a life (and physical) changing experiance

left-this was the moment Judy and Vicky, and the rest of us got to see the full extent of the 5.63 inches added to her height.

right-one of Judy's friends, Sarah, she was helping get Judy in the car to come home, but through Judy's stay at the hospital she also cared and comforted her.

the pain button was her best friend at times, the x-ray on the left is before, on the right is after.

December 6th Claude, myself and Judy checked into the Children's Hospital in St. Louis, MO for spinal fusion surgery. We were all thankful for what was a fast start to getting changed into surgery clothes, vitals taken, medical information sharing, and a perfectly set up I.V. on the first try. Judy had to receive a massive dose of an antibiotic since she was going to have a lot of metal rods and screws put in the back plus some artificial "bone". This med can create itching, and getting very warm...thankfully Bendadryl solves the itching and cold rags helped the warm face. We called Vicky on the phone and shared prayers as Judy was getting sleepy from pre-surgery meds and then said our good byes to her at the doors to surgery. Claude and I both had tears, praying for this child who waited forever to be adopted and to come America for the best Dr. to treat her Scoliosis. And for what we knew she would be going through during recovery. The surgery started at 9 a.m. and we did not see her in recovery until about 6:30 p.m. and when we did we saw a child attached to three I.V.'s and a central line, compression socks, heart monitors, simply everything....but she opened her eyes to say to us thank you Mama, thank you Baba...oh baby thank YOU!

Judy was in PICU overnight, the next morning when Dr. Linke came in to see her she opens her eyes to say Thank you, Dr. How humbling this child is in her gratefulness. She sat up on the side of the bed while yet in PICU, was moved to a regular room that afternoon, which turned out to be the same one we were in with with Gracie in 2010!

On this floor Judy continued to touch everyone with her thank yous, she called the nurses girlfriend or friend, and they all were simply the best ever! We had to deal with several pleasant things, balloons and stuffed animals sent to her, wonderful care from the providers, great pain team to keep her comfortable...but some yucky things too, breathing treatments, laying flat on her back and not able to turn to throw up (imagine long hair all around her now covered in it) getting up several times a day to walk (she stayed very very strong and walked as far as they wanted to each time).

Judy was released on Tuesday afternoon, a week after her surgery. The Nurses aid Sarah and I got her in the car, her and i held hands and I said just be strong and brave Judy for this 4 hour ride home. She had a wonderful smile for me. What a daunting thing to face, a four hour ride with a spinal patient...at the Alton, IL exit I let my friends Mark and Barb know that we had went past their check point and things were ok and she sent me back the message that she had placed Angels all around our car to get us home. This message stayed with me the whole ride home! Thank you Babs.

We stopped in Springfield next and she got moved to the back seat to lay down and she rode the rest of the way home there. Claude opened the door here at home and looked down over her and she just giggled in delight to be home. I felt like crying in relief to be home!

We are so thankful for Judy having came through this HUGE surgery safely, for Dr. Leinke and his whole team of nurses, pain management, and all for handling this child's health and care as if it were themselves being treated. We are thankful for the 6 girls at home that handled the separation of family during this time as well as they did, and for our family helping or offering to help. Thank you to Carrie and Jodi for the care, and the daunting task of taking 6 girls to get their photos taken, to Cindy and Crystal for filling in here at home besides everything else you do for us. Judy's recovery will be in stages, the first two months the critical time of healing, after that it is 6months of limited activity and then for the rest of a year she still has to be careful. right now she is to lay straight, and has to be helped sit, lay, get up, with no twisting. Even washing her hair now is a task as her back cannot get wet. Everyday will get easier we are sure...today she wanted to do Match class so now she is resting until it starts...an amazing child! And the even better parts to this story is that Judy has seen God answer her prayers and learned that He does listen to you. Plus she "grew" 5.63 inches in height. Please continue keeping her in your prayers....will be a long recovery.

Thanksgiving and so much to be thankful for

I am not that good at this blog and editing...so the labels are not by the photos as they should be...the first one is of our son Alex who had to have part of the $ dance at Eric and Chelsea's wedding, I did not get a picture of the end "dip" but it was fabulous! Good job Alex.

