Five Months Home with Heidi

Another month home, and a mostly positive month it has been. 

When I got home from having Ruth in the hospital it was on top of my only weekend a year that I go away. I had only seen the other kids for about 4 hours for the previous five days. Heidi melted my heart by coming to me to snuggle and saying, “mom-mom”. 

 My sweet, snuggly girl! 

She now is climbing up the stairs as soon as I turn my back. We have to put the baby gate up or she will be halfway up before you realize it. She’s not only quick but very quiet. 

Heidi had her bangs trimmed for the first time! She had her hair shaved regularly when she lived in the orphanage so we love seeing her hair grow!

She is continuing to do better each day with her mealtimes. She is also finally getting the hang of gripping onto things with her hands. Carrie was very excited when she started to hold onto her hand to walk  to another room. 

She loves all her sisters in turn. She goes through swings of liking one sister more than another and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for it. this is currently one of the biggest issues we have in our home: fighting over who gets to hold Heidi and crying when Heidi doesn’t want whoever is holding her. 

But when she DOES want you, it feels so so good. 

We went to the library for the first time since she came home in September. All the girls were happy about this. I was delighted to take her to an unfamiliar place to see her reaction. She walked towards the play area but looked back at me for reassurance before walking in. There were a fair amount of kids in there and she came quickly back out and reached her arms up to me to pick her up. 

These small things are great gains in our communication efforts. She had speech therapy every-other week now and we are being reminded that before she even uses sign language or speaks that she will learn to gesture. Attempting communication with a 2-year-old is difficult in the best circumstances but even more so with a developmentally delayed, English as a second language child. When I remind myself of those things I am comforted by the great strides we have made. While I would love to hear her repeating words or signing her needs and desires we just aren’t there yet. 

Perhaps the greatest strides we made this month are with food. She started chewing on Tuesday, February 21. She chewed bites of strawberry first. Then bites of chicken salad. Then for dinner that night she ate rice and poppyseed chicken. We were completely amazed. Not everyday is good and we still have to work on getting her to feed herself and eat crunchy things, we are amazed at what she CAN do. 

We celebrated my 35th birthday and I was happy that she DID crunch some Cheerios mixed with infant cereal. What a gift these girls are to me. 

We celebrated Chinese New Year with friends who also have four biological children and two girls adopted from China. It was so good to connect with them and be able to relate in unique ways. Heidi even ate some pork fried rice. 

(Aren’t they sweet in their Chinese dresses?) 

Here she is with another huge miracle. Holding a toy with both hands. She carried that giraffe around, switched it from hand-to-hand, dropped it, picked it back up, and even grabbed it tight to pull it out of Ruth’s mouth. Heidi’s miracles are small but amazing to us. We are so grateful for these glimpses of hope for her future. 

She picked up a cheerio and put it in her mouth. Granted, she spit the cheerio out but still, progress! 

She got very interested in bubbles this month. One day she ate spaghetti and bites of meatballs. In fact, she has started eating so regularly just about everything that we eat that I stopped writing it down. 

She has been holding Trents fingers really tight. Guys, I know that this is something newborn babies do as a reflex but it is all so new for her. We are celebrating her victories. 

The sweetest daddy and daughter 🥰

There are a bunch of things I don’t have photos of so you’ll have to bear with me as I explain. 

Heidi grabbed her bear cup by the straw, put it in her mouth and drank! While looking at a book with Anne she saw a monkey and said, “Ahh-Ahh!”. She said “na-na” which didn’t mean anything but that was a sound we have never heard her make. She washed her own belly with a washcloth. She signed “all done” after me after lunch one day. Most of these things she has done only once or twice so unfortunately they aren’t consistent behaviors just yet. 

But this. This she did a few times so I was able to get photos. 

Holding the spoon!!!!

Getting yogurt onto the spoon!! (I did have to tilt the bowl to help her get it on the spoon). 

