LONG Overdue Update!

I read over my last post and laughed a little! :) I was anticipating it being hard, and it has been SO much harder than I ever anticipated, but so much more rewarding than I anticipated as well!  We adopted Georgia Mei Hoffmann on November 11, 2014, nearly six months ago now!  Our trip to China was memorable but difficult.  Taking care of a child with epidermolysis bullosa is a very steep learning curve, so it was incredibly stressful but we got the hang of it quickly.  China was beautiful, but we were both pretty homesick (we're homebodies and our other three kids were back home with my parents), and I told myself if I never went back to China again, that would be A-OK with me!  I checked the entire Asian continent off my travel list!  More on that later! ;)

After we brought Gia home to Savannah, it got very crazy very fast.  We were quickly feeling overwhelmed with Gia's medical needs.  She was in much worse shape than we thought she would be, we were running short on supplies, we took her to several doctors, all of which either shrugged or gave us very dismal prognoses.  Not only that, but Nick had orders to move to Fort Drum, New York and the movers were coming to our house THE FOLLOWING MONDAY (we arrived home from China on a Friday!)  We realized right away that Gia NEEDED a doctor who was familiar with EB, and that was nowhere near us in Savannah, GA or in Watertown, NY, so Nick called and cancelled the movers, and started the process of getting her enrolled in the military's exceptional family member program, so that the Army would have to station us where she could get the appropriate medical care!  Unfortunately, because Nick's job is so specialized (he's a Flight Paramedic) and there are only a handful of clinics that specialize in the treatment of EB, it took the Army several months to even find a spot for us, at Fort Carson, Colorado!

 

So we finally moved to Fountain, CO in March!  Gia's behavior among all that chaos and moving (we also had to move homes in Savannah because our landlord wouldn't extend our lease) was challenging, to sugarcoat it! :) We can't really blame her, she was used to having some say in her life in China (or at least, that's how she perceived it), and then she was kidnapped, put on airplanes for about 20 hours, had everything packed up and moved homes twice in four months...and had mean old mom and dad expecting her to do as we ask and treat her new family kindly! ;) However, she has bonded with us and her siblings, she loves her new home here in Fountain, and we are slowly getting her used to the new normal!

We took her to the EB clinic at Colorado Children's Hospital in Denver on April 1st, and it gave us the answers that we've needed!  They were very happy with her current condition:  her weight, her wounds, and her outgoing personality!  She saw several doctors in the span of a couple hours, and it was all very overwhelming for both Gia and Mommy, but by the end of the day we had a plan and a diagnosis:  Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (RDEB).  It's one of the most severe types of EB, and with this type she will have a lot of severe scarring and will undergo many procedures to battle the scar tissue.  This summer she will be put under anesthesia to have an esophageal dilatation, because she already has scar tissue in her esophagus causing strictures.  But it was very reassuring to get the "keep doing what you're doing" from her doctor, because the previous five months of going it on our own had been very worrisome!

Now that you're up to speed on Miss Gia and the rest of the Hoffmanns, rewind back to February!  That was when a friend of mine showed me the picture of a sweet two-year-old in China with EB, waiting for a family.  Nick had been teasing me for months that we needed to adopt again.  We were at Gia's home in China for two days getting to know her and her medical needs before we adopted her, and I think it's no exaggeration to say that Little Flower is the BEST place for orphans with severe medical needs in China!  But it's still so haunting to see so many babies with such extensive needs and no families to take care of them.  Even Gia, who was getting dressing changes every day and was doted on like a princess, has improved SO much since we've brought her home.  So, like I said, Nick was ready to hop on a plane back to China right away! :) I was a little more reserved, especially during the time when we didn't know when or where we would be moving next (and we still hadn't met a doctor to treat Gia).  But when I saw this little girl's picture, and then showed it to Nick, we agreed that we needed to make her a Hoffmann!  Now that we are settled in Colorado, we've completed our home study, and we're hoping to have her home this winter!  We're naming her Hanna Xiu Hoffmann, she's about 18 months younger than Gia, and she has EB like her big sister (although we suspect not the same type).  Yes, it's fast, but the most joyful parts of life go by in a blink! ;)