Emily is such a part of our family now that it feels more like forever....
We are so blessed by this sweet, spunky, sometimes stubborn, and very compassionate little girl. She truly brings smiles to our faces daily.
It's been a busy few months. We have had Emily to Pittsburgh Children's several times for evaluations on her cleft lip and palate repair, hearing checks, and dental visits. She has been a trooper! We've learned that although her palate looks great and there are no fistulas, when they repair the palate in China they don't attach the muscles in the soft palate, so Emily can not move her soft palate like she should. Therefore, she pushes a lot of sounds through her nose instead. She is great at mimicking though, and tries very hard to make the sounds correctly, so we have started speech in the hope that she could potentially learn to build up enough oral pressure that she can make sounds appropriately. .
We have therefore enrolled Emily in the Early Intervention program with our school district where she receives speech twice a week. She loves Miss Gail and Miss Kelly and looks forward to going to "school" at Miss Nicole's. Emily wasn't enrolled in preschool at China because of her speech :(. It breaks my heart that they think this bright little girl wasn't worthy of school. Her foster mother wrote in her journal to us that Emily always wished she could go to school. She also receives speech twice a week with our wonderful neighbor and speech pathologist, Jeff. She loves Mr. Jeff and his name is heard often in our home while she is playing! Just yesterday morning, she jumped on her little tricycle bike, put her purse on her shoulder, and announced she was going bye bye to go see "Mr. Jeff!"
Emily is scheduled to have ear tube surgery March 15. Although her ears look great according to the doctors, she apparently has fluid behind them as her hearing tests show that her eardrum isn't moving like it should. It will be interesting to see if that makes a difference in her speech once that is done! If her speech doesn't improve in the next month with her speech therapy and tubes, then she will likely need a palate repair.
Her language is incredible She talks constantly and has a huge vocabulary. She loves to learn and can already identify several letters, knows several colors, counts to 10, and has been saying her ABC's since we were in China! All of these things should have been more difficult to learn and understand, and so she just amazes us! She's learning to write her name and loves to practice tracing shapes and letters! I expected us to have a lot more difficulty communicating, but she is VERY good at getting her point across. Even with her unclear speech at times, she is able to use other words or gestures to tell us what she wants.
Emily at her "school." Thank you Miss Nicole for sending this sweet photo!
Check out the adorable matching aprons that my friend made for Emily and her doll!
This picture was a day or two after we were home....she was seeing the washer working for the first time.
Love this!
Our church family blessed us with a Welcome Home party for Emily...she loved all of her toys and clothes!
Emily has a great imagination! "Eating" her yummy watermelon.
"This is Emily," she proudly told me! The lines going straight up are her beloved piggy tails!!
So this is what it feels like to be big brother, Kyle!!
We have been so blessed by so many people....family, friends, our church family, and my work family. Thank you to everyone for welcoming Emily home!!! We are so appreciative of all of you!! And most of all, we are so thankful that God blessed us with this amazing daughter!
How sweet! I am glad it is going well and pray that her surgery will go well and that she will not have any complications. Praying for Emily!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! We really appreciate your prayers!!
DeleteWow! Already three months? Emily is just so, so sweet! I can't wait to actually meet her in person. One of my children's speech improved after ear tubes. Hoping you have a great outcome there.
ReplyDelete