Miracle Monday

So, I was browsing through some blogs and happened upon one that was starting Miracle Monday. She wanted to use her blog to honor God and the miracles He performs in our lives daily. And for some time now I've wanted to share here about what happened to us in China when we first had Mia. Some of you know the story but I didn't post all the details on the blog during the trip because frankly it was somewhat SCARY and I didn't want anyone to not adopt because of a wrong impression someone might get. So, fair warning, this may be lengthy. But it's a great Miracle..... It's Mia's Miracle.
June 2005 - David and I were in Beijing on what we knew would be the trip of a lifetime. We had seen many sites including the Great Wall, Tienanmen Square, etc. It was all new and wonderful to take in. But somewhere inside me I had the nagging feeling that something just wasn't right. I even told David that I felt like something might not go right with the adoption. I had heard about children not bonding to their adoptive parents and I thought this might be what was going to happen. That maybe God was preparing me for the fact that Mia might not bond to us. I was somewhat OK with this because I knew eventually she would. I even prayed that if any of the babies weren't going to bond that it would be ours. Our travel group consisted of mostly childless couples and I just couldn't imagine what it would have been like for one of them to have worked so hard and wanting children so badly and then the child reject you at first sight.

Then the big day came and we had our wonderful meeting with our new baby girl. She at the time wanted Daddy much more than me but that was OK because she was bonding to one of us. After a few hours of getting to know her the orphanage director came over and said she had a little fever. I thought she felt a little warm but I didn't worry to much. I had taken a prescription antibiotic with me, that was sure to cure even the worst ear infection. So we immediately started her on the medicine and Motrin for fever. The next day as we undressed her I saw puncture wounds in her feet and behind. Probably about six to eight. I was very concerned about what they had been giving her. She began to get more and more lethargic and was only awake for short periods of time. David and I took turns staying at the hotel with her while the other person went to complete paperwork. After more fever a rash developed and her lips were cracked and started bleeding. We knew it was time to call the International Adoption Doctor we had retained before leaving the states. We called her about 11 pm China time and She told us we needed to get her to the hospital to find the source of the fever. I was so uneasy with this I didn't know what to expect. It was obvious someone else had been medicating her and then I had been medicating her also. So, the next morning with great reservation on my part,we headed to our guide's room at 7am and asked her how we could get her to the hospital. Our guide said give me 10 minutes and off we went.
I had never encountered anything close to this experience before. The clinic process there is that you pay in advance for each service and then take a number. We first paid ($6) to see the "good" doctor. Then after waiting in line we were shoved into a room with 2 doctors and wooden desks. The doctor sat behind the desk and you placed the child up on the desk for him to examine. After his initial look at her he sent us for blood work. We then went to another window to pay and then another line for the blood work. When it was our turn we placed Mia's arm through the "bank teller" window and they took blood. Then we waited in another line for the results. We took the results back to the doctor and he and our guide had what seemed like a 30 min. conversation. We asked "What is he saying?" She responded with "She needs a heart scan" I knew there was more. We said, "be honest with us, we can handle it, WHAT is it?" At that point he turned over his paper and wrote Kawasaki Disease.

We had never heard of this. It is extremely rare and effects mostly Asian people. No one knows what causes it and it can be treated if it's not to late. (TO LATE??) Apparently if the disease has progressed for 10 days without treatment then it typically causes Aneurysms in the heart which leads to death. So we phoned the orphanage to ask when the fever had started and she had fever for 4 days prior to our arrival and we had her for 3 days. We got in line for the heart scan, the nurse tried to get us to give her sleeping pills and return in 3 hours. But at this point Mia was so lethargic that she literally just laid in our arms with only slight movement. The guide quickly pointed this out and the nurse said we could try. While we waited in line, our guide leaned over and said "You may have to choose another baby" We replied "NO we want her and we just want to get her well" I tried everything I had to get her back to the states for medical care but our paperwork was not done and she would not be allowed out of China much less into the US. And we didn't have days to waste.
Our only option was to trust in the medicine here in this hospital. Mia laid on the table and the technicians performed the echo cardiogram while David and I prayed harder than we had ever prayed in our whole lives. We couldn't imagine that our little girl who we barely knew might be taken from us already. The technicians confirmed that there were currently no aneurysms, no vessel damage and that her heart looked healthy. Praise God!

We were then escorted over to the PICU for treatment. Suffice it to say they don't do hospital the way we do. It was surreal. The head of the dept. came in and confirmed that it was Kawasaki and she even pulled out an English Medical text and let us read from it. Mia was then given a bed and an IV was started to administer extremely large doses of Gammoglobulin. She needed all of it in a short period of time. We were told we may have to do this a second time also. They initially wanted her to stay in the hospital for 3 days and we would not be allowed to stay with her. Our guide quickly stepped in and negotiated that we would stay all day and then be allowed to take her to the hotel to sleep and then return with her the next day for more treatments. That was all dependent on how she responded to the first round of medicine.

About 30 minutes into the IV It was a miracle before our very eyes, Mia sat up on the bed and begin to laugh and giggle and wanted to play. We could not believe the difference. Of course we had really never seen this side of her because she was sick from the beginning.

We stayed with her for 12 hours while all the fluids were pumped into her little body. One of our guides stayed with us as well. She sang Chinese songs to her and did little finger plays. It was so sweet to watch. Then as we were talking our guide (let's call her S) said,"Are all the people in your group Christians?" We looked at each other and said "Yes" (because everyone who adopts through AWAA has to sign a profession of faith) We asked why? She said, "because this morning when I left to tour with the rest of the group, they would not let the bus start going until they each took a turn praying for Mia and you guys. It took over 20 minutes" We were so grateful and just overwhelmed that they had all lifted us up while we had no idea what was going on.
Then S said, "Do you believe in Jesus?" We of course said, "YES" We asked if she did and she said she didn't know. I asked her if she had heard of the bible and she responded, "Oh yes! I have read the whole thing and I like the stories very much" The whole thing???? She has read the whole thing!!! David and I were about to bust out of our skin!!! So right there in the middle of a Chinese hospital we were able to share our faith with her. We're not sure if she received Christ at that moment but we could tell that she needed someone to tell her that Jesus is real and the bible is too.
Mia responded remarkably well to the meds and we were allowed to leave the hospital around midnight. We got up the next morning and returned for the doctor to check her and she was given aspirin to take for the following 3 months. We were to repeat the Echo cardiogram once we returned home. We brought home a happy, healthy little girl who is a literal Firecracker.

Looking back we can see that God ordains different things in our lives for reasons we don't understand. It's not always easy to walk through them but "OH the MIRACLES" that you can experience if you trust in HIM for every step of the Journey.

You can read more miracles here A Mom's Life.