Needing Dr. Spock to Pay Us a Visit.

So, when is it too early to teach a kid about little white lies?

‘Cause my girl received this gift today…

from an elderly couple who we know through the church we used to attend…(we resigned our memberships in this church last month when we discovered that the progressive and inclusive vision that the church claimed for itself was merely prettified wrapping, rather than substantive core…but that’s for another post….)

a bit saccharine-looking perhaps, but really a perfectly cute, lime-green gingham dress, with bows and embroidered flowers…something I might buy her myself for special occasions…

and when I asked her whether she liked it, she scowled and signed “don’t like” extremely vociferously, over and over. She shook her head. She frowned.

I tried again, thinking maybe she was just babbling. Sometimes The Bee babbles in sign language, just trying things out, rather than really communicating.

She again signed “don’t like,” pulling on her shirt and discarding the pull (that’s the sign), with particular vengeance. Shaking her head no, and pushing the dress away.

She wanted to play with the fake tatoos her cousins had just sent her.

I was sort of glad that we really don’t know these folks very well and don’t particularly like anyone associated with that church right now, and so I didn’t have to feel all that bad about lying in the thank-you note.

(And the fact that I’m posting about it means I won’t be re-gifting any of my blogging buddies with said dress any time soon. Ahem.)

Truth be told, I thought the whole thing was hilarious. I suppose that’s not very mannerly of me, but, well…the girl’s got opinions! About CLOTHES. Cool.

I wonder if it has anything to do with The Bee’s newly discovered hair trigger of emotion…because, I’m telling you, the slightest whiff of wind can send her into wails right now. And it isn’t the arm splints, I don’t think…when I take them off to give her a breather, she shakes her head, signs “no, no, no,” and hands them to me to put back on. WTF?

And, yesterday, she started asking me for MORE medicine at medicine dropper time…for seven days she resisted medicine dropper time with a raging, white hot hatred for all things cherry and viscous. Yesterday, which naturally was the LAST day of medicine post-surgery, she started standing there, patiently, with her mouth open like a little bird while I squirted the stuff in, and then begging me for “more, more, more.” Go figure.

So, they don’t come with an owner’s manual, huh?

Maia’s Meme

So, I got tagged for a Meme by Maia over at Other Flowers. If you don’t read her blog, you should. She and hubs are adopting a little girl (SN) from China and have an amazing homegrown son, Spike, and she’s writing screenplays for Hollywood, and used to be the moderator at Hipmama.com, and has very cool roses. Go visit. Say hello. You’ll love her writing.

She also recently sent The Bee the complete collection of Harry Potter books, which I have to admit to not reading before now. I was skeptical and pissy about HP for the past ten years. I think it stems from the fact that I used to live in Holland, Michigan, and teach at the college there, and the town–under the pervasive and perverse influence of the Dutch Reformed Church–decided to ban HP from the town library because, doncha know, magic is the work of the devil. (They also tried to ban Halloween, for similar reasons.) HP became a pawn in the debate, and I got very easily fed up with the debate…mostly because even those fighting against the warped minds of the city elders (which is the position you might think I’d be siding with) were really only a little less co-opted into that culture than the city elders themselves. Anyway, long story. But I’ve been reading HP (not yet with The Bee…she needs a few more years to graduate to books without pictures), and I’m on the fourth book, and I’m loving them. They got me through the hospital stay and stress last week. So, here goes…

Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line four, and write what it says.

“There is no path. You make the path in going.” (an Antonio Machado quote in Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems)

Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What can you touch?

A case of blank CD’s. A map of the ranch. The Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Quarterly. My (broken) iPod.

What is the last thing you watched on TV?

CBS Sunday Morning…which, if you are a long-time reader of this blog, you know from another meme is what I consider the paragon of good TV. I mean, people, they played Pavarotti singing the ENTIRE Puccini aria he made famous–not just the two-second soundbite that’s been playing on every other news and entertainment cast. It made me cry.

