Mareto’s surgery and a very special gift exchange.

Thank you all so much for the sweet response to my last post. I felt very encouraged, loved, and prayed over! Created for Care was amazing!! I am so glad I was able to go! I was still a bit sick, but figured it was just a cold. Wrong. I had hardly any voice by the end of the first night and it was practically gone by Sunday. Went to the doctor yesterday and found out I have laryngitis. yuck. Antibiotics are working their magic now.  More on the retreat as soon as I can process everything that happened and all that God did in my heart.

So today was the big day for our little Mareto. He had surgery this morning. It was outpatient which was lovely. We chose to keep all other details about his procedure private. Thanks for understanding. : )

Here we are getting prepped for the OR… he had no idea what was coming!

He really didn’t like the plastic ID bracelet and kept trying to tear it off. I don’t even want to get into the screaming that occurred when they had the audacity to leave the blood pressure cuff on him after he woke up in recovery… not.good.

I got really weepy when they took him back to the OR. We weren’t allowed to go (obviously) and they didn’t put him to sleep until he got back there. So he cried and I cried the whole way down the hall as they led him away. ugh. We waited for just over an hour for the doctor to come out and tell us that all went well. YAY! Then we had to wait a bit longer for him to stir a little and then we were taken back to recovery. He had been awake for about a minute before we got back there and was really upset and confused. He calmed a little when I held him, but not much. He felt pretty miserable and had a really sore throat. He had a breathing tube during the operation and then had trouble breathing on his own once they removed it, so he had to get a steroid in his IV and some treatment with the nebulizer. He was doing well on his own before too long though. Once he showed he could keep down the juice he drank and breath well on his own we were clear to go home!

Here’s the little trooper riding home… still feeling pretty lousy…

He couldn’t sleep all day, but was able to eat some food before bed and is finally sleeping peacefully (hopefully for the whole night..) We’re praying that tomorrow isn’t too hard on him.

NOW on to more cheerful things! A few weeks ago I signed up for a fun little blogger gift exchange over at Casey Leigh’s blog. When I was matched up with my gift swap partner we exchanged a few emails and checked out each other’s blogs to get an idea of what the other would like as a gift. When I told her about our adoptions she mentioned that she was going to a retreat for adoptive mom’s to represent Light Gives Heat… a really awesome organization. Of course I knew what retreat she was talking about… Created for Care! I was so excited that we would get to actually meet and exchange our gifts in person! What fun!

Here we are at the retreat: Kate and me…

Isn’t she just beautiful? She is super sweet and very stylish too! Check out her blog From the Guest Room. I promise you will love it! Plus, you’ll get to see what I gave her for the gift exchange!

I was so unbelievably blessed to open my gift and find this…

It’s an adorable pillow in the shape of Ghana!!! With a heart over Accra (the city we’ll go to meet and bring home our next little one) I was so excited! It’s our very first gift for the new baby! She also included a card with a beautiful prayer written out for us that made me cry. I waited until I was on my flight home to read it and I’m sure the lady sitting next to me thought I was crazy as I blubbered over the card! haha

Thank you so much Kate!! I loved being your gift swap partner and I adore our pillow!!!