Good News to start the year!

For those of you who don't know, a CP diagnosis (without MRI) in China could literally mean ANYTHING. The scope of CP is vast, from very mild to extremely severe. It can affect cognitive ability, (which ranges from mild mental impairment to mental retardation), and can affect any/all body part it chooses. It is brain damage, so while it will not progress, what is damaged is damaged, and you try to retrain the brain the best you can.

When we researched this special need, we realized that there is a HUGE amount of faith that goes in to accepting a child with a CP diagnosis. There are too many unknowns, and each picture of her holding her head up doesn't show the second before, and the second after.  Pictures can be posed, charts can be filled out by well-meaning caregivers who want a child placed. Medical data is gathered by antiquated means, and not always reliable or current.

So we decided not to pray if this diagnosis was for us, and instead if these babies were for us. Like our biological children, you will love them no matter what, so if they are given to us by God, the severity of the diagnosis is irrelevant.

After we knew they were ours, and China confirmed it, only then did we then roll up our sleeves to prepare ourselves for the future joys and trials of being Miss Celia's parents.

Pray for the best, prepare for the worst.

So it is with no disrespect to our sweet baby girl when I say, that I literally have no expectations for her.

Hopes and dreams? Yes!! 

Expectations? None whatsoever. We love her just the way she is, no matter what her prognosis.

If she sits up-great! If not, we can push her in a wheelchair.

If she can enter society- wow! If not, we plan to have her at home with us forever.

If she talks- super! If not, we will find other ways to communicate with her.

If she can potty train- wonderful! If not, we have a lot more diapers in our future than we hoped for, but NBD.

So each bit of good news is AMAZING news for this Momma.

Today was an AMAZING news day.

Before we traveled, my heartfelt prayer was that she would have enough cognitive ability to know us as her parents. Anything else would be a gift.

It didn't take long to realize she has much more mental ability than I prayed for. She has appropriate emotional responses, tries to imitate us, and follows basic commands. Recognizes specific people. Shows her displeasure. Figures out how to make toys work.We are truly thrilled.

Until we get the results on her MRI (date not set yet, Mom) we won't know to what age she can mentally progress. And it doesn't matter. She surpassed my hopes when she lit up the first time she looked for Daddy and found him with her eyes.

This girl KNOWS her Daddy!

In contrast, Greg's prayer was that some how, some way, she could communicate with us, so we could comfort her and care for her better.

Well, today was our speech/feeding therapy evaluation.

The therapist spent a good deal of time going over her eating abilities/and lack thereof. This baby girl, who, until 2 months ago was totally bottle fed, has all the abilities to eat normally, INCLUDING learning to put her hand to her mouth and eat by herself.

She just needs practice. And some help.... for now, at least.

Tonight she ate her first, non-toddler food meal just like her sisters and "helped" fork her food and put it into her mouth!(It took about 40 minutes, and SOOOO exciting for all of us cheering her on!)

We have a LONG way to go before she is self-feeding, but she has the ability to CHEW FOOD and she can learn to bring that sweet hand to her mouth in time.

A HUGE BLESSING we never expected.

Then in the speech portion of the evaluation, she tried to imitate the therapist in every sound they tried with her. She was not always audible, but she imitated forming her mouth the same way, and was very successful at saying several sounds.

The therapist said,  "I usually don't tell parents this so early in the game, but I am confident that this girl will talk."

SHE WILL TALK!!

Tears freely flowed down my cheeks, right there in that therapy room.....

                          Her Daddy's prayer was also answered!

 No matter how fast or slow the progress, no matter how long we have to work at it, and despite all her physical limitations that can't be overcome, this baby girl is OUR BLESSING
 and we are SO PROUD of her!!!