Button, button, who's got the button????

Another trip down and a few more to go. Amelia's casts were changed this week and she got a new set. She wasn't suppose to get the casts completely changed, was only suppose to get a fiberglass overwrap. But between the two of us, we destroyed the old ones.

I love Dr. Dobbs' nurse, Kristina. I was feeling pretty bad about my motherly responsibilities when it came to keeping these casts in tact until she told me a few of her "worse" cast stories. After the the stories about fly larva, cockroaches and cast removal with a steak knife, I was feeling pretty good about myself.

The very nice gentleman with the saw came in and I had to sit on the table with Amelia and hold her. This requires that I sit behind her and straddle her. Thank goodness I can still sit that way! She's so dramatic...she whimpers the entire time he is sawing, but she can still eat a pretzel. Go figure!

He removed the top part of the cast and I was able to see her legs. Poor thing! She's lost all of her muscle tone, they are dry and itchy and kind of dark. I massaged them for her but was not allowed to put any lotion on them since that can lead to skin break down. Millie was still doing pretty well with everything~no drama~YET! Then they took the legs out of the bottom of the casts and she freaked out over the sutures on the top of her feet. "Look Mama! Look!" She kept repeating and pointing. Then came the bottom of her foot and seeing the "button" for the first time. I have a picture in my mind of a "button", a very small button on the bottom of my child's very small foot. I've got one word~YOWSA! That's some heavy duty button on her feet. IT'S HUGE!

All in all, everything looked pretty good. One of the sutures on the left foot looked a little infected so they treated that and the skin looked pretty good. No harm done this time. We just have to stay really dry for the next 2 1/2 weeks. They recasted her and put bright pink fiberglass on her legs. The button stands out on the bottom of her casted feet, and appears as a rather large bump. She's still not allowed to walk or stand and frankly I don't think she'll have the desire with that gigantic button on the bottom of her foot. The next set of casts will be short legged and walking casts! HOORAH! We're on the down hill side now~or at least I like to think so.

I have to admit, her attitude is amazing and she doesn't seem to be too worse for wear. She's a trooper, my Millie Moo!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Two weeks down....two~four weeks to go

We've gotten through our first two weeks with the casts, but not without incident. I can't blame it all on Amelia~I'm also to blame.

Relaxing in the hotel before dinner...she's very comfortable!

Sorry, I just can't seem to handle the sponge baths~that's what I'm suppose to be sticking to but I have failed as a mother in that department. She just gets so very dirty some days and I can't help myself. I bought two bags that were specifically made to cover a cast to keep them dry while bathing. So I put the bags over the casts, sit her on a stool in the tub (so she's not submerged) and give her a nice bath. Well, nice compared to a sponge bath (my grandmother called it another kind of bath ;-). But those bags don't work very well if there are holes in them, which I discovered on Monday night when I removed them after my version of a "sponge bath". Needless to say, the cast was very wet.

So, long story, very short...Amelia will be getting those casts replaced tomorrow in St. Louis by Dr. Dobbs nurse since between the two of us, we have destroyed them. Amelia played a pretty active part in this little incident too. For instance, she lays on her back, stick her legs up in the air, puts her hands down in the casts, by her toes and pulls on them. I've tried to capture this on film but have not been able to so far. We won't go into the break dancing and log rolling that she performs for people when she wants to show off. I'll also leave out the fact that she decided to crawl down the concrete drive a few times leaving a lovely trail of white plaster of paris.

Waiting for her "sponge bath", no one should be able to lay like that...especially with those casts!

So you see, it's not just me being a germ-o-phob mom, Amelia's done her fair share of destruction too! I had to re tape the casts within the first three days home due to all the crawling she was doing!

I've taken several trips to St. Louis with just Millie (yes, Millie!). Let me digress for a moment. We tend to give nicknames in the Clevenger family...every one's name seems to morph into something other than their Christian name. So Amelia has gone from Amealwah, to Mealwah, to Millie to Millie Moo. I know it sounds korney, but I love calling her Millie Moo. She does not like to be called by her Chinese name and will shout "NO", when I call her Yuan Yuan. But she likes Millie! Go figure!

Back to the trips. I decided to try the trip on our own and was delighted at the outcome. I was blessed to see a different side of my daughter when she was by herself. We were able to bond in a new way and I fell in love with a child that I had not seen before. So when people say that children act differently when they are without their siblings, I couldn't agree more. So, I've taken this opportunity to travel alone and get to know my Millie Moo in a different way. It's been such a blessing!