Feeding herself!!!! I was so overly enthusiastic about this. You have no idea how loud it was in our home that day at lunch. I’ve said from before we brought Heidi home that she’s got the best five big sisters to cheer her on to greatness, and cheer we did this day. Oh, the joy. 

Unfortunately we feel like we’ve lost progress this past week as sickness has swept through our home. Heidi ended up having an ear infection and nearly had pneumonia. We got her started on some antibiotics but when she isn’t feeling well she pretty much refuses to eat anything but purées. 

Ruth has the great idea of putting these suspenders on Heidi one day. 

It was one of the cutest things ever. 

We’re learning more about Heidi’s personality each day. She prefers to wake slowly from her nap. Typically she naps from 2-5 pm but recently she has started playing (!!) in her crib so she isn’t falling asleep until later. Then it might be 5:30 or almost 6 and we’re waking her and instantly trying to give her dinner. That goes poorly. So we’ve started trying to go into her room around 5:20 and one of the older girls or I (unless I’m making dinner) will sit in there with her until she’s ready to get out of bed. Usually this takes 20 minutes. 

Abbey did a great job calming Heidi down early one morning when I couldn’t get her to stop crying. 

In truth, sometimes I feel a little discouraged that she isn’t doing more or learning things more quickly. But then I remember how the fact that she is even alive is a miracle. I’m strengthened to keep working hard with her and fighting for her because her life is valuable. She is a gift from God and her life matters. 

She also had her eye exam follow up this month. Her prescription is -1.5. The doctor felt this was not so bad (since she can see clearly a common distance in which people stand to talk and she isn’t yet reading a chalk board) to warrant the stress that keeping glasses on her will cause our family. Since Heidi has sensory challenges I really appreciated his care in this matter. We will follow up in 6 months and depending on her prescription and how improved her sensory disorder is, she will likely be getting glasses. If not then, definitely sometime in the future. 

Heidi wasn’t feel well when we took photos this month so they aren’t her best. 

Happy five months home, beautiful brave Heidi with the sweetest kissy lips. 

Your life matters, my dearling. Don’t ever let anyone try to tell you otherwise with their fancy talking points. 

We love you, Heidi and can’t wait to see what you learn next month! 

Beautifully Broken

All adoption starts from a place of trauma. A place of loss. Of grief. Sadness.

A few years ago I read something along those lines but did not fully understand it. In truth, I may never fully grasp this.

Before adopting our children I talked to my friends who are adoptees from multiple different countries. I read books. I scoured blogs and websites. And all the information and stories were different. Just as no two biologically related children are exactly the same, no two adoption stories are the same.

Our first adoption was as smooth as possible. Our second quite rocky.

But trauma and grief and loss are tricky things. A child who does not have any cognitive memory of their abandonment and multiple moves feels those things deep inside of them.

Recently one of of biological children had surgery. Ironically, this brought up some fear of abandonment in Ruthie. She was very anxious days before the surgery and was terrible the day of the surgery. When I got home with her sister she was very needy and upset. After taking her to my room to calm her down later that evening I held her and rocked her and rubbed her back.

And she said, “I was afraid you weren't coming back.”

Broken. So terribly broken. She was abandoned as an infant, placed in an orphanage, moved to a care home, fostered by an amazing family, and finally adopted. Five breaks in the first two years of her life.

While most of the moves she made were for her to receive better care and eventually a forever family, they are still breaks in connections her little brain was forming.

Many of you have been following along and praying for Ruthie as she spent time in the hospital a couple of weeks ago.

Her illness came upon her suddenly, what we later learned was a case of Salmonella brought on from eating chicken at KFC. Some of you may remember that Ruthie has a genetic blood condition. Her specific condition is quite rare and has a long name: Alpha Thalassemia Hemoglobin H Disease, Constant Spring. This affects her red blood cells and leads to a chronically low hemoglobin. Her normal hemoglobin is between 7.9-8.1, whereas a “healthy” child has a hemoglobin of about 12 or 13.

When people get sick it is normal for their hemoglobin to drop. For a child like Ruthie, her hemoglobin doesn't have far to go before she is too sick to recover on her own and would need a blood transfusion.

