How to take care of a colostomy!

This is Emily again, reporting on the latest adoption preparations. On Thursday, Mom and I spent two hours on Youtube watching videos on caring for a colostomy. We felt very scared and anxious after this. SO, we called our friend, Mrs. Bratton, who is a nurse, and she knew just what to do. She made an appointment for us to see a friend of hers about caring for Caroline's colostomy.

Yesterday, Mom, Dad and I went to see the nurse who specializes in ostomy care. What is an ostomy, you may ask? There are different types of ostomies, but Caroline has COLostomy, which means that her large intestine has been cut and pushed through a hole in her tummy. The nurse showed us how to care for a colostomy and we learned a lot and were encouraged that we could actually do this! After all those scary Youtubes, this was very good news!! Thank you, Mrs. Hillis!

Over the past few weeks, Annalise and I have been putting our heads together... two heads are better than one! (especially when one is mine...hehe)...to think of things to make for Caroline. We finally came up with the idea to make a poncho, matching hat, and booties. This is a picture of Annalise holding the poncho she made. I'm working on the hat and booties. I also made some bibs and pjs for her. It's been lots of fun! I can't wait to see her wearing them!!

Getting everyone updated

Hi everybody! This is Emily! I am going to be keeping everyone up to date with the adoption of our adorable baby, Yang Nui Sha, Sha-Sha for short. We will name her Caroline Hope. She is almost 15 months old, and was born in Hunan, China. We hope to travel to China this summer to bring her home.

I'll try to give you some background on our process to bring Caroline home. We decided to try to adopt from China in July 2009, but since we have so many kids in our family, we didn't know if this would be possible. China has a policy that requires no more than five children in the home. However, after contacting many adoption agencies, we found one who would work with us. Great Wall of China Adoptions in Austin, Texas, agreed to join us on this journey, and our paperwork was filed at the end of July. Mommy and Daddy are pros at filing adoption paperwork since they have adopted seven times already, and things were moving quickly. Our paperwork was sent to China and our log-in date with the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) was 12/3/09. Strangely, this was the same date our paperwork was logged in with Annie's adoption in 2004!

Mommy and Daddy were on the computer all the time looking at kids with special needs. After viewing the files on three different children, and none of them working out, we were feeling a lot of doubt and sadness. But when we saw the round little face looking back at us on the computer screen and requested her file, we knew she was a match for us! Mommy and Daddy did a lot of research on her condition (she has a colostomy and a heart defect - VSD) and were sure we could handle taking care of her. So we filed the paperwork and waited for our LSC (Letter Seeking Confirmation) which would be China's approval of our adoption of her. We were told to expect approval within 70-100 days. Our approval came in only 16 days!!!

We plan to travel sometime between mid-July/August to bring Caroline home. YAY!