Almost "Gotcha"

If you were to do the math, you would realize that our ten day waiting period ended on Saturday, September 18. This means we could have picked the girls up from the orphanage on Monday the 20th, but we didn’t.

Most families are chomping at the bit to take their children out, and we too were looking forward to it. But the doctors, facilitator, and even our translator asked us to please wait for Autumn’s sake. Autumn is only two months out from her major heart reconstruction and although she is doing very well, she has never really been exposed to germs...

When I hold this tiny baby, I can see what my Kimani might have been like if not for the meningitis that robbed her of so much of her vision. Autumn stares right into my eyes with all her fragility and innocence.



There are many times when I second guess and play “what if” about the decisions we made with Kimani when she was in the hospital. In so many ways the situation was similar. It was like she was stuck in prison and we ached to bring her home. Maybe if we had not been so impatient to bring her home, we would not have agreed to a feeding tube... the tube that eventually led to her contracting bacterial meningitis.

Anyway, just so you know, I don’t stop the game there and wallow in sorrow and guilt... I always play it out to the end... when two years ago today she underwent the double heart surgery that saved her life. Without the weeks of being sick, she would not have had those two surgeries in the same day, and who knows what the outcome would have been for her if her aorta had been cut apart two months earlier, and her heart operated on four months later.

I tell you this just so that you can understand why I would let Masha and Autumn spend an extra week in an orphanage, rather than in my arms in the heart of Kyiv. I was afraid that Autumn would get sick, really sick, life-changing sick.

Yesterday was gotcha day. We were so excited. We brought their beautiful dresses with us to the orphanage. Five minutes from Vorzel, our facilitator got a phone call... Autumn is in the hospital. We continued to the orphanage and after many conversations with the staff and the hospital, we found out that she has cold-like symptoms and a fever. She will not be released before Monday.

Part of me thinks that maybe they are just being overly cautious, but the other part thinks they don’t take babies from the orphanage to the hospital for a just a cold. We are trying to get permission to visit her. I feel like if I can see her I will be able to tell how serious it is.

Please pray for Autumn that this is something that she will beat in a couple days.

Smooching with daddy (video)