This is what happened when she got Salmonella. She was very dehydrated within three days of first getting ill (Friday she was sick for the first time and Sunday we were in the ER). Her hemoglobin was 6, but she was so dehydrated the doctor thought it was probably closer to 5.5. This meant that she would need fluid, plus a blood transfusion, plus another bag of fluids. She was admitted to the hospital Sunday and we came home Tuesday morning.

Although Ruth knows she has this condition, she did not previously grasp what it meant when we talked about if she gets sick she may need a blood transfusion.

Her time in the hospital was traumatic. She was very, very scared. Ruth is a strong little girl and to see her so out of sorts was terrible. The first night in the hospital I had to sleep in the little crib-bed with her because she was afraid even if I was just in the chair on the other side of her bed. The second night I could sleep in the chair, but she would wake up crying and yelling, “Mama! Where are you???”

It broke my heart. Since coming home we've had a large emotional set back for Ruth. She was napping in her own bed but has since needed me to lay with her until she falls asleep. When she wakes up from her nap she is full of fear, crying, and wanting to know where mama went as I have other demands and cannot nap with her for 2.5 hours everyday.

It was during this time that we were hit with the unfairness and the brokenness of adoption. I'm reminded that brokenness is not God's first plan for families. God's first plan was for a husband and wife to hold fast to one another (Genesis 2:24), then to have children (Genesis 9:7). There are stories in the Bible of adoption (Moses) and the pain that is often associated with this way of building a family.

But God is so good. He loves Ruth. He loves people. And God began writing the redemption story before man and sin even entered the world. Praise God that He is in the business of making beauty from ashes (read Joseph's story as just one example).

Today, for the first time in weeks, Ruth took a nap in her own bed. We trust that God will continue to work on Ruth's heart and mind. We trust that she will lose her fear of abandonment and be able to come to the realization that she is forever loved, cherished, and wanted.

It is my prayer that all of my girls will cling to these words from Isaiah 43:1; “Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; You are mine.”

Four Months Home with Heidi

Already another month has come and gone. At one point I started to feel like we were not making much progress with Heidi. Yet when I consider even the most mundane acts, I realize she has grown to feel truly safe with her forever family. 

Heidi is laughing a lot these days. She is getting occupational therapy weekly. We alternate goals for this: one week we work on sensory play and the other we work on feeding. I quite like the weeks we play because she typically enjoys the activities. Feeding therapy is still very stressful. She is starting to chew occasionally but not regularly. There were a few days this month she wasn’t feeling well and she only ate applesauce for days. But, refusing food is something new and totally appropriate for any child. 

Heidi is developing object permanence (a very young skill generally 4-7 months). She followed a ball under a chair and reached for it when it was out of sight. She noticed her doll was missing and looked for it. When she drops things from her high chair she will lean over to look. Again, a very young age skill but we were thrilled to see her develop this!

She signed “more” a couple of times one day but it was very frustrating for all of us getting her to do it. She said “mama” when I walked in her room to get her up in the morning so I’m pretty sure she’s connecting me to the name “mama” and that makes me happy!

Christmas was a hard day for her. We woke her up for presents but she cried the whole time so we put her back to bed. This was one of the days she didn’t seem to be feeling great. She ate good at Trent’s parents’ house and then was much more cheerful. She wasn’t interested in the wrapping paper or the gifts. 

Trent and I got to go away one evening and two of our nieces (Addy & Emma) babysat for us. Anne was a terrific help in caring for Heidi. 

Heidi continues to grow and grow! I moved her into 18 months clothes in January. For those of you keeping track, she was in 6-9 month clothes four months ago when we brought her home. She has steadily gained 1 pound a month since coming home. It’s astounding! Her meals don’t take nearly as long for her to eat. When she came home every meal took an hour but now we’re at a more normal paced 30 minutes per meal. 

(First visit to Pine View Dairy to see the cows! She did great until she recognized the ice cream container then freaked out and lunged toward it almost out of my arms. She started crying that I wouldn’t give it to her so Anne had to take her to the car while I paid.)

