One Year Home with Ruth

A year!

So much has changed in this year with Ruth.

Sister can climb this? Me too!

She had a major surgery.



She has gone to the mountains and the ocean.



She has had two different speech therapists.



She has grown (a little bit).

She has been to countless doctor and dentist appointments.



She has gone through one tiny illness.



She has endured a terrible pollen allergy.



She has experienced a Pennsylvania summer, a fall fair season, a long, long winter, and a slow, slow spring.

She LOVES to "read" chapter books like her sisters

Ruthie has changed our lives. Her four older sisters are more compassionate, more empathetic, and more patient than ever.



Because of Ruth, her sisters have first-hand knowledge of the myriad of beautiful ways the Lord provides for His children.



Because of Ruth, I have learned to advocate for a child with special needs.



Because of Ruth, I have become a resource parent for others considering adopting a child with cleft.

Because of Ruth, I have a bit more gray hair.

She is forever stealing my iced coffee.

Because of Ruth, our kids have learned that special needs don't need to be scary.



Because of Ruth, our girls all want to be adoptive Mamas when they grow up.



I think it's safe to say that Ruth is exactly what we didn't know our family was missing.

Bedtime stories with Daddy

We are blessed to have a lot of our family living nearby, so we celebrated on her exact one-year-home date, May 26, with heaps and heaps of Chinese food ordered from our local Peking Chinese take-out in Quarryville. We had some Asian fruits from the new Asian market, and topped it off with red, white and blue décor! Oh, and tattoos. So. Many. Tattoos.












Thank you, God, for this beautiful life.

My five daughters and our honorary son

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward. Psalm 127:3 NASB

Happy One year home!

While it's true that Ruthie is not from my own womb, another woman carried her and it's a privilege to call her mine.  

Considering cleft

As promised, I intend to write several times in November, National Adoption Month, about Ruth’s medical conditions.

Today I am starting with her cleft lip and palate. Ruth was born with a unilateral (meaning one side) right, cleft lip and palate.

Ruthie at 7 months old

 Cleft lip and palate is the most common birth defect, occurring approximately 1 in every 700 live births. If you are on Instagram I encourage you to search the hashtag #1in700 to see many beautiful people from around the world, and read their cleft stories.

Not all clefts are created equally. Clefts can occur as just the lip or just the palate or together. They can vary widely in severity. They can affect the gumline, but do not always. Children can have missing teeth, malformed teeth, and be prone to cavities. Some children have hearing difficulties or multiple ear infections which are frequently solved by putting tubes in their ears. Feeding difficulties are also common. Occasionally clefts occur in conjunction with another birth defect. 

What should you expect when adopting a child with cleft lip and palate? From our personal experience I would first of all say, joy! Second, a strong spirit of determination and will. From a medical standpoint I would prepare for multiple surgeries throughout your child’s life. 

When adopting from China it is very common that your child will have had at least one lip surgery before you bring her home. Depending on the success of the surgery and the severity of the cleft, your child may need revision surgeries as she gets older. Sometimes the nostril collapses after a lip repair so that will again be something addressed by a plastic surgeon. The soft tissue of the palate can generally be repaired with one surgery. If any fistulas develop post-op your child will need to undergo the palate surgery again. If the cleft goes through the gumline, your child will need to have a bone graft. This typically takes place when your child is school aged. Basically you can anticipate at least two surgeries, but very likely it will be more than that, plus orthodontics. 

If your child has cleft palate, you can anticipate years of speech therapy. I met someone recently while at the Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic who was adopted at age 3 from China. She is now a lovely 8th grader and this is the first year she has not needed speech therapy. I joked recently that I will gladly endure 12 years of speech therapy since Ruthie potty trained so quickly and easily.

When I have it typed out like this it seems like a lot, but keep in mind all these things are spaced out over the years of their childhood. It is helpful to have a cleft clinic nearby. After surgery, most children will only need to see the cleft specialist once a year. 

At this point, I would say that Ruthie’s cleft lip and palate are not a big deal. Like many children with medical conditions, she is strong and determined. While she may at some point be self-conscious of her scar, we intend to fill her so full of confidence and self-respect that it is not an issue. 

Close up of Ruth’s scar. 

We love our Ruthie! The next post will share more specifically about Ruth’s cleft.