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Post by Jeff Gerke on Mar 6, 2009 8:12:12 GMT -5
Thank you, veritas. No, that's not offensive at all. I appreciate you telling me. And "hope" isn't a wrong word. We do hope her surgeries will go so well that this physical malformation will be a non-factor in her life and personality and how people perceive her.
We know she has many surgeries in her future. Probably 9.
The first one we think they'll do is to repair the cleft lip (and also probably put tubes in her ears to deal with the constant ear infections these kids have).
We also know she'll need bone graft surgery. She has no upper gum line. No place for the teeth to grow in. It's just all missing because it never formed. So they'll have to give her a gum line, either by harvesting bone from her hip or by growing some in a dish from her cells.
Then she'll need one or more surgeries to begin closing/repairing the cleft in her palate. The cleft in the lip is more visible, but the one in her palate is more serious medically, as I understand it. Plus it's harder to repair.
She'll need orthodontia. She made need procedures to widen her jaw. She'll probably need one or more surgeries to correct her nose. Right now, the cleft lip hangs off her nose like a uvula. When they open up that glob of tissue to stretch it across to join the sides of her top lip, it often pulls the nose downward and leaves it looking way flat. So she'll get a nose job (or two!).
We couldn't be even contemplating any of this if it weren't for the Shriners Hospital in Chicago. They're doing all of these procedures for free--and will do whatever she needs until she's 20!
She'll also have trouble forming speech, so she'll need speech therapy. Plus she may have some hearing loss from frequent ear infections, but the tubes should solve that.
God willing, all of this will be fixed and we'll be left with a child who is essentially normal but who has to go have lots of plastic surgery done all the time.
Other people in our group are adopting children with holes in their hearts or spina bifida or club foot or Hepatitis B. So our situation feels pretty minor compared to what it could be.
(The entire 12-couple group we're traveling with consists of people adopting special needs babies. Amazing, huh?)
Jeff
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Post by veritasseeker90 on Mar 6, 2009 21:59:53 GMT -5
Wow....reading that was deja vu for me. I had every single bit of it done(except the ear tubes). And about the same amount of surgeries. My last surgery was....two yars ago? If you ever have any questions or anything, feel free to PM me. I have nothing good to say, but if I can help you guys in any way, let me know. Atleast I can offer an inside view. *slaps self* I don't think I've ever sounded more stupid in my life, but there you go.
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Mar 7, 2009 8:03:08 GMT -5
Thanks, man; we may very well take you up on it.
[And don't slap yourself.]
:-)
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Post by torainfor on Mar 7, 2009 15:51:41 GMT -5
Oh, yeah for Shriners. They do good stuff.
I think I mentioned before, my friend has two albino kids from China. They just had eye surgery to correct lazy eye (very common with albinism, I guess). Welcome to the worlds of foreign adoption and special needs kids. You have plenty of company!
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Mar 10, 2009 7:45:56 GMT -5
God willing, 24 hours from right now we'll be in the air headed toward China.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
Please just pray that everything goes, well, perfectly. [grin] Oh, it doesn't have to all be perfect. But just good enough that we get there safely and without major incident, get our little girl without incident, I'm able to do prodigious amounts of work for Marcher Lord Press, the laptop and Internet work for us flawlessly, Marcher Lord Press projects are able to proceed on schedule, our kids are safe while we're gone, and we all get home safely, on time, and without diseases. Not much to ask, right?
Love you guys.
Jeff
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Post by veritasseeker90 on Mar 10, 2009 12:31:19 GMT -5
Good luck! And safe trips!
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Post by torainfor on Mar 10, 2009 20:17:35 GMT -5
<Wracks brain. Or is it, racks brain?>
- Don't drink the water. Use bottled water to brush your teeth. (We didn't have any problem in Thailand, but my friend who went to China did get very sick.) - UHT milk is the bomb. And it tastes like melted milkshake. - Sleep is overrated. You can sleep later. Just go with it and don't worry about it. All the officials will know you're half-dead. - If she spent most of the time in an orphanage, she'll probably be fine with the crib. If she stayed with a foster family, they may have had a family bed. (Even if the agency gave them a "crib.") It only took Jack nine months to get used to sleeping alone. - From Tom: "God is bigger than anything that happens!" - Eating is overrated. Eat before you get her and bring protein bars. - Do your shopping before you get her. - She may not be used to a stroller. She may prefer to be carried. (And by "prefer" I mean scream her bloody head off.) - She may not be used to a bathtub or a sleek, bright, Western-style bathroom. - She will probably attach to your wife within a couple of days. Don't take it personally if she rejects you for another year.