She is getting stronger everyday. She can now climb the stairs easily. Crawling up, walking on the landing, crawling the last four stairs, then walking down the hallway or to my room. 

Heidi started speech therapy and we really love her therapist. She had a lot of good ideas and we’ve already seen some tiny improvements. She also explained that the reason we were frustrated with teaching her sign language is because we’re skipping a step (like building a tower and attempting to place block 5 on top of block 2// it doesn’t work without all the pieces connected). We are instead hoping to see Heidi start consistently gesturing (waving, moving her arms to be picked up, clapping, etc.) and then we can start to build signs on top of those gestures. 

We are seeing Heidi use her hands more and more. She picked up a tiny popsicle crafting stick off the hardwood floor. She started taking apart her foam mat (which is annoying but awesome). She will pick up a pencil or marker that the girls leave down and wave it around. 

This is her “cheeeese” smile. 

Maggie was singing a clapping song and Heidi started to clap her own hands. It’s always incredible to see her learning even the smallest things. 

We received photos of when she lived in China and was only 4.5 pounds at 5 months old. It was shocking and heartbreaking to see these photographs but I’m so thankful we have them. Of course she’s significantly delayed, Heidi the Brave was quite literally fighting for her life for those many months. 

(Five months old on a train to Beijing from Nanchang to go to a care center for some specialize care.)

She started shrugging her shoulders and raising her eyebrows  and it’s hilarious but hard to photograph.  

She really loved the snow this time! I was so surprised but it wasn’t too cold or windy so I think that helped. 

We got to see our best friends for a couple hours and Heidi loved her. 

(Haven’t seen Heidi laugh as hard as she did with my BFF in... maybe ever. She has good taste in friends 😉)

We are humbled and grateful to be her family. We love her and can’t wait to see the good things God will do in her life and those who will be impacted through her beautiful life and story. The month wasn’t without its hard days (a cold, some vomit, teething pain, etc) but the good outweighs the bad and that’s something to be grateful for!

Happy 4 months home, Heidi boo-boo. We love you more than you love ice cream!

Had to get this cow outfit for our ice cream lover!

A Glance Back to Focus on the Road Ahead

Our family had declared 2019 as the year of growth. We set some specific goals at the beginning of the year. Near the end of 2019 we sat together as a family to review what we set out to do and if we accomplished what we hoped to do. We all agreed we started out fairly well on our meeting the specific ways we hoped to grow in our lives. However, until the end of the year, if the goal hadn't changed into a habit, it likely fell to the wayside.

Even though we didn't accomplish everything we set out to in 2019, it's safe to say that adding Heidi to our family made all of us grow in completely new and unexpected ways. Heidi has taught the other seven Hesses to be more selfless, more patient, more compassionate, more understanding. We have to continually put her needs above our own.

This has looked different for each of us, but some specific ways we have adjusted are: Anne took over reading the school lessons in the afternoon (and I am SO glad we're in a good place for the start of 2020 where I've been able to start teaching again!). Abbey has set aside her own for-fun books and gotten Heidi up from naps, changed diapers, and helped with dinner. Maggie has a special knack for making Heidi break into gales of laughter. Caroline will drop anything she is doing to sing to Heidi and help me rock her to sleep. Ruth has willingly released her slot as “baby” for her preferred status of “big sister”. Ruth rarely complains that Heidi takes so much of my attention and has gotten involved with Heidi's therapies and encourages her to do all the new things (walk, climb the stairs, don't hit yourself) and has even provided the nickname we all started using; Heidi Boo-Boo.

I know all the cool kids are calling this year, 2020, the year of vision or the year of perfect vision as a play on 20/20 vision. I haven't been a cool kid for a long time so our family is taking a different track for the year.

My original idea was something along the lines of “2020, the year we don't do anything new” or “2020, the year where get lots of sleep”. Of course, when raising a family, you'll never have a year where nothing changes. Children, by their very nature, are constantly growing, learning, and changing. And of course, I want to see those things happen, especially for Heidi in her first year home.

