In Leg Warmer Heaven!

Look what arrived at our house today!

New legwarmers, YEAH!!!  We use leg warmers pretty much every day for Madi, especially in the summers here.  We've had most of ours since she was a baby, and considering they are all about three years old, it was time for a new stash.  Hers were getting thinner and dingy, but I have to say, they have lasted amazingly well for how long she has used them and how hard she is on them.  She likes to wear them on her arms, we put them on her legs under her HKFOs, and we put them on her so she can crawl around without scraping up her knees.  We also put kneepads under them sometimes.  It's nice because they protect her legs, but at the same time, they are lightweight and don't make her overheat.  They also look cute with dresses, skirts, and shorts. 

Our legwarmers came from babysnazz.com (thank you Sara, we LOVE them!!).  They have an amazing selection, fast shipping, and best of all, the store is owned by the mom of a sweet and adorable little girl with spina bifida, Ruth.  One day I'll have to sit down and post about all of the different brands out there, as well as which ones are our favorites and why, but that's a whole different post :). 

Madi was VERY excited to get new legwarmers, especially when she found out that they were from her buddy Ruth.  She is also excited to get to share them with Ramya.  I asked her if I could take a picture of her with them, and she insisted on picking up and holding every single pair for the picture. 

If you need any legwarmers, babysnazz is having a buy-four-get-one-free promotion.  If you have an older kiddo, they do have some brands that carry bigger kid sizes too! 

Happy Shopping!!

Our Latest Blessing and a Madi Update

We have had some amazing blessings lately that I just had to share.  One of our missional communities at Church has decided to target orphans and widows and do mission work in those areas.  Because our adoption falls in that category, they have come beside us to support us in the last stretch of fundraising efforts.  We have a Peter Piper Pizza fundraiser coming up (more details on that soon!) that they are helping us organize and plan, and of course we also have our big garage sale coming up April 20th and 21st.  Last night their group came to help us organize and sort through some of the goodies we have received.  They were a HUGE help, and it was such a blessing for us!  Additionally, a few people bought some of our sale items, and then gave us generous over-payments to help us along.  Thanks to them, our garage is caught up on (until we get more donations in :)) AND we are $71 closer to reaching our goal.  WOOO HOOO! 

We also got a check in the mail from one of my very best friends and her hubby as a donation for two of our fundraising bracelets.  They were very generous and giving, and their thoughtfulness really touched us!  Thanks to them, we are an additional $50 closer to meeting our fundraising goal.  YEAH!  We are SO close now!!

It is such an amazing blessing to have so many loving, caring, and selfless people in our lives.  God has truly blessed us beyond measure!  When times are hard (like they were with Madi in the hospital this last week), their words of encouragement, prayers, and love keep us going strong!  If you are one of these people in our lives, thank you for walking this journey with us and being such a great support.




In other news, we saw the pediatrician today for a follow-up to our hospital stay and Madi's seizure. The doctor said he's pretty sure the seizure was not from the UTI (the urologist also agrees that it most likey was not from that) since she was not symptomatic for the UTI, etc...  He did feel, though, it could have been from the MMR vaccine or from getting hand-foot-and-mouth disease, and basically said there will be no way for us to know for sure which one caused it.  The MMR is a much harder vaccine on the system because the rubella portion contains a live strain.  Of course, they don't have them separately, so the only option is the combo vaccine or not at all.  We won't give her any more MMR vaccines, for obvious reasons, but I am torn on what to do with the other vaccines she really should get before going to India.  Right now our options are not to take her, to give her the remaining 4 vaccines she needs to be covered to go (1 Hep A, 1 DTAP, and 2 polio (spread out by about 6 months each), or go without being fully protected with the ones that are recommended for India travel.  Her pediatrician feels she would do fine with these vaccines since she's had them before (except polio) and none of them are live.  He also feels that, as long as I bring her seizure medication so I can stop it, it would be safe to take her, even if she does end up needing to go in the hosital there.  I'm not convinced yet, though, on doing any more vaccines, and plan to talk it through with our naturopathic doctor about it on Thursday.  I'd hate to leave her behind, but I'd hate to do anything that could cause her long-term issues as well.  Please pray for us as we make this decision.