The second is Eric and Chelsea with our grand-children Drew and Gabbie

The third is of our grand-daughters (L) Natalie and (R) Ava. What a perfect picture!

The fourth is of all of us "girls". I was so thankful that Beth was available for an early morning visit to our house to do hair for everyone! This is the completed job! Thank you Beth!!

The fifth is of Eric and Alex. They came for a early morning breakfast the day of Eric's wedding. Eric was practising his first kiss of the new Mrs. Williams...Alex was not that excited about him being the practise target.

We seem to have been in a whirlwind lately. Claude and I made the decision to home educate the girls that are in Jr. high and High School. It was hard to understand how a child can be an A student but not be able to read close to that grade level, or how can a child be considered to be put in drivers Ed when they cannot read a sign?, and when a child asks to be moved out of an environment and you speak to them to ask more questions to understand why and to see why it became clear it was time to act on that little push/idea we had been having for the last 2 years. So 4 girls start home education this coming Monday! We are very blessed to have a great team, both Cindy and Crystal will be our educators and we will be involved as well.
Our son Eric married Chelsea and joined his family with hers. We now have another grand-daughter named Gabbie and who is so sweet!. The day was perfect for all and was a wonderful wedding.

Judy had been scheduled for a Halo traction starting in Oct but another child was in need of the Dr much more than Judy and she was bumped out of the line-up. We met with Dr. Leinke the Wed before Thanksgiving and she is now scheduled for surgery Dec. 6th and has been blessed to be found flexible enough to skip the month in Halo traction. We are all glad of this, it would have meant long distance parenting for that whole month as she would have been in the hospital in St. Louis all of that time. Now she is expected to be in the hospital about 5-7 days and then home for recovery. The surgery is a huge surgery, correcting a 107 and a 106 degree curvature in the upper and the lower back. Please hold this child in your prayers for a easy recovery and quick healing.

We have gotten our finger prints done-yes again-and are now waiting for the next document to come so we can send our dossier to China for our next daughter. We have chose the English name of Kim and yet are prepared for the fact that when we get to China she may already have an English name picked out.

Claude and Andrew, Kris and a friend of ours went to Lake Weiss a few weeks ago to enjoy some days of fishing. They were all successful catching fish and having a good time. It was deer season already and Alex and I this year were joined with my grandson Drew age 10. He was so fortunate to be out and see a 8 point buck and get to bag his first deer! Of course Alex had to have him mark his forehead of the first deer a tradition he has carried on from his Uncle Andy, my brother.

As we are closing in on Christmas I hope that everyone is well, and that we are home for St. Louis with our Judy healing well. We are grateful for our family and friends that will help Claude with the girls here at home while I am with Judy at the Children's Hospital in St. Louis. Thank you for the prayers for our family.

catching up

Well I see it's been awhile since I posted so here goes. School started today, all 7 girls are in school all day so that is a blessing. We spent our summer coping with a horribly hot summer, so hot that the pool usually was not even used! All of the girls attended home schooled summer school and we heard no complaints this year so all went very well! We ended the summer with a trip to Myrtle Beach by way of Lexington horse park, a boot shop advertising 10,000 pair of boots in stock!, the beach, a over night in Charlotte for Penny to visit her China foster sister, a stop a few hours from there to meet long time internet friends, then through Atlanta, GA to see a company that I work with, then thank goodness we drove straight through that Saturday and got home.

Our school year has started, it will be a fall of starts - our son gets married to a lovely young lady Chelsea who will bring us a cute as a bug grand-daughter Gabbie. Oct. 20th Judy will enter The Children's Hospital in St. Louis to have a halo set and we will take her that same day to The Shriners Hospital where she will be a patient for a month having traction to lengthen the spine and relax the muscles to make the Scoliosis surgery easier which takes place back at the Children's Hospital on or around Nov 15th. One of us will always be with her during this time so i will use the term long distance parenting .... After the surgery she will be in the hospital for another 5-7 days and then return home to recover for a couple months before returning to school. The Dr. said we should expect her to gain almost 6 inches in height.