Without looking, guess what time it is.

12:30. (It’s actually 12:56 PM)…

With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?

The three dogs snoring, out-of-unison.

When did you last step outside? What were you doing?

I have to step outside to get to my computer, to get to my office. It’s located in a different building than the main house, which ended up being one of my bigger motherhood mistakes. The video monitor doesn’t work down here, so I either have to run out here quickly at the start of one of The Bee’s naps and spend only half-an-hour checking email and (trying to) check blogs, or I have to make sure R. has monitor-duty, which is the situation right now.

Before you started this survey, what did you look at?

I read email and then checked Bloglines and read my fave blogs.

Did you dream last night?

Yes. Couldn’t tell you what. I’ve been trying to invoke a Sirius Black dream, but I don’t think it’s working.

When did you last laugh?

Oh, that’s a hard one. This hasn’t been a week real big on the laughter. I definitely smiled and maybe giggled when The Bee and I were watching gymnastics on TV this morning…she likes the flips.

What is on the walls of the room you are in?

Pink paint (“Dog’s Ear” by Behr). A pink mirrored medicine-cabinet-shelving unit that I found at a fleamarket, full of mercury-glass flamingoes; postcards of the Mexican loteria; three sacred chess pieces that a friend brought me from Mexico City; the seven round stones that R. gave me when we were dating that represent the seven directions of the Cherokee–north, south, east, west, up, down, and in; a little tree made out of rose quartz; old lead molds; a rusted pocket watch that the tractor dug up in the field here at the ranch; a 19th-c. postcard of the Engle Clock. Two large, 19th-c., empty wooden frames (I like frames, just for frames). Book shelves. A Jack Russell Terrier calendar. A sepia-toned print that my sister did of old gear parts.

Seen anything weird lately?

All the prickly-pears have fallen to the ground and are currently being carted off by red ants.

What do you think of this Meme?

At the risk of sounding like an English teacher, it has a couple “yes” or “no” questions in it, which is always a no-no if you want to pin people down.

What is the last film you saw?

I watched Legends of the Fall again on TV the other night when I couldn’t sleep. And R. and I caught most of Cars recently too, with The Bee, which we absolutely loved.

If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?

A publishing house. A beach house. (Not the same type of “houses” at all, huh?)

Tell me something about you that I don’t know?

I like casement windows. I regularly visit a spiritual intuitive…actually, she’s a friend of mine.

If you could change one thing about the world, what would you do?

Eliminate violence–in all its myriad forms. That should pretty much cover it.

Comment to President Bush.

What a fucking waste.

Would you ever consider living abroad?

All the time.

What do you want to say to God when you get to heaven?

You’ve got your work cut out for you…oh, and, can you point me the way to Shakespeare?

Smooth Moves

We arrived home yesterday and have been adapting well. The Bee cries when she eats, but that is what is supposed to happen (according to the literature) because, after all, her mouth is scratchy and rough from the sutures, as well as SMALL. As one doctor put it, she used to be able to drive a train through there, and now it feels claustrophobic. Um, yeah. Okay.

The wound care is really nonexistent with this surgery–the sutures dissolve on their own, and of course there are no ointment or bandages, being in the mouth. It’s just a matter of keeping prying digits and hard food away. Last night, we had a concoction of parboiled chicken, sauteed celery, carrots, and zucchini, chicken broth and soy sauce, all dumped in the blender and churned into thinness. She seemed alternatively ravenous and dismayed, as she felt the way her mouth is going to feel from now on when she eats. This morning we had a banana, strawberry, apple, and yogurt smoothie…she finished the whole thing.

I know there are a few people adopting kids who are cleft-affected who read regularly, so I’m going to list the top five things I took along to the hospital that ended up being a Good Idea:

(1) Snuggle Wraps. I mentioned these already in a previous post, but I want to emphasize that these arm splints are far superior to the ones that the hospital will give you. All the nurses were raving about them and asking me where I’d found them. They are cooler, lighter, and more flexible (fit under clothing) than the puffy things with the strap across the back that the hospital provides.