Unfortunately, when they did the EEG, they saw that she is predispositioned to seizures.  They think that there is a good possibility this could all happen again.  Hopefully it would be few and far between (or never, which I am praying for!!), and not a regular occurrence (which would require seizure medications and extra care).  Either way, they gave me dissolvable tablets I can put in her cheek if she is seizing again so that I can stop the seizure myself.  Please join us in praying that this was a one-time thing and that it won't keep happening.  I did purchase a video baby monitor to put my mind at rest.  I kept going in the room when she was sleeping and made any noise at all, so being able to see her and know that she is safe will give me a lot of necessary piece of mind. 

That's all the updates for now, hopefully we will know more from India and our adoption paperwork soon!!

Another Piece of the Seizure Puzzle and Some Good News.....

Last Saturday we were exposed to Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease.  It's relatively mild and is similar to chicken pox in that it causes bumps (though only on the hands, feet, and in the mouth) and is something you only get once in your life.  It starts with a fever and then a day or two later, bumps appear on the hands, feet, and mouth.  It occurs mostly in children 10 and under, and mostly in the summer and in the fall.  Symptoms include:

• Fever
• Headache
• Loss of appetite
• Rash with very small blisters on hands, feet, and diaper area; may be tender or painful if pressed
• Sore throat
• Ulcers in the throat (including tonsils), mouth, and tongue

Both of my kids had all of the above symptoms.

When Madi seizured, she hadn't had a fever, however, during and after she had a low-grade fever of 101.  I noticed yesterday, when they were taking out her IVs so we could go home, that she had spots on the bottom of her feet.  Today she also has them in her mouth and in her diaper area.  Conner has spots on his hands, feet, and mouth as well.  It's not something you treat but just let it run it's course. 

Come to find out, the two possible complications are dehydration and febrile seizures (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/hand-foot-mouth-disease/overview.html).  Since Madi was developing a UTI, had just had the MMR vaccine, and was coming down with hand-foot-and-mouth disease, that very well could explain why she had a seizure.  Apparently she is already prone to them, and adding in all of those factors is just kinda like the perfect storm.  Although it stinks, if that is the reason she had the seizure, she most likely will not get them again, or at least not that often (unless we have more perfect storms ;)), which would be really nice.

Please join us in praying that the seizure was caused from all of the above factors and that seizing is now long behind us. 


In good news....

I got about 12 hours of sleep last night!  Ok, ok, that's not really our good news, but it was good news to me.  They aren't too great at letting moms sleep in the hospital, because they feel the need to ask you the same questions over and over and over again, so I was very thankful that I got good sleep last night.  We do have some AMAZING news, though!



 That means we are officially pre-approved in India!!  YEAH!!  I hadn't blogged about this yet, but they had said that the verbage in the homestudy didn't match her paperwork (basically we use different terms for the same form of spina bifida) and they were saying our homestudy needed to be revised.  Our adoption agency e-mailed them, though, saying how it actually did match, and we weren't sure if they would accept the e-mail, or make us revise the paperwork.  Thank God, they accepted it so nothing was delayed!!  Here's the rest of the timeline we are still looking at:

5.  We notify Vathsalya that you received your Article 5 so they can move your dossier through the local authorities to review and send to CARA. At the same time the embassy will forward your Article 5 to CARA. When CARA has both, they will issue your NOC (no objection certificate): takes about one month

 6. The court process can begin; Vathsalya and their lawyers handle it from here. Typically there are three court proceedings which occur over a span of about 3-6 months. At the end you’ll get your guardianship court order.

7. Then the orphanage will obtain a passport application appointment and apply for Ramya’s passport: about a month

8. We wait for the passport: about two months

9. Once the passport is received, you can move forward with travel plans to pick her up!

Back in the Hospital

Well, yesterday sure didn't turn out like I thought it would.  I had put Madi down for a nap and was making some calls.  I turned on the baby monitor and shortly after I heard Madi on it.  I thought she had started waking up so I went in to lay by her and put her back to sleep.  She kept fussing and I noticed she was jerking funny and her eyes were making funny movements.  That's when it clicked that she was having a seizure.  I called 911, who transferred me to a different unit.  They dispatched the paramedics and stayed on the line with me.  I was holding Madi against me in my arms and she just kept seizing, and then she threw up on me.  I had her sideways in my arms, so she didn't choke luckily, but I felt so bad for her.

