March 5 & 6 Visit to Johns Hopkins

Emma sees doctors at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore for her clubbed feet, and tethered spinal cord. We had her follow-up appointments this week, so we left home mid-day Wednesday and headed to Baltimore. She had two appointments on Thursday, one at 8:45 with the Pediatric Orthopedic doctor, Dr. Sponseller, and one at 2:45 (which turned out to be about 5:00) with the Pediatric Urologist, Dr. Mathews. We got great news from the first, and Emma can now stop wearing her Ponsetti shoes at night to sleep - yeah! She was so happy!! He said to come back in 6 months for a follow-up to be sure her feet are still looking good, but that he felt that if something were going to happen, it would already be showing signs, so we are praising the Lord for that!!

The urologist says her bladder is small, but, Emma is small - she weighed in clothed at 23.4 pounds, but is 35 inches tall now. He also wants to see her back in 6 months for an ultrasound - he did the urodynamics study this visit, which shows she's not holding as much as she should be for her age, so we leave it to the Lord to take care of, and will visit JH again in 6 months.

On Friday afternoon, we saw Dr. Ben Carson - if you ever get the chance to either read his biography or see the movie, 'Gifted Hands,' I highly recommend it - he has had an amazing life, and is a phenominally gifted pediatric neurosurgeon. He was amazed at Emma's progress - thank you God for her progress!! and wants to see her again in 9 months, so, it looks like we will be paying a visit to Baltimore in September, and again in December.

We were allowed to stay at the Children's House, which is funded so that families of children having surgeries, or appointments for out-of-town families like us. They charge a minimal rate, and the place is wonderful! They have lots of volunteers who take care of everything, including baking home-made chocolate chip cookies for the guests. The rooms are clean, and are on the outside of a common kitchen with all the amenities, with the entire basement floor set up with toys, video games, pool tables, fuseball, air hockey machines, computer, huge screen television with comfy sofas and more - we are blessed to be able to stay here in this home-like place.

We came back to DC on Friday evening after Emma's appointment with Dr. Carson, and spent the night and spent a gorgeous day Saturday at the National Zoo - we promised the girls something fun on the trip, and they had a great time, as did we. We met several other families at the zoo with children adopted from China as well, including a family waiting on their second daughter, logged in December 2006! Enjoy the pictures from our weekend...