One of those bad days

If you came for a "warm, fuzzy" post about life in our house today, you may want to skip this post and wait for one another day. I try to maintain a positive outlook, but today my heart is heavy. Simply said, it is one of those tough days in adopting. Thankfully these really tough days are far outweighed by good ones, great ones, and outstanding ones, but when the tough ones come they can hit hard.

Here's the skinny. This week we got a surprise blessing. (A blessing has me down? Hang with me for a minute, you'll see...) I found a charity that had a medical mission team in China for the past two weeks. Of the 22 Provinces currently recognized, they were visiting the one Darcy lives in. And of that province, they were visiting HER children's welfare institute. And of the nearly 300 kids who live there, they actually saw 139 other kids AND my daughter.

Talk about a needle in a haystack! And not only did they see her, but they had asked for the director's permission to share photos with waiting parents and we got not one, but THREE pictures of our girl taken LAST WEEK!!! And better yet, we got notes on her personality and general health. Overall she is in great shape! She was described as "cooperative and attractive" and that she was not on any medications at all. (Due to one of the potential complications with her medical history, that was such a relief!) We were elated of the news.

We decided to send our old pediatrician (Dr. D in the Charlotte area who reviewed her file for us before we decided to pursue her adoption) the newest picture (it is the highest resolution photo we've had yet) and information we had to keep him in the loop. He in turn passed it along to two different specialists as he wanted us to have the best information possible.

This morning I heard back from Dr. D who had heard back from one of the specialists. (I'm purposefully staying vague here to protect Darcy's privacy). And what I read brought me to tears. Essentially one of the potential complications ~ this one dealing with her vision in one of her eyes ~ is very likely beginning to manifest. And left untreated over a period of time (can't find any definitive time amounts, but point is we're losing time here) it can cause irreversible damage. Nothing that could possibly make me love her any less, but something that will be another difficult thing for her to deal with in life that could be prevented with simple medication. And she's currently not even been tested for the complication ~ nor has she even been "flagged" to be tested. And worse yet, there's nothing that I can do but pray that we'll get there quickly, before permanent damage has been done.

And then thinking about the fact that due to lack of resources, my sweet girl is probably just one of many from her CWI, with others like her at the 18 other CWIs in her province that hers oversees, with others like them at the hundreds of CWIs across her vast country, with others like them all at thousands of orphan care centers around our world that have issues that could easily and rather inexpensively (by our American middle class standards) be prevented or fixed. And in that light the problem seems so gargantuan, so much bigger than just getting my daughter home so we can treat the problem before it is too late. How can I begin to make a dent in the crisis that affects over 147 million beautiful children on our planet?

What I want to do is crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head. And yet the day goes on. I have two precious children who will soon awaken from naps that don't need to be burdened to that level with the troubles of the world. So I'll dry my eyes, put on my game face, and get lost in the smiles that snuggle time brings with my children that are here with me today. I'll take deep breaths of their sweet baby smell, delight in their giggles as I tickle their bellies, and drink in their precious, innocent beauty.

And yet a small part of my mind will stay with my other sweet girl and dream of the day that she's here too...