Hi. Welcome! Some of you may have been following our story over at "A Little Love From China" which is our blog about our adoption of Ava Rose aka "Princess Firecracker". Ava has been home with us now for 4 and a half years. These last 4 years have been an adventure to say the least. There have been many wonderful, amazing and happy moments, but there have been many scary, stressful and hard moments too. It's because of all these moments that I left the blog hanging so to speak. On this new blog, I will be bringing you up to date on all things "Princess Firecracker" AND I will be writing about all our NEW adventures too.

So, let's get started.

In a nut shell, here's what has been keeping us busy...

About a month after we brought Ava home in June of 2011, we found out that Ava had a stroke. The doctor told us it was massive, that it affected 75% of the left side of her brain.  We were also told, that if Brian or I had the same stroke as Ava did, that we would be left completely paralyzed and unable to speak.

The doctor told us that she had right sided Hemiparesis, mild Cerebral Palsey, that she would be cognitively and physically delayed and that she could have seizures. Well sure enough, about a month later, we saw her have a seizure. It probably wasn't her 1st seizure, but it was the 1st seizure we saw. We later found out, she had an Absante Seizure, the quiet, stare off into space type of seizures.  We were stunned all this news. So were her care givers in China.

And so began our journey into the world of Epilepsy. Within the first year or so of dealing with Ava's seizures, Ava had several out patient EEGs and was put on several different medicines none of which helped. We also learned that her seizures were coming from the left side of her brain, in an area near where the stroke hit. Eventually, when meds weren't controlling her seizures, one of our favorite doctors recommended we see one of his friends and former colleges who is an Epileptologist at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, Dr. Kurt Hecox. I think we 1st saw him in October of 2012. He wanted Ava to be in patient at Childrens for a 48 hour EEG. It was at that 1st 48 hour EEG that things got real and we realized just what Ava and we were dealing with. Her brain was always trying to seize or it was actually seizing.

After working with Dr. Hecox for about a year, he and his team recommended we consider surgery to stop Ava's seizures. After many prayers, discussions and tests. Surgery happened on November 4, 2013. The surgery went smoothly, however, the recovery was very rough. Very, very rough. 48 hours after surgery, Ava was still bleeding. She needed emergency surgery to stop the bleeding (in her brain... this was soooo scary...). She lost so much blood that at 36 lbs she needed 4 units of blood and a unit of platlets. She had seizure flare-ups, infections and she developed migraines, horrible debilitating migraines. The team also learned that Ava had a blood clotting disorder. Months later, she was finally doing better except that her seizures were still there. Her neuro team continued to try to figure out how to proceed with surgery. It's a long story, but they figured it out. So on Nov, 3, 2014 Ava had her second brain surgery and thankfully, this time all went well and there was only minimal bleeding. It has now been a few months over a year and we are thrilled to say, Ava is seizure free. Ava's Epilepsy Journey has been life changing in many ways and we have learned so much. There are so many more details to her story, I just didn't want to include everything here, because with this blog, it's more about looking forward than looking back. But please, if you have questions about Epilepsy, please ask.

So, we are adopting AGAIN! We have learned of another little cutie who is living at the same Social Welfare Insitute (SWI) where Ava was in Hengyang, China. Her name is Yang Xia Dan and they call her "Dani". We are thinking of naming her Emma. She turned 2 in October and she also has Achondroplasia Dwarfism. We are at the very beginning of this adoption process. We are just working on writing out Letter of Intent (LOI).

We learned about Dani this past August when we took a trip to St. Louis to attend an International China Concern US Reunion. International China Concern (ICC) is a Christian Organization created by a wonderful man, David Gotts. Their mission is to partner with the Chinese government to help rescue orphans, provide food, housing and love, offer education, medical care and train China's caregivers. Ava was absolutely blessed to be helped by her Caregivers who were supported by ICC. So, in August about 18 families who have adopted children from 3 different SWIs who have been supported by ICC and a handful of ICC caregivers were reunited for a weekend. It was truly a magical and lovely time. While visiting and getting reacquainted, Brian and I happened to mention to one of our sweet friends that we were thinking about adopting again. Ava has been asking for a little brother or sister for a while and we realized, it would be good for her to have a sibling closer in age to her. Her older brother and sister are now 22 and 20. Our friend said "funny you should mention that... We have a little girl at the center with dwarfism!" And that's how this adventure began.