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| Easter 2016 |
It’s pretty
crazy to realize that our daughter, Joyah Mi Ni has been part of our family for
two years now! Her gotcha day was March
23, 2014 and we arrived home excited, thankful and exhausted on April 2, 2014
from China. So much has happened over
these past two years: highs, lows and
everything in between but God remains faithful and his presence feels stronger
than ever before.
Joyah was 17
months old when we arrived home from China.
She was a healthy and plump little girl who needed to learn everything
for the first time. She learned to
crawl, walk, run and play with our family.
Joyah learned how to chew food, drink and swallow over the course of the
first few months home. She used to
scream at animals, plants, trees, flowers, playgrounds and uneven walking
ground. Two years later, she is enjoying
the zoo, her puppy at home and asking to go down slides at the park. My, how God has helped her to enjoy life a
little more! Her big brothers adore
their sister. They love to play with her
and they are her biggest supporters.
Last year,
Joyah received her glasses to help with her poor eyesight and began needing to
wear a “patch” to help her weaker eye.
More recently we have gained more insight into her challenges and medical
conditions. We have noticed that Joyah
has NOT been growing as she should. She
is wearing many of the same clothes and shoes she was wearing when we brought
her home as a 17 month old. She was big
then, now at 3 ½ years old, she is extremely small. This prompted the doctors to order an MRI to
check for any further medical conditions.
January,
2016, Joyah was diagnosed with Septo Optic Dyplasia. We already knew that Joyah has underdeveloped
optic nerves which accounts for her poor vision, but this diagnosis also means
that she has other undeveloped structures in her brain. In her case, the pituitary gland is extremely
underdeveloped and is not producing the hormones it needs to for Joyah to
regulate her body and grow appropriately.
We are currently in the midst of figuring out how to replace various
hormones in order to help regulate her body.
We are thankful that God is allowing us and the doctors to start putting
some pieces together in order to help Joyah with her medical conditions.
The most
difficult part of these past two years, continues to be working through
attachment with Joyah. She has improved
over the past year since I began staying home with her and since we have kept
her close to us much of the time. Joyah
used to scream at the thought of being kissed, hugged, rocked or being played
with by her family. She is now asking
for us to sing favorite songs, asking to be kissed, hugged and rocked. However, she still is struggling with her
need to feel “in control”. She has a really
hard time accepting food at this time.
Joyah once used to follow us around wanting food at all times. Over the past few months, Joyah has decided
that if she eats something from us, she has somehow given into us. She is refusing food about 80% of the time. Sweet treats are the hardest things for her
to accept such as ice cream. Joyah once
asked for a piece of chocolate that her brothers were eating. I gave the chocolate to her and she looked at
it like I had just given her poison. It
took her 30 minutes to finally give in to eating it. This is a dangerous control battle and we
covet your prayers as she has lost weight.
Adoption is
hard. Adoption is beautiful. Adoption is a choice to Love. Adoption is a Gift. Adoption is what God did for us. God is a good, good Father and I’m glad he is
always there holding us through the waves and storms of life.
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| Celebrating "Gotcha Day" at Pizza Hut (Pizza Hut was our first meal together 2 years ago) |