Next time I'll have to ask for two double beds...how am I suppose to sleep in a king size bed with her sleeping like that? I'm sure I'll figure out something. After all, I am the mother!

She's sleeping now and I'm heading that direction. We have the early appointment tomorrow and will be back on the road to home ASAP. It's a power trip, but worth every minute! I can't wait to see what color casts we leave with. Hopefully it will be pink or blue and we'll skip the orange this time.

You signed up for this....(my rant for the day)

"You signed up for this!" or "This is what you wanted!"

These are things that I hear quite frequently when it comes to my adopted daughters. Let's face it, there are times when I'm overwhelmed and tired, sad and frustrated, crazy and mad. All very normal, natural feelings for any mother. But it seems that since my daughters are adopted, I don't have a right to feel this way according to some people. According to them, I should not vent my feelings concerning anything to do with them~particularly anything that may seem bad. It's almost as if feeling anything but pure, unadulterated love and jubilation in the fact that I have these two little girls is simply not allowed. Talk about sending someone on a serious guilt trip...this mentally send me right to the "express lane", "Do not pass go, go straight to martyrdom".

Before I go any further in this rant, let's get a few things straight. I LOVE my children, all four of them. I would lay my life on the line for anyone of them. I would go to the ends of the earth to provide for them the things that they truly need to be healthy and successful. There is no difference in any of them. But they are different; not one of them share a single strand of DNA! The girls share a mother and father, but not a birth mother and father. The boys are a product of both of our previous marriages~not related in any way. So you see, all four of my children are siblings through marriage, adoption and the love the Jesus Christ. But do you think anyone says anything like this to me when I vent about my son or stepson? Of course not...who would even thing of saying anything about that? Everyone knows how difficult teenagers and step children can be, but adopted children must be different, right??? WRONG, right now, my daughter is lying in her bed pitching a ROYAL fit because she doesn't want to take a nap that she so desperately needs after having surgery last week. But according to some people, I should just smile and be content with her misbehaving because I chose to adopt her. This type of behavior should not frustrate me one little bit. Things that make you go "Hmmmmm????"

This brings me to an even bigger problem (at least from my perspective). Many people in our society don't want to deal with those "bad" feelings. If you are feeling bad, you must have something wrong with you, so go to the doctor and get a pill to fix it. Please take note, that I know and believe that mental illness is a very real and painful issue. I would never begrudge anyone that seeks help for any medical condition. BUT, I also believe there are far to many people out there that are just popping a pill because society doesn't want to see any sadness or anger or any of those emotions that just make some people uncomfortable. I can't believe that it is healthy for a person's mental and physical being to not experience any and all emotions. To mask those emotions with a pill seems risky to me.

I have a few EX-friends that believe that because I simply express my emotions (good, sad, mad or indifferent), makes me bi-polar. That's right~bi-polar. Ask me where they got their medical degrees and I'd have to say they simple read one of those wonderful self-help books and decided that since I didn't fit into what THEY believe to be normal behavior, I'm mentally ill. We won't go in to the fact that they are living in loveless, self-serving marriages that are held together simple because they don't have the courage to face the tough and difficult issues and they don't want their Christians friends to think they are anything but perfect. Or that they chooses to limp through life pretending their families and lives are perfect, when I know for a fact that they aren't. I'm not advocating divorce or anything like that, but let's me REAL. People in glass houses should NEVER throw stones and these people have a catapult inside their home. As for me, you get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A spades, a spade to me baby. And I'm gonna tell you that. If that makes me mentally ill, then so be it. I'd rather be that than a fake. Because faking something ALWAYS catches up to you~sooner or later.

Another point, do you think these same people that say these things to me, say them to the parents that give birth to a biological child that has special needs? Oh, I think not, that would be so POLITICALLY incorrect! They would never say that to a biological family! They would offer support and empathize~never say, "Hey, you new the risk when you decided to give birth to this baby!" Just burns my backside when I think about it. Of course I knew my daughter had club feet. Did I know it was atypical clubfeet (in about 2-3% of clubfoot cases), with nerve damage in both legs? Did I know that she would be well over two years old before she would ever walk, let alone run? No, I didn't know any of these things! It wasn't stated in her medical records. We stepped out in faith, with God's guidance, knowing we could get through anything with His help. But that doesn't mean it's always simple or happy or gleeful around our house! Some days are just plain hard~when a teenager is grumpy because someone ate the last peach and HE thought it should have been saved for him (gotta love weight loss during wrestling season), the four year old is taking toys away from the two year old because she can and the two year old is screaming at the top of her lungs, MINE MINE MINE! Meltdowns abound, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord! Welcome to the funny farm!

