Wonderful News and Some Pictures...

We received a fantastic e-mail last night saying that Asa is back to his happy self. There have been two groups that traveled to the orphanage in the past two weeks and he has continued to improve. We're so happy and just thanking God for healing his little body. The reality is that Asa has had a pretty rough start in life and there may be continued challenges.

One thing we hadn't really mentioned yet is that we were told a few months ago he may have a deformity in one of his knees. I wanted to get some video and pictures when I went down so we could consult with our wonderful pediatrician about what treatment options there would be upon his arrival. When I was at the orphanage, I asked the doctor who was visiting his children if he could take a look at his knee. His knee does hyper extend, but it is probably to compensate for the fact that one leg is longer than the other; a fact easily missed by a third world doctor - - they just noticed that he held his knee funny. He will probably need to have surgery to correct this. We don't want any of our children to endure physical pain or even discomfort, so this is obviously hard for us. But we feel so blessed to know that, once in the US, there will certainly be safe and effective treatments that will enable him to be more comfortable in the long term.

Now, we just pray that the adoption will continue to progress smoothly. We are currently in IBESR. Maybe, if the current trend continues, we'll be out of that portion by early next year. We then have a few more steps in the Haitian process - so when people ask what the timeframe looks like, we say that we'd be thrilled if he's home by next summer. There are a lot of families bringing children home from our orphanage before the end of this year and the final stages seem to have recently picked up speed. We're hoping for a miracle for us and all the other families in process. This got a lot longer than I had planned... here's the best part: PICTURES!!