Cleft - Craniofacial Clinic

I have spent the last few days trying to process the information from Monday's appointment at the Cleft Craniofacial clinic in Pittsburgh. My dad traveled with Ethan and I while my mom stayed home to watch Nyla and Liam. We met many people and they were very professional and kind. First we saw Dr.Jiang, the plastic surgeon. He was excited to hear that Ethan is from his home province in China, Jiangsu. He spoke to Ethan a little in Mandarin. When he looked at Ethan's palate, he discovered how very wide it is and he was not sure if it can be closed with one surgery, it may require 2 stages to close. Dr.Jiang was also surprised to hear that he was on the bottle. Only a few weeks ago his only source of food was the bottle and I found out that he had to be off it completely before surgery. That was a little scary!

The clinical coordinator came in after Dr.Jiang and they debated the 2 surgeries versus other alternatives. They decided to wait 2 months, allow Ethan time to bond and come off the bottle, then reassess to see if the palate has closed a little more on its own. Their goal is to have his palate closed at 18 months, with the first surgery taking place around 15 months. This will allow for his speech & language development around the appropriate time.

Matt was very helpful in giving me tips to feeding Ethan with the Nuby cup instead of the bottle. They were happy with the results of the surgery on his lip that was done in China and they reviewed the paperwork that we had received. They seem very dedicated to helping these kids, I can tell that they get great satisfaction from their work.

The social worker & nurse practitioner then came in. After talking with many people they brought us to the audiology exam area. It was getting late and hard to hold Ethan without his fussing but she did her best to do a hearing test. It looks like he might have fluid behind his ear drums resulting in some reduced hearing in both ears.

We got home from Pittsburgh right around bedtime and instead of warming a bottle, I cut the top of the Nuby cup a little and fed him the warm formula in that. He took it and has since been using only the Nuby cup for his formula. I am happy that we can spend time feeding and bonding the same way we did with the bottle. Ethan is also doing great with foods, eating 3 meals a day of baby food and oatmeal, plus he actually puts the occational Cheerio in his mouth. He started putting some toys in his mouth yesterday as well.

We have another appointment with Dr.Williams today to follow up on lab work that was done last week and to start some immunizations. The staff has been great, helping Ethan with all the appointments, labs, referrals, etc.

I would also like to take a moment to thank everyone for the cards/gifts and well wishes. We are reminded of how lucky we are to have wonderful family and friends. I hoped to have an open house for anyone who wanted to stop by and meet Ethan, but alas that would require some organization. With school, soccer, karate, etc and Ethan's appointments I have not had much time. So anyone who has not already met Ethan and would like to stop by, please feel free any time! I plan on bringing Ethan to the Panda club Chinese classes so our friends can meet him!

Settling In

We have been home for 4 days now and I think we are all finally getting over the jetlag. Ethan continues to wake up during night but usually after 3am. I have been more consistent with feeding him solid foods, some meals he eats great, others he takes only a few bites and he's done. I am hoping we get on a schedule where he is pretty content. His molars are also coming in, so I am not sure if that is affecting him these days. The last few days have been a big transition for him, new home, new bed, new faces, so we are just trying to meet his needs day to day and we're hoping that we are doing the right things. Tonight his sense of humor emerged, he was throwing his head back onto Nyla's lap and making her laugh over and over again. Today, he also followed her (as she led him with a balloon) out of my sight into another room. He has generally only stayed nearby my side for the last 2 weeks. I am happy to see those bonds develop.

On Saturday evening we tried our best to celebrate Nyla's 5th birthday. Liam fell asleep and missed the cake. Ethan was falling asleep drinking his bottle. Nyla was happy regardless, happy birthday!




I will try to continue posting Ethan's progress on this blog over the next several months until his palate surgery is completed. We have our first appointment in Pittsburgh on September 10th. I hope that we will know more after that visit. Until then, we are enjoying this beautiful fall weather, I know I am happy to be in a place with beautiful blue skies!

We're Home!

We are a day later than we thought but getting everyone home safe was worth it! Our flight from Newark to Buffalo was cancelled Thurs night, so we had to wait until morning to come home. We were surprised with a great welcome at the airport, my sister and her family came from Newmarktet ON to greet us. Our friends Kim & Jenn spent the night in Buffalo so that they could take us home on Friday, that was so above and beyond.

The kids did well on the flight home, it was the parents that were pretty frazzled. Getting from one plane to the other in Beijing took over 2 hours. With the new security, they took away our water and searched both our checked and carry on luggage three times during the trip home. It is much more difficult to travel with kids with all this security. Also, Liam at age 6 was good about staying close to us, but occationally Nyla would start to wander and the fact that my kids would blend into a crowd scared me during the entire trip. Overall, despite all my heavy complaints, I am really glad that we brought them, it was good for them to experience everything first hand. Kids are more flexible than adults in many ways. It was more work & stress, so I can understand why many parents don't bring their kids.

