roller coaster of a ride

please excuse the randomness of this post in advance! my thoughts are everywhere. so, so, so good to be home. of course, now i think....what was the big deal about being away? my homesickness seems blown out of proportion now that i am back home. everything here is just the way i left it....except for a new child :) but i do know that my heart ached in a deep, profound way. and now it is gone.

flights home... pretty uneventful. long, as to be expected. lots and lots of time to walk in the airports. and thomas and i, per martha's discovery, made a really cool korean screen at the airport there. it passed away 30 minutes and we left with a beautiful keepsake and the memory of phoebe and thomas working beautifully together. phoebe did great until the very end of the very long flight from seoul to chicago. it was ugly ugly and i just had to plaster a fake smile on my face so people wouldn't see me holding her legs together to keep her from kicking. taking her shoes off and removing the magazines from the seat pocket didn't do anything to keep her under control :)

we came home to an incredible group of family and friends! i was blown away. so many expected, and unexpected faces. thank you to each of you who made the effort to etch the sight in my mind forever. the welcome home poster. the huge balloon for phoebe. the flowers. the starbucks. the smiles. it meant more than i would ever be able to express in words. knowing that people you love carved time out and went through the hassle of airport parking and waiting, just for us, was an amazing display of love.

when we got home, it was picture perfect to see her face 'understand' what all the pictures had been about. she walked into her room and pointed at exactly the two pictures that had been in her photo album. her care bear couch loaded with care bears and her and sarah's beds. greg and i sat in the loft and they played and played and played. she was all smiles. it was like she had been here forever. greg starting using his 'lonely planet' vietnamese on his iphone and 'talking' to her. she literally lit up! this big guy ain't so bad. he can talk my language. it was an instant hit and endeared him to her forever. she loves her daddy! this is an incredible answer to prayer. it tooks years for sarah to come around to him. phoebe has him wrapped already.

okay, so here is where we are at --- a good portion of the time, she is playing, laughing, being amazing. but a portion of the time (which seems like the majority when she is screaming :) she is not happy. i can't define it as mad or sad. just not happy :) okay, i realize her life has been turned upside down, but it seems like something else. maybe the mouth, teeth situation?

in the pictures we had received of her throughout the last year, her mouth and cheeks looked swollen in several of them. her medical report last february (about a month after she had been left at the orphanage gate), listed 'dental caries' as her only health issue. so, it has been a full year with nothing done to improve her mouth. her teeth are a mess. and i mean a mess. her four front teeth are nothing but little points. her top and bottom back teeth have little enamel and are basically large black pockets/holes. greg had been watching her behavior since we got home. he is 100% convinced she is in wicked pain. he thinks that if she has an abscess (es), he doesn't know how she is happy for even a second. he has had 7 implants done because of dental issues. he said the pain compares to nothing else. friends who have had kidney stones maybe can relate : )? anyway, he said when you have dental pain, it comes in waves. intense waves. and her behavior definitely comes in intense waves. while we were in vietnam, i've been trying to pinpoint possible triggers. suitcases? leaving hotel room? saying bye-bye? going to bed? it is random at best.

so last night, we decided we have to do something for her...now. greg has been heartsick that if it is her mouth and we are thinking she is just being a poop :) he would never forgive himself. the crying jags take a toll on everyone. sarah even said 'mom, we don't have to get an abigail if you don't want' (she is convinced there is another little girl out there for this family and her name is abigail. she has been praying for her for almost a year. she has even explained that our car and dinner table have room exactly for her...)

so we look up pediatric dentists in metlife dental, after hours of course. about 9 pm, we called the answering service of one of them. he called back and was amazing. i explained to him about her behavior and the condition of her mouth. he immediately called in tylenol with codeine for the pain and antibiotics. he said not one speck of sugar can go into her mouth. he wants to see her at 9 am monday morning after the antibiotics have had a chance to get into her system. he said her mouth is 'a bomb waiting to go off'. we didn't know if he would do anything because she isn't his patient. yet. he was emphathetic, knowledgeable, and concerned. thank you Lord. we needed that. so about midnight (long CVS story :), she took her first doses. i wish i could post pictures of her mouth because then you could see for yourself what decay can do. even the one-year old babies have significant decay. our best guess is that they were given rice water, instead of formula and semi-nutritious food, to fill them up which would explain the malnutrition and failure to thrive label that most of them were given at the western clinics there. they don't brush and the starches eventually just eat the teeth away. when we went to the US embassy for our last paperwork - the US visa on their vietnamese passports -- the official there told one of the moms that 'our kids should not be in the condition they are in. something is not right.' we couldn't agree more. many of the kids we saw at the hotel who were being adopted appeared to be in relatively good physical shape. but not any of the kids from this orphanage.

she is soooo dang sweet most of the time, that you don't know whether to pray that her mouth is the source of her 'issues' or she is really, really grieving/freaking about the change.

she has done really well with the time change. thomas and i have too. i did get up at 4:45 this morning which has actually been a blessing to have a quiet house all to myself for almost three hours. i will just have to take a nap later :)

thank you again for your prayers, your love, your concern. there have been so many people that i am indebted too. greg's office has been amazing. meals, cards, prayer team. church folks and friends cleaning the house, helping with the kids, coming to the airport, praying. bloggy friends sending advice and support.

i think i will post for a bit longer. i like the comments posted :) it makes me feel like i am in this with many others. it helps me feel connected to a group of like-minded people who i love and who love me...and more importantly, love the Lord who allowed all the joys and trials to come this way and knew in advance exactly how this would play out.

adoption is a journey unlike no other. if God is working on your heart to step out in faith, please heed His calling.

p.s. thanks suzanne for your posts and prayers :)
p.s.s. welcome home tory, jeannine, and alyssa (the peanut)
p.s.s.s. thanks carol porter for capturing every minute of our homecoming.