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.
A couple of weeks ago she asked David and I about becoming a christian. I had talked to her quite a bit before but she never was ready to pray to receive Christ. This time she brought it up and she was ready. 
........buried with Christ in Baptism
.........Raised to walk in a newness of Life
Kaylee was trying coax Mia into touching the crawfish. I think she finally succeded. 
Of course the boys had no problems touching them. They tried to find the ones with the biggest claws.
I think Zane may have won the biggest claw contest.
It was time to move the crawfish from the ice chest to the pot. Mr. Butch reached in and grabbed two big handfuls of crawfish. He said, "Here Kaylee, can you help me? Just do this." He was really just picking at her but as soon as he moved over, Kaylee was right there grabbing two big handfuls as well. This girl has NO FEAR
It took the boys a few minutes to get up enough nerve to try it.
Mmm! Mmmm! Mr. Butch is finished boiling, and about ready to pull them out. 
Everybody trying their hand at peeling them. The kids tried hard but Nana and Mrs. Eva peeled a lot of them for the kids.
We miss our Granny and talk about her often. She would have loved to see the azaleas blooming and all the amaryllis buds coming out of the ground.
The science fair was also part of the open house. Zane's project won second place. He competed against 103 other 5th graders. We were all very proud. 
Trent's class had just concluded a lesson on space. Here Trent is standing next to his alien portrait. He drew it during a listening activity. The teacher would say draw your alien with as many eyes as you have people in your family. Draw as many legs as how many birthday's you've had. It was really cute.
We dropped by Zane's class to see his animal habitat and special adaptation that he had designed.
Kaylee read us a book in espanol about the red hen. We also did a map skill activity with her. 
The anticipation....... I'm not sure what was more interesting, waiting for the box to open or waiting to see if Zane would cut himself with the knife.
Mia loved the beads and light up wand. NO they didn't throw Hannah Montana dolls from the floats. This was a birthday present.
Trent found the Frisbee first and claimed it as his own.
Here he is waiting for the Vet's office to open up the next morning. We made him an improvised splint and gave him a large dose of Ibuprofen. Kaylee made his pallet for him, complete with a pillow. Which he enjoyed very much.
He broke his Radius and Ulna. As you can see pretty severely. This kind of break requires surgery. A splint will not fix this. So David drove him from the regular vet over to the Orthopedic Surgeon !?!?! I didn't know this profession existed.
Apparently the trauma hasn't affected his positive outlook on life.
Her door
Rocket's nose
Her new kitchen
Her sock drawer
The cat in the cupboard 
Well maybe a few words Just this first time- Apparently some people post a picture on Wednesday without writing anything about it. I guess it gives people a chance to blog something quick and easy. So here's my photo. Kaylee and I saw this at the Houston Zoo on a Girl Scout field trip. Every time the calf would try to get the milk (by what seemed like biting the mother) all the little girls would scream
Apparently apply as many as possible to your face.
I'm still trying to figure out what Tattoos have to do with Valentine's Day. They were probably created by some person who didn't want there kid to have any more chocolate. Our kids just thought they were cool.
So, Kaylee gave the Puppy and Kitty ones, Zane gave Flames and weird hearts, Trent gave Spiderman ones, Mia's were princess of course. If you're wondering where Mia was, I think she was napping during this tattoo extravaganza!
David and I signed up to volunteer at the Steven Curtis Chapman concert last night. We were part of a group of volunteers to help with the Show Hope campaign for Shaohannah's Hope.
At each of the concerts on this tour they have collected change. That change is then given to a local family that has applied for an adoption Grant through Shaohannah's Hope. They grant up to 7,000 per family on an as needed basis. Here is a little glimpse of SOME of the change that was collected.
It was our job to collect the money and then count it up. Well, there was SO much change that at 10:00 we ended up estimating the final change total. The bills and checks collected were over 10,000 and with the change it made the total well over $16,000. WoW!!! All from one audience. That's enough to give 4 families each a $4,000 grant. We were all in awe of how well the event turned out.
I quickly told her that I read her blog faithfully. She turned to her friend that was standing there and said "See, people do read it" Oh Yes Mam I do. 
Here we are....... Just the 4 of us!!! IT was a great Valentine's Day!!! One I will not soon forget!!!!
Also Today was the premiere of the new Nick Jr show Ni Hao Kai-Lan. Many people have compared her to a Chinese Dora. Mia has been so excited about this, she has talked about it all week. She couldn't wait to watch it. And it didn't disappoint. We learned how to say Hello, Good-bye, count to 3 and Grandpa all in Mandarin. I am hoping we can learn a lot more before our trip this summer. 