Below I will post some pictures of our arrival to Buffalo.






When we arrived home, friends Kirsten, Chris and Jen brought over some lunch, with no food in the fridge it was greatly appreciated.




I tried to keep the kids up but everyone was asleep by 8pm. Ethan woke around midnight and then woke up Liam and Nyla. It is 2am and they are settling back to sleep. I am going there also. We probably will keep Ethan home for a few days to get settled in and feel secure in his surroundings. We have been traveling to different places every few days so I want him to get to know his new home. Feel free to stop by, we may be asleep but hopefully we will get that straightened out in a few days.

US Visa

Update on post below: I mistakenly thought that we were going to the US Consulate at 4pm, but the bus was leaving at 2:45pm. Charlotte called our room looking for us and Patrick had just brought the kids back up from the pool and I was just finishing the post below. We scrambled to get ready and find our passports, we were the last family on the bus and were very embarrassed! Luckily, we got to the US Consulate before 4pm and we were sworn in without incident. Afterwards we went to Lucy's with the other families in our group to celebrate. We leave for home in the morning!




Yesterday, Charlotte our guide took all of our paperwork to the US Consulate and it was all ok. Today we take Ethan to the Consulate to be sworn in at 4pm. He will then be given a US Visa. We leave early tomorrow and have 3 flights until we get home. We should arrive in Buffalo at 10:30pm if all goes well.

Ethan is doing well and we are very thankful that he has been healthy on this trip, it really reduces our stress level. He laughs easily now and LOVES to be held which we do a lot of to make up for lost time. He is still not eating much but will attempt to taste things. I don't know if he just prefers the bottle or if it has anything to do with his cleft palate. But we will keep trying after we get home and haven't been pushing the food much since he drinks the bottles well. Actually he will drink every bottle dry and then always cries that is it all gone, like there should be 16 oz in there instead of only 8.

I took Liam and Nyla to the zoo this morning and will post a few pictures. We hope to see everyone soon and can't wait to get home!

People of China

We had Ethan's physical and passport pictures done yesterday. He is 8.9kg and 72.5cm long. It was not an opportunity to ask medical questions, they are just making sure the kids are healthy before leaving the country.


We have spent a lot of time in the parks around the hotel and find it interesting that young and old exercise on the same equipment. You will have kids playing and a 70 year old man doing chin ups beside them. I saw some 20 something year old guys exercising and smoking at the same time. There are also groups doing tai chi and other activities. In general, parents and kids and elderly are all exercising together in the same area, instead of the adults just watching the kids play (as I was doing). Very interesting.

In China, young people will also often come up to you and ask to practice their English. All of the people in the shops and hotel that we have met have been very friendly and kind to us. Our guides have been wonderful and so helpful. We are so thankful to them for all the work they have done to help us bring Ethan home.

Guangzhou

We are in Guangzhou now, sitting at Starbucks and writing this (free internet). One of the members of our group compared this place to West Palm Beach, tropical and clean. Nanjing is a great city, but when you are walking down the alleyways some of the odors are pretty strong, kids just squat and do their business in the streets, it is a real Chinese city.

Yesterday it took most of the day just to get here and we discovered that Ethan isn't a great traveler. Today he has been pretty happy and he is eating rice cereal for us 2-3 times a day. With the bottles I think he is overall feeling more full and content. We got photos done today for his visa and filled out lots of paperwork. Tomorrow (Monday) he will have his medical exam and Tuesday we have our Consulate paperwork submitted. We also took group pictures which I will post. We were joined here in Guangzhou by 2 other families who also adopted kids with cleft lip/palate from another province.

We're on our way to Guangzhou!

We are leaving today for Guangzhou (used to be Canton) where the US Consulate is located. We will be there for 5 nights. I may not post every day if internet access is expensive and we may not being doing a whole lot during that time. Probably a lot of swimming with the kids and paperwork for the US Visa. We will be staying at the White Swan Hotel.

Yesterday we visited the Natural History Museum in Nanjing. It was interesting for Liam but Nyla complained the entire time until we told her she couldn't swim unless she stopped. I don't have pictures ready to post but I will try to post some from Guangzhou.

Ethan is doing well, although more fussy the last couple of days. He is cutting teeth, possibly hungry and grieving for his nanny. Those are our theories. We are feeding him according to his schedule from the orphanage, exactly what they told us except he will only take a little bit of rice cereal before he clamps his mouth shut. He is a big baby and so I think he needs more solid foods. We are just trying to figure it out day to day. Liam and Nyla are doing well also, getting a little stir crazy stuck in a hotel for so long, doing better than I expected ultimately. We will all be happy to get home. Thanks for following along.