As Trent and I discussed what we hoped to see happen in 2020, we realized what we hope our family can learn is to change some habits to create in our minds a constant state of thankfulness. We have dubbed 2020 to be the year of gratitude. 

I've purchased some inexpensive journals for each of the kids to keep track of three things per day that they are grateful for. It is my hope that as they go throughout the day they'll make mental notes of something that happened or an instance which made them grateful.

“...godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and neither can we carry anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.” 1 Timothy 6:6-8

Practicing gratitude leads to contentment. While we have plans of some projects we would like to accomplish this year, if they don't happen it is my hope that we will not be continually striving for more and more worldly things and instead be content with our food and clothing. In an effort to raise children who are not spoiled by all we could give them in terms of possessions, we hope our whole family can show a testimony to the world that contentment and joy come not from what we have but Who we know.

“Give thanks to the LORD and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done.” Psalm 105:1

Caroline is Six!

Six! She is six years old. In truth, I didn’t know kids like Caroline actually existed. I think all of us have some gift that comes naturally to us. Carrie’s gift happens to be kindness. She isn’t perfect of course, but she is truly a sweet, tenderhearted, kind girl who wants the best for everyone. She’s the kind of person to send a card or letter just because she was thinking of them. 

I mean, she even LOOKS angelic. 

It has been a hard year for a girl so young and not many could have come through it with her joy and optimism. 

She started snoring way back in January. We ignored it for awhile but then she would be tired and grumpy during the day and started taking naps again when she had recently stopped. It took several doctor appointments, including a sleep study, which revealed she has moderate sleep apnea and she stopped breathing on average eight times per hour. 

So sweet even covered in wires. 

She ended up needing her tonsils and adenoids removed. Unfortunately the soonest they could do the surgery was the week of her birthday. In true Caroline fashion, she accepted the news without complaint. It meant she couldn’t eat her favorite food on her actual birthday or do much activity. So many told us of the horrible recovery. She did have a couple of bad nights and days, but through it all she was still her sweet, kind self. 

I think if you asked Caroline about her year, she would say it was great. Because Heidi came home. Heidi, who has required more physical and emotional energy from me than any other child in our home right now. And none of that matters because, she’s ours. And you do whatever you have to do for the ones you love, even if it means sacrificing your own desires. Maybe especially if it means sacrificing your own desires. 

As an already kind, compassionate child, having two sisters (one her BFF and the second in a close race to being co-BFFs) has opened her eyes to the needs in the wider world. The other day she was taking a leisurely bath with Heidi. Since Heidi can’t talk, she had my undivided attention to share all the thoughts and questions that have been building in her mind. Things that never entered my mind at sixteen, let alone six. She asked why babies are abandoned? And why can’t we go back to China? What happens to a kid when they get too old and aren’t adopted? Why does Africa make you stay there so long to adopt? What other countries are in Asia?  Could we go somewhere else to adopt? Because it hurts me that there are little boys and girls who won’t ever get a mom or a dad or big sisters. Guys, my six year old daughter’s heart is so big that it hurts for other children who don’t have what we have. 

No, this isn’t an adoption announcement. This is me, hoping some of my friends will be moved by Caroline’s big thoughts and big hearts. I actually was starting to cry during our conversation and texted Trent that she’s breaking my heart. 

But sometimes we need our hearts broken to reveal what is good and true bleeding out of it. 

She’s the kid who loves (instead of feels slighted) that her birthday is close to Christmas. Because she is almost “birthday twins” with Jesus. What more could she want?

She was happy to be reading well enough to get to read the story of Jesus’ birth at our Hess Christmas this year. 

When asked things she loves, Caroline said:

- Heidi

- animals

- purple

- rice, chicken, chili, Chinese food and tacos (fav foods)

- Christmas

- my big sisters

- Ruthie

- getting my ears pierced

- wearing overalls

- church (favorite place to go)

When asked things she doesn’t like, Caroline said:

- I can’t think of anything. 

