A little about Sister Six!

I know so many of you are eager to hear all about sister six!

As much as I would love to share every detail we know about her, I also want to be careful that I do not overshare some intimate details of her life in this public way. We also have chosen not to share her photograph publicly until the adoption is final in China. (We did the same for Ruthie). 

Super excited big sisters!

I will post a full blog about her name and what it means to us and for her at a later date. But it would be hard to write a whole post about her without sharing her name. She will be:

Heidi Grace Hess

So here are some little facts about our sweet Heidi. She is about a year and half. When you look at her picture you think she is much younger. She looks to be around just six or seven months old. She has the most darling giggle and a terrible hair cut. She has a pert little nose and a sweet grin. Heidi seems to love when her caretaker plays with her. (Won't she be in for a treat with five big sisters to dote on her?) 

Heidi has significant developmental delays in all areas. So while she is truly a year and half she is very much on the level of a six to eight month old baby. She learned how to sit up at 15 months old. She can now stand holding on to a rail. The file we were given of her information also showed that she had an abnormal CT scan when she was eight months old. 

Initially we had very little information about her needs. In fact, much of what we did have was very confusing. We knew she had a long hospital stay after coming into care (about 5 months) but the only explanation was "feeding difficulty". 

The international adoption hospital we were working with gave us a long list of possible diagnoses that were causing her significant delays. I won't share them all here, but suffice to say, they sounded scary and not at all what we anticipated for sister six. 

We struggled to know what decision we should make. Most challenging for us to wrap our minds around was the possibility that she may not ever reach "full potential" and would be dependent on us forever. In fact, that was one of the main things we felt that we could not take on. We asked lots of questions of the orphanage and practically begged for medical records from her hospital stays. 

We were able to get some information before we needed to make a decision, but not a whole lot. I prayed like crazy and am so grateful to have had an amazing group of women at my Bible Study praying for me every week in addition to my mom and mother-in-law and sisters and niece.

For two weeks I felt like God was silent. I was begging for Him to reveal what decision we should make.

On Good Friday the girls and I were talking about what happened on that day over 2,000 years ago. As we talked the girls couldn't understand why we call it "good". It was horrible what happened to Jesus! I explained that we call it "good" because we know how the story ends! 

In that moment it was like a lightning bolt struck! I felt God pressing upon my heart that while all I can see is the hard and scary possibilities for this little girl's future, that HE knows how her story will end. And in that moment I was ready to move forward to bring home this little girl.

I want to be clear that Heidi still may have a genetic syndrome, she may have learning disabilities, she may have a neurological disorder, she may have any number of challenges. However, I believe that God would have us to be her family to provide her with five big sisters to cheer her on to greatness, whatever level that may be.

We did just learn (Friday) that she was born premature, though we don't know at what week gestation. Based on her birth weight of two pounds, it is likely she was born at about 27 weeks. As many of you know, babies born this early may have any number of challenges in their future. We have great hope for Heidi and are eager to bring her home and watch her thrive in the love of a family.

Now we're back into the paperwork of immigration and travel. We're hoping to go to China in August to bring home our little Heidi Grace!