Apparently the paramedics got lost or something, so it took them 17 minutes to get to us.  Poor Madi was seizing the entire time, and continued to until they gave her a shot that stopped it.  That 20 minutes was probably the longest 20 minutes of my entire life.  I did the only thing I could, I tried to keep myself together, held her and talked to her, and wiped her down with a wet washcloth.  After they got Madi stable, they loaded us in the ambulance and headed for Phoenix Children's Hospital.  She slept most of the way, then woke up a bit confused. 

The first thing they checked was her shunt, since shunt failure can cause seizures.  The cat scan and shunt series all came back normal.  After that they checked her blood and her urine.  Her urine came back that she had a yucky UTI (though she wasn't presenting with a fever or smelly urine, or any indication yet.  We did, though, have a hard time getting her prophylactic antibiotics filled (long story) so she was without antibiotics for a couple days over the weekend).  They were trying to figure out what could have caused the seizure, and such a long one at that, so I let them know Madi had the MMR vaccination on Monday (for India travel).  It was her first MMR shot, so I was worried it may be that.  I was expecting them to say it couldn't be, but so far everyone has agreed that the vaccine could be the cause.  It could also be, though, that a combo of the of the vaccination, the UTI, etc.... could have all worked together to contribute to it.  The admitted us and scheduled an EEG for the morning.  They also started Madi on a stronger antibiotic.  It took a while to get a room and get settled, and of course they bugged us all night, but it was nice to be out of the ER! 

This morning when we got up they took us down for the EEG.  It's now 3:00 and I'm just hearing back on the news from that.  Basically, Madi has some abnormalities in her brain, AKA, some misfirings.  They still really don't know what caused the seizure, but it seems like she does have an underlying tendency towards seizures, so that may have complicated things.  They said she could never have another one again, or she could have one every few years, or it could be something that starts happening often and that we will need to be seen and monitored for.  At this point, no one really knows.  She also developed a fever after the seizure, but didn't have one before, and now it's back up. Her heart rate is still up, though, so they are watching that to see what happens with that. 

Earlier they were saying they were keeping us overnight, but now they are saying that they might be letting us go home.  They are sending us home with something to treat the UTI and also something for me to give her rectally to stop the seizures if she is having them and they are lasting longer than 5 minutes. 

So, that's that.  Not fun, but it's life, and we all made it out safely, thank God.  A big "thank you" to everyone who has been praying for us and letting us know you are here and care.  It means a lot!

To All Our Prayer Warriers...

A very speciall little girl, Adelaide, and her family, Tony, Jill, and Lucy, need your prayers.  Adelaide is four months old and went in yesterday to have some holes in her heart repaired.  Today she is having some difficulty with recovery and has turned blue and stopped breathing a few times, and they aren't sure why.  Please join us in lifting Adelaide up in prayer.  We know God is always listening!

An Amazing Blessing in the Mail Today

A while back I got a message from my friend saying that she and her hubby liked to donate part of their tax returns in more creative ways.  This year they had decided to donate towards our adoption and another family that they are close with that are adopting.  We were SO excited!  They didn't tell us how much to expect, but we were so thankful for their thoughtfulness, generosity, love, and support.  Well, the check came today and...
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(drum roll please)
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... it was for $650!!  Ahhhhhhh!  We couldn't be more taken-back and excited!  We are so very, very thankful!  It feels amazing to be so close to our goal.  What a huge blessing!

Come Rejoice With Us!

First, take a quick look at our adoption meter.  Yes, that's right, we are ALMOST FULLY FUNDED!!  This year we got an amazing tax refund and we were able to put it towards the adoption!  We are so excited!  We have two last big fundraisers coming up, and those should be the last ones we need to do!  Praise God!! 

Our garage sale is April 20th and 21st and we have been blessed with many wonderful donations to sell.  We also have a Peter Piper Pizza fundraising event coming up.  With those two fundraisers, we hope to be completely funded. 

Rejoice with us!