(2) The Haberman Feeder. The Bee never used one of these before the surgery (they’re typically used for small babies with cleft issues), but it was invaluable after the surgery for squirting small amounts of liquid into the well, under her lower lip. This was how we broke the spell on Thursday afternoon that got her to start taking liquids. It is also useful to use as a cleaning agent, to swish some water around her mouth after feeding, to make sure no bits of chicken smoothie remain stuck around her sutures. Faster healing that way.

(3) This Doctor’s Kit. I gave this toy doctor’s kit to The Bee about a week before the surgery, and we practiced using all the toy instruments–the stethoscope, the blood pressure gauge, the thermometer, the syringe, the bandaid–so that when she saw the real things, I could just remind her what they were. I think it made a difference in that she was familiar with The Stuff of Doctors (and Nurses) during our stay. She was showing the nurses how to listen to their own hearts the day after surgery.

(4) I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: signing makes a world of difference, whether you know your child is going to have surgery or not. The Bee was able to sign her emotions, like “hurt,” “scared,” “love,” “like,” “don’t like,” as well as “stop!” and “all done,” when she wanted the nurse to leave her alone. I actually wish we had brought the DVD player and her Signing Time videos with us because she just absolutely lights up, calms down, and watches closely when they are on the TV. It is like Calm Candy to her. I will say that I didn’t think about how the arm splints would affect her signing ability–and, thus, her ability to communicate, which all of us have begun to take for granted–but, of course, they do. It’s impossible for her to bend her arms to make certain signs, although with a little imagination, I can usually figure out what she’s trying to sign to me, in her current stiff-armed fashion.

(5) For mom and dad: bring slippers, sweat pants, old shirts, and a flashlight for your overnights in the hospital room. Bring your child’s favorite blanket, a couple stuffed animals, and some of his or her favorite books. They told us to bring pajamas for The Bee, but she never wore them–it was just so much easier to keep her in diapers alone, as she was hot and stuffy most of the time and uncomfortable enough that I think changing her into clothes would have been a nightmare. Apart from being a source of comfort, the stuffed animals also became a way for the nurses to interact with The Bee about the medicine–they could pretend-feed her panda bear, and then tell her (sign to her) “your turn,” and they actually got her to participate in the dosing that way.

Okay, that’s my assvice on this subject. Although no surgery is a walk in the park, and no parent wants to see their child upset or in pain, I would do this again in a second for the opportunities it represents to these kids. It is very doable, as I have heard other parents remark. I shudder–heart-shudder–to think that these kids are ever considered disposable, by anyone, anywhere. In fact, that idea makes me so sick to my stomach that my palms started to sweat, just thinking about it. This child has been such a dream of a child. So incredibly perfect. In fact, I hate that I even have to say that out loud. It shouldn’t be necessary.

Turning Point…

Well, I just spent an hour writing a post that then timed out on my wi-fi purchase here at the hotel…it’s too late to re-create it, so just the basics:

The Bee is taking liquids! From a Haberman Feeder (look it up, I had the link embedded for you, but lost it…) I stood by her bed for several hours and every 20 seconds, sent a squirt into her mouth. It broke the spell. (She doesn’t use cups–hates them–and is refusing jello and milk. But 230 cc’s is a good start.) We can go home tomorrow.

R. is at the hospital with her tonight. I miss her. I keep looking out the hotel window at the lights of the hospital down the road.

She slept for several hours on my chest today, which made me think a lot of her birth mother. I think because her heart was so close to mine–as close as her heart had been to her birth mom. It made me sad. I thought a lot about the little village of Donggou, where The Bee was born. It made me want to take her back there, as soon as she’s able to understand.

So, tomorrow we’ll return home, where we can commence feeding all sorts of goop-meat-smoothies that I’ve been copying recipes of for several months…yippppeeeee for home.

