Our Adoption Story: Update and Special People!

As I mentioned earlier, we discovered that Will has holes in both eardrums, so off he and I went to Children's on Wednesday. We saw Dr. Audie Woolley, pediatric ENT and had a hearing test on Will. He has mild to moderated hearing impairment in both ears - bad enough for a hearing aid if he had no further intervention. Of course, we will try the surgery route to patch the holes but you can only do one at a time and there is a time period of 6 mod. in between surgeries. His first surgery is scheduled for Sept. 8. He can't swim for 6 weeks after surgery so we wanted to wait until after summer. He also has a heart murmur so we have to get that checked out this summer before surgery as well - poor fella! But he just takes it all in stride. I think he sees everything as an adventure!

Two people have been such blessings in our lives and God brought both people into our lives in a unique way. The first is Dora Stan who is from Romania. She and her family have been in the US for a number of years and is fluent in both English and Romanian. I was at Ann Amster's house one day and Rebekah Tankersley comes over and we started talking about the Will and Lena. The conversation turned to language and Rebekah began to tell me about Dora. We had lunch last summer (2013) and when we finally got the children home, Dora came over. She and Will communicate beautifully and can even talk by phone. I call Dora and ask her to explain something to Will on the phone and she gets him to tell her back so she knows he understands. For example, Dora explained to Will how church would be the day before his first Sunday. She has helped us soooo much! She has also helped the children understand why we don't want them doing certain things and Will has been able to share some of his feelings and fears with her that we otherwise wouldn't have know about. Thank you Dora for all your help and your sweet spirit.

Dora with Lena, Will and Hope

The second person is Pat Amerson. We had looked for someone to help for quite sometime, because we expected the children home so much earlier. We had not had any success. While Hope and I were in Moldova, Jeanne Tuley spent a day with us. She was in Moldova on a mission trip with her church.
She told me about a lady that had worked with Jay and Scarlet (her son and family) for years and was looking for another family. Little did I know that Andy was talking to Jay about Pat while I was in Moldova. Mrs. Pat started working part-time before Will and Lena came home and now she is working full time. She loves the children and has been very patient with them!