CT Scan

Today was Jackson's CT Scan. He did AMAZINGLY well!


The technician didn't want me to give him the Rx to make him sleep.

Kurt was able to get off from work to help rock him to sleep. He's THE MAN!!!

You Rock!

Jackson was asleep but then woke up just as Kurt was putting him onto the table.

He didn't move a muscle!

I stayed in with him during the scan and I could only see his little eyes move every once in awhile.

Tomorrow after 12:00 we can go pick up the copies of the scan on CDs and mail to Dr. Roberson in California.

We will then wait for him to contact us with the rating score for Jackson's atresia surgery.

We honestly have no expectations for whether or not he is a candidate for the atresia surgery.

This determination will set the course for ear reconstruction surgeries.

Thank you to all of our friends and family that were praying during the CT scan. Your prayers were felt!

Trusting Him

We have begun the journey for ear reconstruction for Jackson.

It will be a long road.

We have decided to pursue the Medpor method.

We Skyped with Dr. Reinisch in California a couple of weeks ago.

He was very informative and was able to answer our questions and concerns.

Tomorrow Jackson will have the CT scan completed.

Please pray for us.  Our pediatrician did not request a sedated CT scan.

We will be giving him a prescription medication from our pediatrician to enable him to be still for the procedure.

Please pray that the medication will enable Jackson to remain completely still so that they can get a perfect, readable scan.

This is just the first step in finding out if his hearing will be able to be restored.

Once the scan is completed, we will mail a copy of the scan to Dr. Roberson in northern California.  He is the Doctor that will determine whether or not Jackson is a candidate for atresia surgery.  This is the surgery that would make ear canals for him.  If he IS a candidate, we would have the ear canal surgery first on one ear and then the outer ear reconstruction using Medpor with Dr. Reinisch.  And then 6 months later, we can reconstruct the 2nd ear.

I must confess that it is beginning to get harder noticing the staring at Jackson because of his microtia and the fact that he does not have a right ear. At first it didn't really bother me, but I guess that as each day passes, I know the day is going to come when Jackson notices and is able to tell us that it bothers him.

We don't really know how much he understands about his ears right now.

Please pray that as we begin this journey that everything will go smoothly with our insurance.  With each atresia repair, there is a very LARGE amount of money that has to be paid upfront to be reimbursed later. 

Money that I'm sure very few families have sitting around in their bank account or even available on a credit card.

But, with that said, I know that God will provide every last cent.  He did with the adoption.  And when we tried figuring it all out on our own, God would always whisper to me, "Trust me."

So, we are beginning this new journey Trusting Him!

Trusting that He has every detail figured out.

Trusting Him that every penny is accounted for.

Trusting Him, once again, in His timing and not our own.

Trusting Him that His Word is Truth.

Trusting in His incredible love for Jackson and the life that He gave to him at the moment of conception.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,  plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11

Baha, at last!

We finally had Jackson's fitting for his Baha!  He has been doing so well with it.  We were approved for 2 but for some reason our audiologist said that she will not order the other one for another year.  We have Cochlear looking into this for us.  But for now, we are thankful that Jackson has access to new sounds.  His Baha is programmed specifically for his hearing.  We are prayerful that this will be life-changing for him!

just because...

I'm so adorable and loveable!

Catching up with the Noodle Master and more!

We have a lot of catching up to do.

Jackson has transitioned beautifully into our family!

He is excelling at school and is loved by all.

We are still waiting on his bilateral Bahas to arrive which should be any day now.

Below are pictures from our very American attempt at celebrating the Autumn Moon Festival.

For some reason I was thinking it was a week later that what it was, so it was last minute planning.

Thankfully, Jackson is easy to please with food.

We enjoyed a very big pot of noodle soup!  Watching Jackson eat it reminded us of our time in Guangzhou whe we ate at the little deli and noodle shop outside of the White Swan Hotel.

The Noodle Master at work

Now we're talkin'!

This wasn't quite what my mom had planned for this year's festival.  Let's see if I like it...

ummmmm.....not so much!





operation i.d.

We decided that since Jackson is unable to give any identifying information about himself that we would look into purchasing an i.d. bracelet for him. We searched the internet high and low, emailed bloggy friends who are friends of Kurt's cousin in Michigan (Hi Rachel!) and then received emailed pictures from our friends in Jacksonville, whose daughter wears an id bracelet due to allergies. 

We finally decided on a bracelet for our little man.  And now this mama feels much better as he rides the big yellow bus away from my school each morning 10 minutes down the road!  He wears it at all times and does very well with it on.  He now likes to hear it jingle on the car window, his car seat arm rest, across the dining room table, down our footboard to our king size bed...you get the picture!

The information was simple:  on the front with the Medic Alert we have his first name and last name and then the words Hearing Impaired with the word "over" on the next line.  It flips over easily and has his birthdate, No Known Allergies (since at this time we don't know of any but since he is adopted, there could be something), our cell phone numbers and our first names.  It's stainless steel and wasn't too costly.  But the best part...

We feel much better knowing that someone could contact us if our little man was separated from any of us or from someone at school.

7 months

7 months ago on February 2nd we finalized adoption papers in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, Peoples Rebublic of China.  Fast forward to September 2nd, we had our court hearing to "readopt" or "refinalize" what was done in China, here in America.  Although Jackson became a Swartzlander in every sense of the word 7 months ago, we decided to go through this very simple process here in the US so that we would be able to get Jackson an American birth certificate (which I believe is a Certificate of Foreign Birth) and then we will be able to apply for an American Passport!

Our attorney was wonderful.  He and his wife have 2 adopted girls from China.  He provides his services free of charge to families that have adopted from China to refinalize everything.  We only had to pay the court fees!  What a blessing for our family!  In all of the years that he has been doing this, Jackson was THE VERY FIRST BOY that he has represented!

Jackson and his "out of the blue" goofy grin! with our attorney, Mr. Pappas

Our family with Judge Piggotte

Outside the courthouse

Jackson and Kurt