Despite the fact we were here longer than anticipated, it made me see what a fierce spirit my girl has, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. She fights for herself, and I hope that carries her far.

The Refusnik…

or, as R. has become fond of saying, “our little dissident.” It is Thursday morning (see other post below for info on Tuesday and Wednesday), and The Bee is still refusing to drink. She is clearly hungry–she perks up and signs “yes” when I ask her if she wants (rice) milk; I take her arm splints off, she grabs the bottle and takes a swig–only to burst into violent tears and thrashes. She is having trouble accepting her new mouth, I’m sure it feels very scary to her, and she has dug in in her stubborn way and refuses to acknowledge it. So, nothing shall pass those lips.

Did I mention my girl had opinions?

I don’t know what will happen if she continues to refuse…she signs that she wants to go home, but the doctor won’t let her go until she’s drinking well. She has no fever, no blood, her vitals are all great–the healing is progressing in her mouth without her. She is obviously enraged that we made the decision to change her mouth and has decided to deny it.

We thought we had a breakthrough this morning, when we played the “Cheers!” game with her–(thanks be to God, J., and E., for teaching The Bee about “cheers!”)–and insisted that after you do “cheers!”, you have to drink. She took a swig and promptly burst into tears and full body lunges.

So, that’s all I’ve got. I may be looking at yet another night on the cot unless we figure out a way to break the spell.

The Hospital Room

The post below was written Wednesday afternoon, but the servers in this hospital wouldn’t let me post…so when I refer to “yesterday” throughout, it really means Tuesday…

Sorry I haven’t updated. I tried. But there’s no wi-fi in the rooms, only in the waiting room and the cafeteria, and when I went down there to post, the servers were all down. I could read email, but I couldn’t blog. I’m sitting in front of the vending machines, and it’s a bit like Vegas around here since I haven’t been outside in two days—I have no idea what time it is…thank you all for your supportive messages. The Bee seems to be perking up, even since I wrote the post below…

“She won the lottery.” That’s what the very nice anesthesiologist said yesterday when we went back to Recovery to see The Bee after surgery. Some kids who have cleft palates end up not having enough tissue on either side of their mouths to fold over into the open space and suture together for a new roof…but The Bee did. Relief, relief, relief. His lordship also managed to close the alveolar cleft (the cleft in her right front gum), which we weren’t sure was going to happen today or not—this saves us a future surgery. So, she had her gum, her hard palate, and her soft palate all completely closed…basically, her entire mouth, front to back—now, comes the hard part: the first 10 days. No solid foods, no prodding toys, no fingers, no pacifiers, no sippy cups, no elbows.

And I have to say she’s my girl: her sense of rank injustice is finely honed. She is refusing to eat, refusing to drink, doesn’t want anything or anyone near her mouth. She is denying us. She is pissed off. We are probably here another night (unless she wakes up from her current nap requesting hamburgers out of the blue) because she is guarding her wound with a fierce mama-bear ‘tude. And the girl who never showed a sign of grieving in China? Yesterday afternoon and evening, she was refusing to make eye contact with me…she had her little spot on the ceiling that she would disappear into, and her eyes stuck to it as if…as if…as if she had just been handed to us by an ayi at Metcha. And she shut down, withdrew inside herself, glazed over. The nurse was waving her hand in front of The Bee’s eyes this morning and getting…nothing. I imagine Nurse was a bit worried. I just wondered in that AP wonderment way where The Bee was, where she had disappeared to. I knew she’d be back. It took a Coke bottle to bring her around to a small smile this afternoon. She loves twisting the top off and on, off and on.

