One Day Post Op

Aria is doing well! She left the ICU this morning and is back in our private room. She will be in the hospital until Monday. We have had a great experience with the doctors and nurses at Mercy Hospital. Both the neurosurgeon and anesthesiologist check in daily to see how Aria is doing. They are both so happy she is on the mend.

Feeding continues to be a challenge for our sweet pea. She has some significant issues with her suck/swallow reflex that need to be worked out, but that won't be happening here in Guyana. The anesthesiologist is so excited Aria will be moving to the U.S. (hopefully soon!) where she can get all the necessary medical care she needs.

Aria was pretty tired today, although she did show off her beautiful brown eyes for a while and quite a few adorable yawns. She doesn't seem to be in much pain, but she's on pain killers so that may be why. She even flashed a few adorable grins. It was so very sweet to see such relief on her face.  She had been in so much pain for far too long.

We had a number of visitors today - two ladies from the Child Protection Agency, Aria's foster mom Jocelyn, and Kim (another Colombian adoptive mom from the US who is now living in Guyana.) Kim even took a load of Aria's clothes to wash and brought us dinner. It was delicious! The hospital food is soooo bad.

While Aria sleeps, we've been busy contacting various people in the US Government to make sure they are well aware we are in Guyana adopting our daughter.  The Guyana adoption program is so small there's a good chance we may be the only family impacted.  So many people have contacted the Office of Children's Issues that they created a form letter to respond to them all. We also got a response from them today with lots of legal mumbo jumbo and basically blaming Guyana for the halt in adoptions. I of course forwarded on their response to Hopscotch who forwarded it on to Ms. Jardine at the Child Protection Agency here in Guyana. We are hopeful that things will work out in the end. But we truly did not need the added stress.

We got some exciting news tonight from Robin at Hopscotch. I've complained about our adoption agency many times, but when the sh** hit the fan, they have truly stepped up to advocate for our family. Robin received a phone call from Chuck Johnson, the President of the National Council for Adoption who she had previously reached out to about us.  Chuck happened to be meeting with an influential group of pro-International Adoption advocates at Harvard and shared our story. Our case really touched all their hearts and now the Associated Press wants to interview us! We are definitely getting our story out there!

Please continue sending up your prayers for our sweet Aria. We are so nervous to leave her here for the next couple months while Guyana processes our adoption case. We were told we'd likely be able to return in August to finalize the adoption (as long as the U.S. has given us permission to proceed by then.)  Our agency is making a case for Aria to get a temporary visa so she can come to the U.S. and stay with us until our return date. That would be ideal for everyone and a true miracle if we are able to pull it off.