Wednesday in Zhengzhou: Visit to Maria's Big House of Hope

Wednesday was another day spent traveling.

But ooooohhhhh how incredibly worthwhile this trip was!

We traveled 2 1/2 hours to Luoyang where Maria's Big House of Hope is located.

This is the special care center where Lily has been living for the past 6 months.

Maria's Big House of Hope

If you remember, we were told in February that Lily was too ill and that we could no longer adopt her.

Our adoption agency worked very hard to get Lily moved to this special care facility.

The team here - Dr. Steve, the nurses, Lily's "Aunties"....

They saved her life.

I'm not exaggerating.

They literally saved a dying girl's life.

And then on top of that, they wrote the CCCWA a letter on our behalf, requesting that we be allowed to move forward with Lily's adoption.

Without Dr. Steve and Maria's Big House of Hope, we wouldn't have Lily in our arms today.

Again, I can't post photos of the other kids at Maria's, so all I can show you are pictures of the facility, our family and other adults.

Let me just tell you, though, that the kiddos here stole our hearts! Doug was on the floor playing with them, making them laugh and even got to hold one teeny tiny little thing in his arms.

It was such a blessing for us to love on those little ones even if it was for just a few minutes.

Lily's Crib at Maria's - It still had her name and photo attached to it

Lily's room at Maria's - the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Room

Lily's Auntie.
I could tell she loved her very much.
Each child at Maria's has 4 Aunties.
For 3 days of the week, they have a day shift Auntie and a night shift Auntie.
And for the other 4 days of the week, another day shift Auntie and night shift Auntie.

Lily's Auntie showing us how well Lily can walk!

Lily has a VERY strange eating technique, so I'd been struggling to get food in her.
Dr. Steve and her Auntie whipped up some rice porridge for her and gave me a little lesson on how to feed her.
It was a HUGE help, but we definitely have a lot of work ahead of us to teach her how to eat correctly! Ha!

Another nursery at Maria's

The dorm room where people stay when they come to volunteer their time to serve at Maria's.

The new rooftop playground that was just completed this Summer by a volunteer team from the U.S.

The Wall of Memories.
Unfortunately, not every child can be nursed back to health like Lily was.
Maria's has a wonderful Palliative Care floor.
When a child passes away, they write their name on the wall of the rooftop in their memory.

The preschool classroom

Our family in front of the "SEE" wall.
"Choosing to SEE" is Mary Beth Chapman's book that she wrote about the death of her adopted Chinese daughter, Maria, whom this facility was named after.

With Dr. Steve Martin and Vickie Renich who, along with her husband and 2 children, direct operations over the Show Hope side of things at Maria's.

We spent about 2 hours at Maria's Big House of Hope. Dr. Steve spent a lot of time with us and walked us through all of the medical tests they ran on Lily.

I'm sure we will begin to understand things even better once she begins to see our specialists back home, but, for now, we are MORE than satisfied with what they were able to determine.

We knew that Lily had hydrocephalus and some brain damage from the start. We could see on an MRI taken of her brain when she was 9 months old that part of her brain was damaged.

Hydrocephalus means "water on the brain" and is usually caused by a blockage of spinal fluid and, therefore, causes it to build up pressure on the brain.  Our daughter, Caroline, had this.

Lily's hydrocephalus is static, however. Water is only on the part of the brain that is damaged. It can do no further damage and, therefore, does not need to be shunted.

As far as the brain damage goes, we had been fearful of 2 things:
1) That it was caused by some type of abuse she suffered as an infant; or
2) It was a type of leukodystrophy. I'll spare you the details, but this isn't good. Benaiah was tested for this; and I will never in my life forget the fear I felt as we awaited those test results to come back as leukodystrophies are progressive and fatal.

Neither one of these things are the case with Lily!

Several specialists looked over Lily's most recent MRI from this past March and determined that the brain damage is probably the result of an infection, such as meningitis.

I know this isn't good, but it's strange the relief I felt when Dr. Steve told us this. I was so glad to know that it wasn't a result of abuse or a leukodystrophy.

Dr. Steve was so amazed at the strength Lily has gained over the past 6 months she's spent with the wonderful team at Maria's.

We can't wait to see how she'll progress once we get home!!!