We are also adopting again, a girl nicknamed Cloud. She is 12 and from Loudi China. We hope to have her home before summer 2012.

Claude and I decided to have a pond put in to the south of the house. They are here tomorrow to hopefully finish it up in about 5-7 days. This will be a great compliment to our property we feel and give us hours of enjoyment fishing for "that big one". Alex and I walked the creek last Sunday searching for great treasure, the weather was fantastic, and we enjoyed each others company talking the whole time we were wading thru about a mile. No treasures except the time we spent together. We plan on starting next time where the Spoon river and Indian Creek join about a mile farther down.

Hopefully we will have just the same sort of a wonderful day.

We are asked constantly about adoption-we are going to put another tab on this blog so we can have adoption explained, and to offer advise of situations we have went through...hopefully this will help any and all that are even thinking of adoption. That will happen soon I hope. Thanks for checking in, The Coats Family

Home one week

We arrived home a healthy bunch-had overnighted in the Beijing International Airport where we experienced a bustling huge airport sleeping. Literally, there were people sprawled everywhere, already on the benches that Carrie and I had assumed we would take. We circled the luggage carts, got out the blankets we had and bunked the three girls on the floor. Carrie sat a lot of the next hours with her chin propped in her hands, I think I laid down on the floor...already a distant memory. They opened the check in counter at 4 am and we checked in, went thru customs, and found our gate, I thought. Thank God Carrie was still propping her chin in her hands and was awake, checked the tickets to find I had brought us to the wrong gate, she got us all awake and we trekked back about 18 gates to the right one. By this time the girls had been up almost 24 hours with just the little cat naps and they were really dragging to get there. We got on the plane for home and pretty well crashed off and on the next 13 hours. We arrived into Chicago with a nice enough lay over to get through customs and to our gate before boarding the plane to Peoria. All on time!

The whole trip was good. I pretty well can sum it up by saying thank you to God for this child. I feel great sorrow for the approx 90 children left at the orphanage as I feel we have taken the heart from there and that they are still there. This child snuggled in the first night in China looked at me and said good night mama I love you. Sigh.....and it hasn't stopped...When we arrived into Peoria her and I were first through the door and there were all the girls, a proud Baba, a new grandma and grandpa, a uncle Randy, cousin Jodi and friends....at first Vicky and Judy weren't real sure what to do or say, then they hugged and started talking (Vicky really had lost all her Chinese language yet while we were gone it pretty well returned to her and the girls have been talking in Chinese a lot)

Judy starts school tomorrow. We have her placed in 6th grade "sort of" as she will really be with the ELL teacher most of the time, then getting worked into class's as the language comes but I think it will be really fast the way the last week has gone. She has seen the pediatrician, (she is 49 inches tall!) the dentist (the first cleaning ever and she really hung in there thru it all and has no cavaties), and several stores to get clothes and shoes (this time American Express did not call after Claude's shopping spree so either they realize we have 7 girls or are just used to it).

Today we sat as a family and had the girls translate for us to make sure that Judy understood adoption. At first there was some concern as the girls had translated it as Foster Care and she answered yes she understood, that she got to be here for awhile to play and have fun and then would go back to the orphange. I am sure Claude and I had looks on our faces that need to never be recreated! Then they realized what they had said and got it fixed. Yes she understood adoption. We went on to make sure that she has what she needs, explaining if there is other items she needs to tell us....Addie asked what if Judy asked for a cell phone. It seems at this time all is well, that with the last 6 girls we gained enough experiance to pretty well cover the bases except for a night stand and a desk for her. Easily taken care of!

Claude is on family leave for 2-3 weeks to help get her situated and that really helps. Our house is running smooth, we have gotten Gracie moved upstairs so it is just Judy and Vicky in the one bedroom, I just am not sure yet how everything will play out as far as who is best sister to who...the girls are pretty well paired up it seems...so far it seems it is Judy and Addie...not because of any reason other than Addie just idolizes her and Judy is eating it up. She also seems to be one to like to be alone a little bit, play big sister or mom, and Addie is the same so they may be the ones that are best sisters together. All of the girls have agreed that Judy is a perfect sister. Claude and I agree that we have a 7th perfect daughter. Thank you God.

