In Two Weeks

(Edit on 9-4-13 at 12:03am:  Thank you to those sharing our need to get this adoption funded before her surgery.  We still need $3,742 at this moment to be fully funded.  I know God is bigger than that amount!  These kids were His before He ever set me on the path to go get them and He knew that this surgery was going to fall at this moment too!  Keep sharing, praying, and donating because every dollar adds up!  THANK YOU!)

Two Weeks from this  moment I will be sitting in a CICU (Cardiac Intensive Care Unit) with Aleshia. . . The thought of that makes me SICK.  I can't imagine seeing her hooked up to all those machines to keep her alive and with all those tubes draining fluids from her. 

Having an extra month because of the surgery being cancelled last time has only made me more scared and sick.  This time I know how she reacted last time.  I know how scared she is of the hospital and the scrubs.  I know how hard it is going to be to make this work.  I AM TERRIFIED FOR HER!  I HATE SEEING HER LIKE SHE WAS! 

We didn't even make it to the surgery and it was horrific!

I can't imagine how we are going to do this. . . how SHE is going to do this.

Her heart requires it, but her mind is terrified of that place.  It reminds her of the places she came from. . . OH HOW I WISH I COULD TAKE THIS FROM HER!

Please pray for her and for us!

One thing that would take some of the worry off of our family right now is to just have this adoption funded.  I would be so relieved to go into this heart surgery not having to worry about the last bit of adoption expenses.  We really just need the last bit of travel expenses.  We are needing to raise the last $3,761 of the money that will be required to purchase the plane tickets to get Matthew, Johnathan, and Charity home.  We have a HAVE A HEART GIVEAWAY GOING ON RIGHT HERE with 21 Thank You Gifts to thank everyone for helping us.  There are entries just for sharing too!  Could you help us with this last little bit!?! 

We can't stop worrying about Aleshia's surgery.  We can't stop worrying about Matthew, Johnathan, and Charity while they wait.  We can't stop the worry our kids here will have while they worry about Aleshia or while some of them don't understand why Aleshia is away from them. 

We would love to just not have to worry about that last bit of funding to get our kids home, to just KNOW that the ransom is complete and whenever we can pick them up the money is there for the tickets.  Can you help us?

You can donate at THIS LINK and really EVERY DOLLAR helps!  If everyone chips in to be the hands and feet of God then this mountain of worry will be moved!

Aleshia Heart Surgery Update

Well Aleshia's open heart surgery did not go as planned. . . .

The day started out early and calm.  We left the house with her still sleepy, in her pajamas, and doing well.  We had to be there the day before the surgery to be admitted.  The trip to the hospital was great.  She was happy and pleasant.  I can't say that things stayed that way though. . .

 I can't type it all again, because I am SO drained.  I'm adapting a post from her heart page as far as the explanation, but then adding some more details of other things too.  

 

 Our time in the hospital was SO HARD. Aleshia was all the way to the holding area for surgery before it was cancelled. The hospital itself was VERY traumatic for her. She threw up at shift changes, had to have knots in the sleeves of her pajamas, and was sticking her fingers waaaaayy back in her eye sockets. SO HARD TO SEE HER THAT WAY!!! (We requested meds, but ...were told not until later, but they have been informed that this will NOT be the case next time and a plan WILL be in place.) Four adults were required to get labs. After she kept making herself sicker they finally ran other labs bc she began to run a fever. We made it all the way to the holding are for the surgery before they got the results of an elevated white count. That ended the surgery! They started to talk about checking for lung infections, but I insisted on a strep test since we had a child with a positive test that they knew about the week prior. Our primary care had wanted to treat Aleshia then, but the first person I had to talk to at Cardiology had said "no" and not relayed the information fully and told me he worked for a different hospital. The second person said it would be up to the primary care, but it was too late at that point since our primary office is small and was closed. The rest of our day didn't go any better as the nurse didn't do the strep test right the first time and then still the 2nd time didn't use a tongue depressor and wasn't going to swab the tonsils. . . I insisted and Aleshia did test positive for Strep. She is rescheduled for September 16th for her open heart surgery. This is pushing WAY TOO CLOSE to adoption pickup time for our newest three kids. We really do need prayer for that.

 Aleshia needs lots of prayers!!!  The whole things was very traumatizing. It reminded her very much of her time in the orphanage and institution. IT IS SAD THAT THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY HAS SO LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF CHILDREN FROM TRAUMA BACKGROUNDS!!!  We are seeing regression and she doesn't want to get in the van. We had to go to our primary care provider today and she was terrified to get in the van and SO upset. Please please pray for her to be ok soon. Please pray that we can work with the people there to come up with a plan for her care for the next surgery that will reduce anxiety levels for her. Healing will be very hard if she is that upset. She cannot be so upset she is puking after open heart surgery. There is a special team there specifically for kids that have had previous issues in the hospital that I will be working with and I will be making SURE that we come up with a plan that seems to meet her needs in the best possible way.  We now know what her reaction is and we have to make sure we do everything we can to make sure we are doing everything possible to keep her calm.  I'll be calling them to start the planning next week.  Please pray for all of us as we try to come up with solutions!

 

Please also pray for our adoption of the three children we are in process for right now.  All three need to come home soon, but Matthew is in very severe condition and needs to come home extremely badly.  He has a medical expedite that says if we don't get there quickly then he may not make it home at all.  We did get good news today stating that our Article 5 interview is going to be Wednesday.  Unfortunately many people are on vacation there right now, so the signature we need for the next step could be much delayed. . . .

 

Please consider helping get them home and us get funded for their adoption by sharing or donating.  We have great gifts to offer in our GIVEAWAY SO CLICK HERE!    Our trip for them won't be that long after her surgery now with this delay, so I need to find some way to get funded and I'm trusting God to help us do that.