need cleft palette surgery and Benjamin will need another heart surgery when he is older. My next step is to get as many adoption dossiers ready as is possible with Laura's help. Most of the paperwork is done as you will remember we doing the blue feet but now I have to correlate all the medical information and take pictures of the scars and send it off to the Big O.

I do have some more news: Benjamin's dossier is at an adoption agency and there is a waiting list for him from what I understand. He could already be matched!!! What wonderful news this was for us.

Love and laughter,
Amanda
with all my baby chicks safely under my wings
chinese.starfishthrower@gmail.com