Prayers Needed

It is with much sadness that I make this post. Our family received Megan on Monday afternoon (9/21) with much joy and anticipation of the life we would have together. Within hours of bringing Megan to the hotel, Tamra noticed that Megan would not respond to our voices or any noise for that matter. I was unwilling to believe it and shrugged it off to have something to do with a cold that Megan had. We put Megan to bed for the night and amazingly she slept the entire night. The problem was that in the morning she did not awake when we called to her. Clapping over her head did not even wake her up. She awoke only when we picked her up. We arranged with our adoption coordinator to take Megan immediately to a doctor. The doctor could not give us a specific diagnosis, only a general observation due to the official procedures required by the Chinese adoption agency. Only an official children's hospital can make a diagnosis for an orphan. His observation was that Megan was either near or completely deaf with some other medical issues. He stated that it was possible, given that Megan was an orphan from the southern rural area of China, that her birth mother had a disease such as rubella during the first trimester of the pregnancy. Tamra took Megan to the children's hospital over the next two days with the aide of our adoption coordinator. They evaluated Megan's developmental delay and hearing. The results were not real encouraging. Basically, her developmental skills ranged anywhere between 1 month (fine motor) to 9 months (gross motor) with her mental development at around a 3 to 5 month old. Megan is about 20 months old. The hospital's assessment is consistent with what Tamra and I had observed in the few days we had with her. Institutionalized orphans are inherently developmental delayed, but this with her deafness and poor eyesight probably would not cause the delay we see in Megan. The results of the hearing test indicated that both ears were functioning correctly. Megan's congenital deafness was then a result of either cochlear nerve damage or her brain itself, not being able to translate sound. In most cases, it is not treatable. As you all know Megan had severe esotropia. When I took into account the combination of congenital esotropia, nerve deafness and developmental delay, I could not help but think back to what the first doctor had said about congenital rubella syndrome. That was not his official diagnosis, but the children's hospital was not going to provide any more test to pinpoint the problem. It was at this point that our adoption coordinator presented us with some options. He stated that based on the observations and tests that the children's hospital did perform, we had more then a compelling case to petition the Chinese adoption agency for another child due to the inadequate medical record that had previously been given to us. Our coordinator stated that from time to time this happens. We were presented with this article by a family member while we were going through the decision. http://www.theadoptionguide.com/options/articles/lost-daughters

Many of you know that Tamra and I have searched out to find a special needs orphan to bring into our family. Tamra and I have even had discussions to the possibility of more then one. We have always contended however, we will take one day at a time with that decision. I personally felt that if we continued with the adoption of Megan that it would preclude us from ever adopting again. I further thought that there may be a chance that Megan may be adopted by another family, one that will know how to better care for her needs. Needless to say, this is a very difficult situation for our family, especially Tamra and the boys who are with us (Trent and Jared). How does one come to a decision such as presented to our family? Not without a great amount of angst. Today (9/24), I drafted a letter to the Chinese adoption agency to petition them for another special needs girl. We delivered the letter and returned Megan at the same time. As of now, we do not know if our request for another child will be granted. We will find out more in the next few days and keep everyone posted. Please keep Megan in your thoughts and prayers.

Chris