Most of yesterday and this morning she spent in my arms. She is asking for comfort, wanting to be held. Just not fed. Not medicated. Not fussed over. I had heard to wear an old shirt, and it’s a good thing. Yesterday there was quite a lot of blood, viscous blood. Today there isn’t any, but her lip area remains quite swollen. At first, she was as scared about the arm splints as anything else, but today she is playing with some toys they brought her from the playroom, and she has already adapted to the Frankenstein-creature sort of arm motions she has to make. She did sleep in her bed last night, and at 3:15 in the morning, I woke up to find her playing with her stuffed panda bear—and her IV fallen out from the foot catheter where it’s supposed to be keeping her hydrated. Instead, it had spent three hours emptying itself onto her blankets. Her bedding was soaked.

His lordship had left instructions (“orders” in hospital-speak, doncha know) to feed her only breast milk or formula. WTF? So, even though he met us a couple times, including yesterday after the surgery, and had just spent two hours working on her, he fails to realize that (a) she is 2 years (and one month) old and hasn’t been on formula for months now, and (b) she is adopted, so chances are pretty effing good that I’m not breastfeeding. Most of the literature I’ve been given about the procedure is written with a much younger patient in mind, the 6-9-month-old, homegrown patient—the assumption being that the prescribed liquid diet is no big accommodation since the patient is only consuming breast milk or formula anyway. Ha. The Bee had lasagna on Monday night, thank you very much. And carrots and zucchini and cucumbers and french fries and a bite of bbq ribs. I had the same problem with the literature at the pediatrician’s, written for the homegrown, bio kids only, when I first brought The Bee in to that office…all sorts of genetics questions, for instance. I get my ire up at the sight of exclusivity. It’s time there was inclusive language for the experience of adoption, and I dare say, for the experience of special needs. Isn’t this an accessibility issue?

And then the peds resident came in last night on her rounds, and the conversation goes something like this:

Dr.-To-Be: So, was his cleft palate congenital?…er…has he had it since the day he was born?

SBird: [Let the seething commence.] Her. She. She’s a she. And, yes, it was congenital.

DTB: Sorry. She. It’s her name that made me think…er, so, who’s your pediatrician? I mean, why did they wait so long to fix the defect?

SBird: [JFC, am I really having this conversation? Did this yahole read her chart? Bother to talk to a nurse? Are they this effing insensitive on Gray’s Anatomy?] We’ve only had her four months. She’s adopted. We got in as soon as we could.

DTB: Oh. She’s from another country, you mean?

SBird: She’s from China.

DTB: Oh! Wow. She is soooo lucky. [Beaming brightly at me.]

SBird: [Past the point of wanting to blow DTB’s brains out…moved on to wanting to blow my brains out…] We’re lucky, actually.

So, I am assuming we will have another night here. So I can hone my sarcasm further and The Bee can practice her Grand Gesture of Denial.

The Waiting Room

So, here I am (with R.) in the room in the hospital filled with waiting families where they have free wi-fi but no coffee trying hard not to think about the accordion-like device a few rooms away, going up and down, up and down, with my daughter’s breathing.

The nurse just came in the waiting room to ask us (from the doctor) whether we wanted him to pull her top right incisor. It is rotten (this is usually, by the way, NOT a cleft thing, but rather a poor dental care in China thing), which I knew, having seen it, but we were waiting to go to the dentist until after the surgery. So, there we were, making our first semi-big decision…we had him pull it. It was gray, which indicates a dead tooth, so I am assuming that the dentist would have pulled it. It’s a baby tooth anyway, right?

We met with the head nurse, the assisting surgeon, and the anesthesiologist pre-surgery, but NOT the all-herald-his-lordship-he’s-expensive-but-oh-so-good plastic surgeon, who didn’t show up. The nurse came out of the operating room to apologize for that too–she’s made two trips out to see us so far. Well, Dr. Lordship DID just return from his month of vacation yesterday, so perhaps he was…er…running late. R. said he’s just hoping he wasn’t hung over. I’m not sure whether being the first surgery post-holiday is a good thing or a bad thing…he might be refreshed and raring to go, or he could have gone rusty while lying in the sands of some idyllic resort, his surgery hands being splashed gently by a turquoise tide.