She couldn’t get her ears pierced before her surgery so we had to do it after her birthday (plus she wanted to eat the mall’s Chinese food so we had to wait for her throat to heal). 

She started off brave and excited. 

Then got nervous. 

Then freaked out and jerked away. Anne and I switched roles at this point so I could hold Carrie and get her calmed down enough to let them pierce her ears. 

Once she was calm she got her mind straight and sat perfectly still. She said afterward it didn’t even hurt but the waiting was scary. Isn’t that just like life? The anticipation of the unknown is terrifying, but the actual event isn’t usually as bad as what we build it up to be in our mind. 

She is looking forward to a great rest of the year of Kindergarten. She’s a wonderful student and (usually) hard worker. She likes to be homeschooled. Learning about animals and reading books is her favorite. 

She started off so tiny (4 lbs 14 oz) and vulnerable. It’s such a joy to be her mom. She challenges me regularly to be kinder. 

On the phone with her Sunday School teacher (also one of the kindest women alive). 

Happy birthday, Sweet Caroline. You live up to your name every day. We love you and the special girl you are. 

Fourteenth Anniversary

Fourteen years ago, two very young people committed the rest of their lives together before God and man.  

Mark 10:9 says, “Therefore what God has joined together let no man separate.”

The world would have us believe that at 20 and 23 we were too young to make a life-long commitment. However, about two years before I had already made a lifelong commitment to serve God and worship him only. 

Trent found in me a young woman so full of faith in the overwhelming, undeserved goodness of God. And I found in him the unconditional love, loyalty, strength, and consistency of a solid man of God. 

But man, were we young. And man, were we poor. 

We honeymooned in Key West but couldn’t afford to do anything other than walk around the island. We only ate out twice the whole week; instead we grocery shopped and cooked at our little bungalow. No snorkeling, no admission to Hemingway’s house, no scooter rides. But we were together, and that was all that mattered. 

The early years of our marriage helped us build our faith in God to always provide for us. We had so many babies so close together. And God was with us everyday. Then even after our finances became more comfortable God called us to bigger things than we could have imagined when we were newly married. We never had any doubt that God would provide the financing for both of our adoptions. 

We knew our scripture and that “of whom much is given, much will be required.” We had been given the gift of a fantastic marriage. It was required that we share that gift in some way. Adoption is one way we were able to do that. 

I am so grateful for the years we struggled. Not only did we learn to fully rely on God, but we were able to focus on what was most important. Many years we didn’t have money to eat out, let alone go away on a trip for our anniversary. Some years we were able to get away for a weekend and build some memories. Other years we had a new baby and attempted to take her long for a most unromantic, tear-filled (memorable) weekend to Trent’s parents’ cabin. This year we opted for take-out Chinese food and leftover Thanksgiving wine after our six daughters were in bed. 

I am far from a perfect wife. In fact, today, our actual anniversary, 99% of my texts to Trent have been to complain about the things that have gone wrong in my day or to ask the most random questions (Is there a UPS in Quarryville? Should I go back to the pharmacy or just go home?) 

The love I have for Trent is so much fuller and deeper than it was fourteen years ago. We were laughing the other night about high schoolers writing “never change” to each other in their year books and what a dumb thing that is to say. I’m so glad Trent and I are different from when we married. Even our faith has grown and matured into the steady bedrock of our marriage it is now. 

It’s a treasure to get the opportunity to be married to Trent. I’m always trying to remind myself not to take him for granted and know I fail at times, but I am truly truly grateful for him. 

Watching Trent father our daughters with patience is the most amazing thing to me. Last night he was rocking Heidi before bed and I felt I couldn’t love him more. I felt like I was getting a little glimpse of heaven as I considered how much our Heavenly Father loves each of us. 

I could be biased but I think we’re getting better looking the older we get. Haha! 

Happy anniversary, Trent! I love you. Thanks for going along with a lot of my crazy ideas and for being our sanity in this house overflowing with females.