the morning started off just great. we got up around 7:30 and gave echo her bottle. she hammered it. then we made a surprise phone call to my parents who are keeping the kids this weekend. we were able to talk to all three briefly. just to hear their voices made my heart feel much better. sometimes the pain of missing them gets to the point that it is literally painful in my heart. seriously, like my heart aches. so to hear each of their little voices and know that they are having a great time makes me feel so much better. i can't wait to see them again and smooch on their faces!
today we went to the island. what island? i'm not sure. it's not far from here and it is where the adoptive families use to stay, the white swan hotel is located on this island. anyway, we had our doctor's visit there on the island. i've been praying for no "surprises" from echo, even though I know that there may be more things involved than just her hemangioma. so we went in and had her checked, the nurse said she was strong and my first thought was, 'no joke, sister, you should try to carry this one around while she is turning in 5 million directions to take in all the scenery'! echo really is strong. if i'd known her brute strength earlier, i might not have worried about her well-being so much there in the orphanage. let me tell you, this girl can hold her own. i love it. so after the nurse checked her ears, throat and maybe her eyes...i don't know, it was a really quick check....the dr. came in to check her. he measured the place on her arm and pressed around on it. he spoke very lovingly to her. i was really pleased with this dr. he was super sweet and really seemed to care. he was very good to her. then he asked for us to take off her shoes (her NEW chinese squeeky shoes! they are so so cute!) and her diaper. she layed pretty still while he poked around on her belly and then i heard him make a 'hmmm' sound....uh, what was that? was that a hmmm sound that i heard from your throat? do you know that i'm here!? do you know that i don't want any surprises? do you know that i'm her mother? please don't 'hmmmm' in front of me unless you are ready to spill it mister! so then he wrote something down. don't you hate it when doctors do that, they make a noise and then they write something down......so, anyway, he told us that she seems to have an enlarged spleen. what that is or what that means, he did not explain or go into detail. all i could think was, oh no, this is a surprise!!!!! no surprises, no surprises, no surprises! the doctor said that we could have it checked out more once we got to the states. really....thanks. i will say, that he was a really nice doctor and i think if there had been any concern, he would have said so. i'm not trying to make it sound like he didn't do a good job, because he did. he really did. i just wanted more. or less. i wanted less of the surprise. make sense?
he then weighed and measured her. 25.4 lbs and i forget how long he said she was. i was so busy thinking about "enlarged spleens" that I couldn't quite focus. i whispered to heath afterwards that we'd have to google it when we got back to the hotel. his quick response was, no we don't. let's just wait, she's fine. you know, it's the moments when i'm about to blow up that heath just has a way of calming me. just putting all back in place. the whole world could be in complete chaos, and i wouldn't know it because he keeps me centered. God certainly knew what He was doing when he created that man. He made him just for me. i have no doubt.
enough of the mush. so then we went back to the hotel. heath took echo back to our room to nap, she'd fallen asleep in our "hog tying" devise, aka the baby carrier. when ever she needs to nap and we are out and about, i strap her in, she fights it until she can fight no more and then she falls asleep. it's awesome. i then went to a room with rebecca and another adoptive mom to do some paperwork. i came back about an hour later and echo was still passed out asleep on heath. love it.
we had a late lunch at subway, yes, we were not quite so adventurous with food this afternoon. sometimes you just have to go with what you know. we tried a second nap for echo but she was not having it. she was actually pretty tough today for a few hours. her favorite thing to do right now is practice her walking so we did a lot of that today to keep happy and keep her busy. she loves going back and forth from the two of us. she laughs so hard. it's intoxicating. her laugh. her smile.
tonight we met up with some new friends who we met from knoxville. small world, right?! once we were seated, we saw the other couple that we'd mentioned before, the little people couple and their new daughter. we asked them to sit with us and we all just had a great dinner of stories and fun. it was so great to enjoy some time togeher and the kids seemed to enjoy it also.
so here we are winding down after another day in china. as much as i don't want to think about what the doctor said, it still creeps back into my thoughts. sneaks in when i least expect it. my heart starts to beat a little quicker and my breath gets a little short. enlarged spleen. it sounds so ugly. spleen. what a gross word, even a healthy spleen still sounds gross. this is something in her body that i can't see. it's something that i don't understand. i keep thinking the worst, spleens can rupture, right?! and then i just talk myself down. whisper up a little prayer and wait to feel the peace. i'll wait to feel the peace. it's there, i just have to reach out and take it for my own.
okay, there is a little girl over here who wants to practice her walking skills. i'm going to go be her mommy.
No comments:
Post a Comment