Matter of Heart
Bless Her Heart!
We come again 5 years later with requests for you, the hands that have held us up in the past, to again rally on behalf of a little broken heart….
Meet baby Grace ~
We were made aware of her situation shortly after arriving in Asia 5 months ago. She was abandoned at only a couple days old. Grace celebrated her first birthday in an orphanage in China the day before Valentines day. This precious girl has a severely complex heart defect and more than one doctor in China has deemed her “inoperable”. Basically there have been no options offered and the professional opinion of doctors is to make her comfortable as long as possible until she dies.
We were contacted because of a longstanding relationship we have had with Shanghai Healing Home who are the caretakers of this sweet girl. They reached out to see if we had any possible connections that might consider taking on Grace’s complicated case.
One look at this precious girl and our family was smitten!
What began was a whirlwind of emails, phonecalls, doctor evaluations, translation of documents, and applications for Grace to be able to receive the life-saving surgery that she needs. The Healing Home where she has lived all her life loves her dearly and have tirelessly persevered to try and “work the system” to find options for her. Through one “divine appointment” after another, we have identified a doctor here in Bangkok who is renowned in his field and willing to take on her case. Documentation is being worked on so that hopefully she can soon be adopted by someone in the States. But time is not a commodity that she has much of! We know that adoption can be a lengthy process and US hospitals will not take her unless she has been placed with a family and has come under their insurance.
Hence, we are investigating bringing her to Bangkok for open heart surgery to basically “buy her time” and stabilize her until her adoption can be completed with a family and she can travel to the US for other follow up surgeries that will be necessary. While surgery here in Bangkok will still be a huge chunk of change, it is comparatively more feasible the estimated costs we have been told uninsured surgery would be in the US.
Grace has a long and hard road ahead of her, but we have already seen God move mountains on her behalf. We know that orphans are close to Gods heart and are sensing his heart of compassion for this child as so many are already praying for a miracle in her life. WIll you join us? We’re praying God will be glorified in this tiny life and that her testimony will make believers of many! Please pray that God will show us the next step and open doors quickly and give her favor with officials who are making decision about permission for her to receive a medical visa. Pray that her life will be sustained until she can get life-saving surgery.
Pray for our Amazing Grace!!
Rough Start and Redemption
January 25th is forever an indelible date on my mental calendar. I thought perhaps being on the other side of the world and in a different time zone would “throw me off”. But it was my waking thought this morning.
January 25th – its our “what if” day.
Gratitude doesnt express our overwhelming emotion for what the Lord has done in her short life. So at risk of being redundant, I share once again on this date, the story of our girl – but more importantly, the story of our great God!!
January 25th 2008
Our 10 day old baby girl Evangeline (Evie) was thriving, or so we thought. She was a whopping 9 lbs when she was born and aside from the brief moments after birth when she appeared “blue” and was given blow-by-oxygen, we had every indication that she was healthy and normal.
Her behavior began to vary slightly throughout the day. When I would nurse her, I remember her feeling sweaty and clammy. Odd, I thought. And then I noticed some bruising on her arms. I called the pediatrician who told me to watch it and bring her in if it changed or got worse.
It was a Friday night and we had dropped our other 4 children off at Grandmas house and gone to dinner with some new friends. I slipped into a back bedroom to nurse Evie. She refused to eat. I wasn’t overly concerned.
Returning to the living room of our friends, we began to notice a strange breathing pattern in Evie. There was a “catch” in her breath whenever she would exhale.
Id had 4 babies prior to her and was familiar with “varying” breathing in new babies. They all breathe a little funny sometimes…..right?
“Is she ok?” my friend Wendy asked.
Looking back now, this was the first of many life-saving “red flags” that began to prompt something in C and I.
Leaving their house at close to 11:00pm, we decided perhaps it would be wise to swing by Urgent Care just to be on the safe side.
The lights were out and the parking lot was vacant.
Nuts.
They were closed.
Back at my mother-in-laws house, I tried to feed Evie again while C roused the kids to load them up in the car for our 45 minute trip back home.
Again I took her to breast.
Again she refused.
Again the catch in her breath left me feeling uneasy.
With a foolish sense that we were “over-reacting” C and I decided to leave the kids with Grandma and drive back into town and take Evie to the ER. The whole way there we speculated that we’d be sent home….eyes rolling by annoyed nurses….at our making a mountain out of a molehill.
I carried my bundled baby snuggled warm and safe in her blue fleece and wrapped in a crocheted blanket and filled out forms at the desk. We were kindly escorted back to triage where a routine examination began. It was here that my own blanket of security began to rapidly unravel and our world came crashing in on us….
Evies weight check showed a dramatic drop in weight. With a sense of alarm, the triage nurse called for help when she couldn’t get a pulse ox read on Evie (this measures oxygen in the blood. Sats should be close to 100 for “normal” children…Evie’s were in the teens) We stripped her down to her diaper. She was cold….very cold! The thermometer taking her temperature registered at 70 degrees. Evies body was shutting down and we didn’t even know it.
The nurse urgently swept Evie up in her arms and ran through the double metal doors. “I need help NOW” she yelled.
(Looking back now, we realize that arriving at the hospital even a few minutes later would have been…..too late)
We found ourselves shoved in the corner of Evies room as doctors and techs from every corner of ER left their patients and came hustling to Evie’s side.
Dr. B was a commanding presence that took charge.
A sick, sinking feeling washed over me as I watched the medical personnel file in one after the other.
This was not standard procedure. This was not “nothing”.
Twelve individuals in scrubs circled her bed jockeying for position.
I rode in the ambulance as the transport team escorted Evie to the next hospital. Dozens of papers requiring signatures were given to me during the drive. Numbly I signed.
They explained that Evie had Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA). Basically, the two main arteries coming out of the heart developed opposite. So instead of blood flowing through the body and mixing, her blood was not circulating through her lungs and oxygenating. So since birth, she had slowly been suffocating.
Our family and friends came to be by our side as we waited for three endless days, for a schedule opening for Evie’s life-saving-surgery. We were completely overwhelmed by the hands of support extended to our family.
During the 7 hour procedure, we received periodic digital pages from the hospital updating us while she was in surgery. Never have I prayed so hard as the hours her heart was completely stopped.
Returning to the hospital, a nurse met with us to “prepare” us for what Evie would look like post-surgery. Our baby had been through unspeakable trauma, but our little fighter could not have been more beautiful to us.
This began a long, slow and sometimes painful road to recovery. It wasn’t smooth sailing, but with “two-steps-forward, one-step-back,” (and a lot of scares along the way), our Evie has come so far! Her road to recovery took a few detours through multiple dangerous heart rhythm (tachycardia) issues that had to be controlled through medication. Then 2 additional surgeries to investigate chronic lung disease. She battled Congestive Heart Failure for the first year post-surgery. She’s overcome GERD, Failure to Thrive, and auto immune disorders. She’s spent cumulative weeks in the hospital for recurring pneumonia of her weakened lungs. SHe’s undergone over 20 chest X-rays, 4 urinary cath procedures, 4 blood transfusions, multiple CAT scans. She’s been intubated 6 times and had 22 ECHO’s and 16 EKG’s. Lets not even count the number of blood draws to date!