2/26/2011 Update from Ruthi

Sorry no new photos yet, maybe later....but first of all great news!!!! As usual rules change in China daily or even minute by minute and we are allowed to pick up the visa a day earlier!!! So am going to try to change flights so we can get home Friday instead of Saturday!!! sweet!!! TMZ had her medical exam today. I hope she gained even more trust in me when I got her in the cubicle with the one female Dr. there, when I explained that she WAS keeping on her cami and panti's and when I handed her the tissue thin gauze "sheet" to cover with....all the while holding her hand saying it is ok....the Dr. was quick, examed her nicely and said ok... I quickly helped her dress, all the while letting her hold the sheet against herself...what 12 year old wants to expose herself so soon to a new mom? Let alone on the other side of the flimsy curtian is many more people waiting for her spot? Then thru to the eye exam, to the ent exam, then to the horror chamber...I mean the shot stable...I mean the little area where they give the tb test. That was shot #1-then expose the left arm, shot # 2 and # 3-expose the right arm, shot #4 and #5 then pull down the pants and expose the thigh for #6....what can you do? Administer Tylenol...say I am sorry, hug her. We waited 20 minutes to make sure she was ok and then left....have met the rest of the maa group...great friends! Filled out paper work, got our agenda and now are off to shop! Love to all....will take camera so we can supply some more photos....

Later that day: YES I AM SHOUTING!!!! TOAST AND COFFEE FOR ALL!!! MINUTE BY MINUTE CHANGES HAPPEN IN CHINA AND WE GET TO GO HOME A DAY EARLY!!!! We will arrive, God willing , in Peoria on Friday March 4th at 9:20 am!!!! American Airlines #508 coming from Chicago. Be ready for a tired group.....but we are going to get home early....S-W-E-E-T...I cannot wait to get home...this trip was different from the start that I was already missing home before I left.

Friday, February 25 Update

Just got back from the park where the monkeys are. We saw lots of them...I don't like things like that -- so kept my distance The girls did well. TMZ slept terrible last night. She woke Carrie and I up a couple of times having dreams, and she had a cold when she came and still does. S between the two she is tired. TMZ, Penny and I are in the hotel room and they are both laying down together to nap now. TMZ seemed sad to me, so I had our guide Richard ask her if she was ok, or maybe sad. Se says she is sad today, also missing her friends. We told her we understood and it would be ok. I think rest, good food and taking it easy is best...as we will. We leave in about 3 hours for the airport to go to GZ. Richard said it is 90 degrees there now....hmmm, winter clothes packed...may have to strip dwn to a tshirt.... I have to find TMZ some clothes...her waist is really a bit larger than any length of pant. Maybe capris will work best as jeans...will find her something. Penny let her use a tshirt today as most of the ones I bought are way small. It was very long so I used velcro dots to hem it and she was really pleased....Penny agrees she will be a nice sister.

Thursday February 24 Update

The candy that Morgan and Penny are holding is honey...you spin a dial and it picks a character for you, then the lady had a pot of honey with a spoon, a hot plate of sorts that was about 18" inch square, and she took the spoon with honey in it and made this wonderful piece of art that you then ate...crazy talent! The honey tasted a bit heavier in flavor than ours. Morgan had a rooster and TMZ had a bird form. We ate supper at Pizza Hut..crazy that you could order everything from ice cream desserts to soups to fried rice and other Chinese food. We even ventured to the pharmacy with our botle of cold meds and secured a bottle that matched it, except in Chinese writing. TMZ told me how much the dose is for her...all the while saying no thank you...she really does not like the taste but hey. We understand home is to get 6-8 inches of snow...about the same time we will be on the plane going to GZ to hopefully see 70 degree weather...hopefully the snow stays away from GZ.