Oh how much better it feels to be getting sleep! Finally, after 2 weeks home we are all sleeping during the hours we should be sleeping. Thank goodness! I had no idea how hard it would be to re-adjust to EST!
A great Halloween with a Kitty, June from the Little Einsteins, Batman, and Ron Weasley.
It has been fun watching Hannah day by day. I can already tell that she is understanding more and more English. She is responding fairly regularly to her name, and has said, “hi”, and “uh-oh”. 🙂 When we were first together, she would only sit in my lap facing me, frequently holding on for dear life. Now she is content to sit in my lap the regular way. 🙂 She also did not seem to have the muscles to help hold herself when being carried on a hip, like most children do who are carried regularly. That too is starting to change, and she is learning that she likes to be carried, and locks her legs onto me when I start to put her down. She also doesn’t seem to be making all of the same little sounds that she was making in China. I’m kind of sad to see those go…
Today we went for her visit to the cardiologist. As the time came nearer, I got really nervous. We really had no idea about the quality of her heart repair. We got there today and she had several different tests for her heart, including an Echocardiogram, where she had to lay still for more than 20 minutes. Luckily I thought to ask them if they had a lollypop. She didn’t disappoint me. Her love of all things food won over, and she lay nicely sucking her lollypop the entire time!
After it was over, the cardiologist explained step by step what it means to have Tetrology of Fallot. I had already done a lot of my own research, but it was reassuring to hear it from him also. He said what I was most wanting to hear; that her heart was repaired well. The downside was that one of her valves is leaking pretty badly. He said that she is definitely going to need a valve replacement at some point in the next 5 years or so. He really couldn’t say when. We will be followed closely by the cardiologist, and when the right side of her heart begins to enlarge, she will have the valve replacement. It wasn’t the best news, but so far from what it could have been!
We are just so glad to have this happy girl!