Getting Better

A great moment yesterday, he snapped his head up and stared so alert when he heard my voice.

Talking to his big brother on Skype.

His perfect laugh.

Our little elf baby!

A full belly

Firstly, Thank you to everyone who continues to send notes, emails and comments of support, encouragement and information. One of the hardest parts about this is that we are in China, unable to call whatever Doctor, Early interventionist, we want and unable to drive to Walgreens (I swear I will kiss the parking lot next time I am there). The notes have helped, more than we can say. Each of you has written a note, but if you could see the cummulative amount and effect of them on us...all of a sudden the cup is half full.

Secondly, today was a good day. Luke is doing better. He is clearly more alert, he is drinking loads of bottles filled with extra calcium and vitamins, and he is loving them. He coos like a baby racoon when he eats them.

He is starting to snap his head around when he hears our voices, and playing games like laughing at me when I try to make him finish a botlle he has decided he has had enough of. These little improvements are more precious than gold.

We spent the enire day in the hotel yesterday, really, our priority has been Luke eating, so we pretty much feed him and play with him until we can feed him again. We are keeping a list of each day and how much he drinks, and it feels so good to add another bottle to his list. We're feeling kind of stir crazy, but will be going on a bus trip "to the countryside" today, the doctor said to get Luke into the sun to soak up some vitamin D.

I guess the one thing I hope everyone gets is that as hard as this is (and it is hard), there is so much joy at every little step, every moment of recognition, every time he comes out of his shell.

We have had many great moments...

The Doctor has been wonderful, I keep forgetting to ask his name, but to me, he's just Doctor Wonderful, he's been honest while giving us an attack plan. It's felt very empowering. The other families have been supportive, our representative/guide/babysitter Evelyn is constantly looking out for us, and our beautiful little Pollyanna of a daughter Casey has been able to look at the brightside of every second, when we start to feel down.



My goal today is to try to find some Enfamil. There is a doctor in our travel group who says that the baby formula here is equivalent to "NestleQuick with out the chocolate". Even the doctor says he needs formula from America. It hurts to keep giving him Chinese formula when his little body needs nutrition so badly. Evelyn says that they don't sell it in China, so it will be a challenge. I know that we will have to give it to him slowly, but even a little bit will help.



Finally, yesterday we found a treasure in Luke's Gotcha Day clothes. In the second layer, a little red envelope was sewn into the inside sleeve in tiny hand stitches. Inside was a letter written in English! It is from Luke's foster mom. We won't tell everything it said, that is for Luke to know when he gets bigger, but we will say that she loves him, and she is grateful that we came to help him. Luke was LOVED! You can tell this, as weak as his little body is, he shows in so many ways.



Last night before he fell asleep between Mike and me, he kept looking first over to Mike and smiled, and then over to me and smiled, back and forth. Oh we love that boy!