I don’t usually employ sarcasm as a response to stress. I usually just order a dirty martini and pop a xanax. Or blog. If y’all found any comments from me this morning, it’s because I’m reading everything you’ve written for the past week and then some. I can’t always seem to see pictures, however. Must be some homeland security invisi-wall in this here hospital.

The Bee is dressed in a tiger hospital gown, BTW. She signed tiger a lot, as they were injecting cherry Versed down her throat. Then she got all loopy and happy-like. Giggled a lot. Versed is supposed to erase her memory of the surgery completely, the nurses told us, thus allowing her to continue her groovy feelings for the hospital experience. Um, yeah. Good luck with that happy pill.

Here is our view from our hotel window:

That would be the hospital itself, a shining beacon on the hill. Oooops, more sarcasm.

Okay, try again: that’s the hospital, a mere 0.3 miles away from the hotel, according to the Google search I did on ‘hospital hotels’ a few weeks ago. We were golden. R. even did a dry run last night, just to time the drive.

Except for the fact that we couldn’t find our way out of the hotel parking garage this morning. Think: Seinfeld episode. Think: SBird getting short and snippy. In sore need of a Starbucks, which is about the only decent thing in the lobby of this hospital. Have I mentioned there’s a lot of waiting involved in your child having surgery? Um, yeah. And pagers. They give you a pager for everything, like you’re waiting for a table at The Cheesecake Factory. That was The Bee’s favorite toy this morning, pre-Versed. After Versed, she liked the blinking toy that played “Rockin’ Robin.” She swayed.

Okay, in all seriousness and genuineity, thank you to my peeps for sending loving thoughts along to us and The Bee. Me’s appreciates it more than you know. More later.

We’re off…

down to the Valley of Death this morning, to settle in a bit before The Bee’s surgery tomorrow morning. I am feeling a bit of zen at the moment…zen before the storm, I guess. The surgery tomorrow is at 10, we have to be there at 8, then I’ll be staying overnight in the hospital on a cot, and then we leave for home again on Wednesday.

We are staying here. I think I had some silly notion of using the bar. Frequently. I suppose they have room service, no?

I promised to post a picture of The Bee’s arm splints (not really restraints, she won’t ever be tied down…the splints are used to immobilize her elbows, so she can’t bend her arms and poke her fingers through her new ceiling). I ordered Snuggle Wraps, which are supposed to be much better than the older kinds of arm splints that were big and puffy and hot and sweaty. These are light and have holes for air circulation and can fit under long sleeves. So, that’s what we went with.

Last night, I went around collecting all of The Bee’s long pointy toys–xylophone mallets; Mr. Potato Head arms; sand shovels; crayons; lincoln logs–that she can’t have for the next 10 days. We have recipes for all sorts of meat smoothies (now, doesn’t that sound yummy?), and a humidifier in her room (which helps with swollen tissues…), and Tylenol on hand. I think we are ready on the practical end of things.

Of course, it will be horrible for a few hours tomorrow (I hate anesthesia with a white-hot, fear-full passion), and then it will be hard for a few days after that, but there is also a strange sense of excitement mixed in…excitement for The Bee. Excitement for the opportunity to revise her cleft and allow her to make words with her mouth, as well as her hands.

And, in a weird coincidence…the first time I ever saw The Bee’s face was a year ago tomorrow. I woke up on Labor Day last year, decided I was Done (with a capital D) with not being a mommy, contacted a dozen agencies by email even though I knew they were on holiday that day, and got sent a list of waiting children with The Bee’s picture on it the next day. I am so glad I saw the writing on the proverbial CCAA wall and got fed up. I found my daughter that way, by aggressively trusting my instincts, by using anger to prompt me into action, and so I can only call it a nearly providential moment (a tricky word, that providential). Who knows why I got to be the lucky one? But I definitely did.