So the fact that I'm a wee bit older, with small adopted children doesn't give me the same rights as parents that have children in their younger years. Because let's face it, had the invitro treatments been successful and I had given birth to let's say, multiples, I would have faced the same scrutiny. "You chose to go through this!" It just doesn't seem fair to me.

Rest assured, I have my safe zones; friends that I can say anything to, that understand and let me say the things I need to say. For if I did not have them, if I couldn't say the things that I really needed to say in a loving, caring and nurturing environment, then I would have to medicated!

That's my rant for the day....please know that I love my children dearly, but they all drive me crazy to some extent! I guess that just really makes them mine! If you are so fortunately that this doesn't happen to you, then God bless you. You must have the patience of Job! I admit that I do not, but I pray for forgiveness and guidance on a daily basis. That's me, broken and imperfect. Only by the grace of God, can I be successful as a mother, spouse and friend. Kudos to you if you don't.

Isn't this a lovely way to come back to blogging!

ATTT Surgery

Amelia had her ATTT (Anterior Tibial Tendon Transfer) surgery this week. Dr. Dobbs was very happy with the surgery and the flexation of Amelia's feet. We are so happy to have this behind us, but the next four weeks will be tough. She is not allowed to bear any weight on her feet for four weeks. For a little girl that has just started walking, this is devastating. She has been in plaster casts for the past two weeks to stretch her feet and tendons before the surgery and she actually got to the point where she could walk in them. I've included a video at the end of the slide show showing her walking. It's rather choppy, but you can get the jest of her attempt.

We covet your prayers for patience and acceptance during the next four weeks. I've been a little absent from blogging, I plan on changing that. Enjoy the photos from the hospital. They are a little grainy~must have had the aperture setting on.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Happy Adoption Day

It’s challenging for me to believe that an entire year has pasted since Amelia was placed in our arms. My brain has difficulty grasping the fact that we were in China, this time last year and became a family of six on this exact day. Then the haze clears and I realize where I am and what the date actually is ~ then I hear the bickering from two small, Chinese children coming from an unknown location in the house and reality hits and it hits hard.

July 16, 2007

This post has not come easy for me. I’ve agonized over what to include since I’m not sure of the audience. There are those that have never experienced a difficult child, or adoption and they can never begin to comprehend what this year has been like. I’ve even thought of not including a post since this year has been…well…less than stellar. However, there’s that part of my brain that understands the importance of said post. Ultimately, the most important person that will be affected by this post will be Amelia. Things need to be said so she knows and understands the importance and impact of this year on her and our entire family. So make the post I will with the caveat that it’s not meant to be anything more than a milestone that needs to be marked for my daughter’s sake. Like the content or not, it’s what the last year has been from my perspective.

July 11, 2008

I’d love to say this year has been a joy and delight, but that would be a lie. Those that know me, know lying is not an option. It’s been difficult and even grim at times. From the time we arrived in China last July, we have endured much more excitement than we planned for. From culture shock, early departures and disruptions, it was not exactly a happy trip. As anticipated, Amelia’s behavior in China was only a snapshot of what was to come when we arrived home. Amelia is a strong-willed child that wants what she wants and wants it now. If she doesn’t get it, she tends to voice her displeasure for an extended period of time. On a high note, that period of time has decreased from several hours to only several minutes of crying, screeching and whaling.

In her defense, I have to acknowledge the frustration that she has had to experience from not being able to walk. The weakness and nerve damage that she has in her legs has been far more than we anticipated. We’ve adjusted to this unforeseen condition and believe we are on the right track with her treatments. We will travel back to St. Louis this fall to start her treatments. We covet your prayers for all of us during this time. I’ll keep you posted when I know more.