You're already experienced parents, and she's much younger than Super-Jack, so I bet you'll breeze through this. We'll be praying for you all.
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Mar 10, 2009 20:22:15 GMT -5
Good stuff, torainfor; thank you!
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Post by Divides the Waters on Mar 18, 2009 19:51:36 GMT -5
Jeff,
I read a fascinating report not too long ago that had to do with digestive fluid being found in the ear canals of kids who had chronic ear infections. Turns out that many of these children are having a kind of acid reflux, and it ends up causing the infections. Solve the digestive problems or change the sleeping positions, and the ear infections go away. Obviously it's not always the case, but it's something to look into.
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Post by mom2boys on Mar 21, 2009 10:09:48 GMT -5
I'm so excited for you and your family, Jeff. We adopted one of my brothers from Vietnam in 1973--of course, my parents didn't go there to pick him up because they were evacuating as many kids as possible then. I remember going to the old Stapleton airport and waiting for him to be brought off the plane around midnight (I was six years old but I remember it well). He's been a tremendous blessing in my life--I'm so glad my parents chose to bring him into our family. I'll pray for your son to realize that (I have an 8-year old son, too--it's hard not to be the "baby" anymore.) Beth
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Post by morganlbusse on Mar 24, 2009 12:10:51 GMT -5
Hey, haven't been on in a while, but wanted to check up on little Sophie Hope your trip is safe!
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Post by metalikhan on Apr 1, 2009 1:52:08 GMT -5
Praise God for the victory in bringing Sophie home!
And a hearty welcome to America, Sophie!
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Apr 2, 2009 8:01:20 GMT -5
Thank you, everyone! The trip was brutal, wonderful, exciting, and grueling. An adventure, in other words. Our first day in China we realized we no longer had access to www.BringSophieHome.com. Or the site of the hosting company. Several other adoptive families with us found the same thing regarding their own journals or blogs. One of the parents with us is an I.T. guy. He theorized (and was later proved correct) that our sites were being blocked by China. People at home could see them fine, but people in China were not allowed to see them. So we had to come up with various workarounds. Mine was to put a subpage on WhereTheMapEnds. Here's the new trip journal page: www.wherethemapends.com/adoption/Bring_Sophie_Home_Trip_Journal.htm. Then on around Day 7, new strangeness started happening. I was getting password rejections and notices about not having permission to post files--on my own Web page. And every time I tried posting to that page, the update failed and more of the journal had been "eaten" away at the end. So I had to come up with another workaround page, this time as a subpage of MarcherLordPress.com. I was able to put a link to the 2nd page on the bottom of the 1st. And a link to the first page at the Trip Journal page of BringSophieHome.com. Big pain, but it did end up working fine. Then on the second to last day in China, I could suddenly no longer access YouTube. I'd been posting our adoption videos on YouTube and then linking to them from the journal pages. As I was trying to figure this out, my wife pointed to a line of text scrolling along the bottom of the screen on CNN on TV: "YouTube Blocked in China." Weird, all the censorship. Anyway, the journal worked fine by and large. Much more importantly, we got home with our precious daughter. And you can read all about our trip on the journal. I hope you will. But I'm glad to be home. The launch of Marcher Lord Press's second list of novels has gone well and we're eager to get our daughter in for her first surgeries at Shriners in Chicago. Big stuff! Glad to be back with you guys. Thank you SO MUCH for your prayers and other support. Jeff
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Post by morganlbusse on Apr 2, 2009 12:02:56 GMT -5
Glad you guys made it home safely. Wow, what an adventure! And more to come!
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Post by Christian Soldier on Apr 3, 2009 17:17:35 GMT -5
Welcome home, Jeff and Family! Welcome home
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