October 2014 Featured Child: Dian

Our now big boy, Dian, has come quite a long way in his short 6 months of life. He has grown eight times his initial weight, has overcome his feeding tube, and has discovered a love for talking to his caregivers--especially when he should be sleeping.

We have told you a little of Dian's fantastic story before, but we will tell you again because we want you to see how far he has come!

In early April 2014, we got a phone call from an orphanage that we had just begun partnering with only a few weeks previously. They told us about a very tiny little boy, only 810 grams (1 lb, 12.5 oz), they had just taken to the hospital. "Did we want him?," they asked. We did!

Our medical director took a 9 hour train ride to see what he looked like. This is what she saw:

We weren't even sure if he would survive the train ride home, but despite this risk, we wanted to try. The hospital near his orphanage was doing a great job, but they weren't quite equipped for such a tiny baby. In order to travel to be transferred to a bigger hospital in Beijing, he would have to pass an oxygen test and be able to breathe on his own for extended periods of time. This is because it wasn't possible to bring enough oxygen on the train for 9 whole hours.

He passed, and was amazingly able to breathe on his own. We knew then that he was a fighter!

Our director kangarooed with him. Dian all the way home, feeding him very tiny amounts of milk and letting him hear her heartbeat as he slept. Thanks to donations, we were able to place him in a bigger hospital for more specialized care. A few weeks later we were able to bring him home!

He has grown so much since then!

Now Dian is a happy, healthy 6 month old who loves to giggle, talk with his caregivers (in English and Chinese), suck his fingers, and he very much enjoys bath time. He spends his days working on rolling over and sitting up on his own. Because he was kangarooed so much of his early life, he enjoys cuddling next to his caregiver's heartbeat, even if he isn't sleepy.

 We hope his adoption file can be completed soon so his forever family can find him!

April 2015 Featured Child: Xiang

This month’s featured child is little Xiang, who arrived at Little Flower on August 31, 2014. His journey of arriving at Little Flower is very heart warming and it also captures the extra care needed by premature babies. Xiang weighed only 2 lbs 2 oz (950 grams) when he was abandoned.

Being a premature baby, he needed intense care to survive. His condition was not stable when he arrived, so we admitted him to the NICU of the children’s hospital in his province. He spent ten days in NICU, struggling to breathe and become stable. After 10 days in the NICU his condition was still very critical. He was dependent on the ventilator to help him breathe, had lost weight and his infection was not yet under control. The doctors did not believe he had any hope and told us to take him home to die. But we and little Xiang didn’t want to give up yet.

After he left the hospital we were amazed to see him fighting hard to hold on. We decided to transfer him to Beijing where doctors might consider treating him. One of our staff brought him to Beijing from the town his orphanage is located in via train by ‘kangarooing’ him the entire way. He was so tiny that he needed to be on someone’s skin the entire journey for warmth and to survive. He weighed a mere 1 lb 10 oz (750 grams) when he arrived at our Beijing Baby Home, and so needed all the extra care we could give! At our Beijing home, our staff held him skin to skin for 24 hours straight so he could survive. However, he was still struggling to breathe. He was readmitted to a Beijing hospital with Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS), a common problem seen in premature infants.

After a short stay in the NICU at #81 Children’s Hospital in Beijing he was discharged back to our home still very tiny but breathing more easily. With the help of lots of kangaroo skin to skin time, little Xiang started to push through.

With all the extra care and love, little Xiang continued to grow and become bigger and stronger. His cute smile is simply adorable!

He has made a lot of progress! Now, he is stable and growing. He now weighs 12.2 lbs (5.53kgs) and if you saw him now, you won’t believe he is the same boy! He is a real miracle!

We are thankful!

Like Halloween, Thanksgiving is another American holiday that is not celebrated in China.  The children in our school enjoy learning about other countries and cultures and one of their favorite things is to learn about holidays celebrated in other places.  This week they learned about Thanksgiving.

What Thanksgiving celebration would be complete without turkeys?  They didn't get to eat turkey, but they did get to decorate turkeys to take home:

In addition to turkeys, the children traced fall leaves and shared what they are thankful for.

"I am thankful for firemen who put our fires." (We did visit the fire station recently!)

"I am thankful for the bus driver who brings us to school each day."

"I am thankful for the cook who makes our lunch."

"I am thankful for policemen who catch thieves."

We have a lot to be thankful for!  The leaves are now hung in our school to remind us of our many blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

September 2014 Featured Child: Qiang

Little Qiang came to Little Flower Projects as a very small, 1700 g (3 lb 12 oz) baby.

When he was abandoned he was diagnosed with NEC (necrotizing enterocolitis) in a local hospital in his province, and his condition was critical. The infection was severe and the NICU doctors there did not think they could save him. The staff at his orphanage wanted to try everything possible and contacted us to see if we might accept him. From his medical reports, we didn’t feel he had much of a chance to even reach Beijing’s top specialists, but we agreed to try. Little Qiang was rushed to Beijing, and he had surgery right away.

Incredibly, he survived the first surgery and gradually overcame the serious infection that threatened his life. When the surgeons felt he was ready to be discharged, he was released back to our home.

Unfortunately, within 24 hours of coming back home he was readmitted back to the hospital with additional problems. His little system was not ready for full feedings. He underwent more surgeries, but finally began to stabilize. We were so excited when we learned he would soon be home again. Unfortunately, just when he was eating and growing well, he was also diagnosed with hydrocephalus and needed several extra weeks of hospitalization and additional surgery for that. A whole three months after he first arrived, he was finally ready to come home to Little Flower!

His head was very large at first, but we saw gradual changes as the shunt drained away the excess fluid and the pressure in his head began to stabilize.

As his condition stabilized, he started to catch up on other milestones, like smiling and cooing at his nannies. What a charmer he is!

Now he’s is a happy, healthy 4 month old who loves to giggle and smile!

Qiang is strong and healthy now and no longer requires special care. He has just transferred back to his province so that his adoption file can be completed. We’re so glad we had a chance to help this precious little boy get off to a healthy start.

August 2014 Featured Child: Hua

This month’s featured child is Hua! Last year on November 26th, this beautiful boy came into our lives.

He was just over a month old when he arrived, and not doing very well. Hua was born with two complicated medical conditions - one being bladder exstrophy, and the other anal atresia. Bladder exstrophy is a relatively rare birth defect accruing at a rate between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 50,000.

Little Hua has changed dramatically since he came to us 8 1/2 months ago. In his first pictures you can see he is a very observant and quiet looking boy who enjoyed swinging in the baby swings or being rocked to sleep.

He is definitely no shy little boy anymore, but a very smiley baby who loves to be held, kissed, played with and loved by all his nannies and the rest of Little Flower faculty.

He especially loves getting into things he shouldn’t, such as trashcans and big boxes of toys. But what 9-month old doesn’t? You would think that having a colostomy bag and a bladder exposed would slow someone down… But not Hua! He has everyone on their toes all the time trying to catch up with him.

Right now the plan is to do the bladder surgery first, and hold off on atresia while we give his body a chance to heal. Having two major surgeries like that at once is too much for a little guy like Hua. But because the first surgery to fix his bladder was unsuccessful, we are very concerned that the same thing could happen the second time, which could lead to even more complications. So please keep him in your prayers as we move forward with his treatment.

We have actually just confirmed that Hua is ready to have surgery whenever the funding is approved. But sadly right now we do not have the funding for his surgery which is very expensive. For both bladder exstrophy and second stage anal atresia it comes to $14,500 USD or roughly 90,000 RMB. You can click HERE to help Hua get closer to being healed and ready for a family of his own!