I truly believed that we were prepared for the challenges of adopting a slightly older child and one that was in an extraordinary foster program. Amelia came to us very spoiled. I know that sounds contradictory to what everyone hears about Chinese orphans, but I would encourage you to check out Half the Sky. They have an amazing program in Amelia’s orphanage and Amelia definitely benefited from having the love and care of some amazing nannies. Believing I was prepared and then actually living through the experience are two very different things.

I believe I survived the guilt I was experiencing from the help and support of some very wonderful friends that I could open up to and that had experienced the same things with their biological children. This information helped to lessen the burden I felt over the “adopted child” label that I worried about. What a relief it was to know that Amelia not being my biological child had nothing to do with the struggles that we were encountering.

My social worker believes that Amelia is lucky to have us for parents. Her words to me were, “Isn’t she lucky to have you! If she would have had a first-time-parent, imagine the havoc she could have caused in their lives!” All I can say to that is, you might want to ask Amelia about that. But seriously, I have had to be very stern with her! It’s broken my heart at times, but I knew that if I didn’t stay the course, she would be running this house. And a two-year old running any household is not a good thing. I kept saying to myself, “If you don’t stop it now, what is she going to be like when she’s twelve???” Then all that would pop into my mind was some sort of “boot camp” for teens. Not a pretty picture my friends.

The physical impact this last year has had on myself has been nothing less than staggering. I have never weighed more, nor been in such rotten physical condition. I’m slowing getting into a workout routine and that is helping. The weight problem has to do with the “stress eating” that I have fallen in to. I’m not proud of the amount of time that my head has been stuck inside the freezer compartment eating ice cream directly out of the ice cream tub. I’ve laughed and told friends that there has been a lot of chocolate and wine consumed in our house over the last year. I said it jokingly, but there is some truth to the statement.

Our days are getting better. Amelia walking has helped her disposition tremendously. She clearly loves me and lets me now it continually. It’s rather sweet and I get so many comments from people about how much she loves me. I can’t leave the house for 10 minutes that she doesn’t chant, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy” and ran to me when I walk in the door. She would sit on my lap constantly if I would let her. But again, I have to put limits on her or she carries a little leniency to the extreme and would stay on my lap all day long.

I believe she has adjusted to our family very well and fits in nicely. She’s going to be our opinionated, stubborn child. She can sulk with the best of them and we often laugh at her when she plops down on the floor and stares at us with that “I-just-might-hurt-you” glare. What she still hasn’t fully comprehended yet is that I am more stubborn and more strong-willed than she is. I refuse to have my life dictated by a two year old, so the war wages on. I can see the end in site, but it still might be some months out. This troop refuses to pull out ~ God has placed this child in my life for a reason and I intend to stick around for the long term. I have fallen in love with her and I believe that she truly loves all of us. She tells me she loves me daily! It’s music to my ears, especially when we are having a tough day.

This post has gone on enough…I limit myself to two pages in Word~ I’ve reached that limit.
I love you Amelia SiYuan Wells. I’m glad God is allowing me the privilege of being your mother. My prayer is that I continue to do God’s will in my life and in yours.

Running through the sprinkler together...

Beach Vacation

We just returned from a week at the beach...all six of us. We had so a great time...we hated to leave. Amelia was a trooper and enjoyed every minute of it!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Bug bites and bubble baths

Bath time has turned into a sporting event at our house. If I so much as mumble "bath"...the hysterics begin. Clothes begin to fly...feet shuffle to the stairs...voices become high pitched while squealing "bath,bath,bath". Mind you, this is all Amelia. Elise doesn't become interested in the bath until she figures out that Amelia is heading upstairs and she might possible get one of her "favorite" bath toys. Yowsa...

I'm so excited that I can finally give Amelia a "horn". Her hair is finally growing and not so dry. She even has that "Don King" look in the morning. Makes me laugh when I first see her.

I know this is a little disturbing...but she seems to like it. The more bubbles, the better.

Finally, what's up with my kids and mosquito bites??? The first summer that Elise was home I took her to the doctor for what I thought was some sort of growth/reaction...it was a mosquito bite. Yep, boy did I feel stupid. Here I am...the mother of two boys ages 10 & 12 and I don't know what a bug bite looks like. But look at this poor child's cheek! This is TWO days AFTER the mosquito was shooed off the poor girls face. We try to make sure that they have on bug spray, but it was 4 p.m.~still way early! Lesson learned...all children must be appropriately doused with bug spray by 4 p.m. The sign is now posted in my kitchen