One thing all of our training we took before adopting Tate and Eliza did not tell me is how good adoptive Mamas of medically fragile children become at holding their breath.

Today Blake, Tate and I headed to Madison for Tate’s six month check with the pediatric orthopedic surgeon.

This, for sure, is the one appointment I hold my breath the longest!

We had an early start, but not as early as we do sometimes.

My heart was in two places today, as Eliza was still not back on her feet yesterday, and when I checked on her in the early hours of the morning she still had a low grade fever.

Thankful I know my big kiddos can run this place better than I can and love on their younger siblings with gentle sacrificial hearts as well.

Blake and I took one of our new tablets to Florida with us and spent an evening there researching educational apps to buy and load onto them.

These tablets were a blessing and we will use them for medical days always, but I am still not sure how comfortable I am making them a normal part of the kiddos precious time they have.

There is something about them running around the farm, using their imagination, and not staring at a screen!

I will say, though, there was something about seeing Tate use the phonics app in the van and hearing him sound out phonetical sounds.

I still think our precious boy needs speech therapy!

I may need to tackle securing yet another evaluation sometime soon!

After traveling home from Florida for a whole day on Sunday, our trip to Madison early this morning seemed short and fast!

Since it is only 20 some degrees outside with gusting winds, Blake dropped Tate and I at the door of the doctor’s office.

Tate was weighed and measured and I am THRILLED to say this tiny tornado has gained another pound!!

Man, how I fight for each ounce!

The resident came in first and talked to us and then we waited for the surgeon.

Tate loves looking at the pictures of his bones.

I love pouring affirmations over him as he does, how he is fearfully and wonderfully made JUST the way God wanted him to be!

The surgeon arrived, and I started holding my breath.

He measured, and remeasured, and remeasured those films.

He was talking to his resident the whole time, which was filling Blake and I with knowledge too.

Then he finally spun around and gave us the great news that Tate’s curvature has NOT changed.

Exhale!

The room filled with all the air in my body!

If Tate’s curvature remains STABLE, then we WAIT and WATCH.

The surgeon then began to tell us what he eventually thinks would be a good starting place for Tate when he does need intervention.

He would remove two hemivertebrae that are at the base of Tate’s curve.

He described those hemivertebrae as like having a rock the size of an adult fist sitting underneath your computer keyboard, which puts your computer keyboard at quite a tilt.

Removing them, and placing screws and one rod there instead, will allow Tate to be straighter.

My question was about the invasiveness of this surgery.

His response was that just this week he was doing surgery with CT imaging as his guide.

Crazy!

That means little openings with long tools to reach inside and CT imaging to guide those tools as they work.

He also said that he was building a team of surgeons RIGHT NOW that would be able to do AMAZING things for someone like Tate who is such a complicated case.

Yes, Lord, Yes.

Blake and I have to LOVE a surgeon who is not ok with status quo.

Who wants to make things BETTER.

SO, our prayer will continue to be that the Lord will see fit to keep Tate stable, so no intervention is needed.

As Tate grows, this is less likely, from our surgeon’s perspective, so our prayers will also be for this team of amazing surgeons to grow in wisdom, knowledge and experience.

In the mean time, Tate does not need to be checked again by this doctor for ONE YEAR!!

I could not have imagined a better report from today.

We headed to Chipotle for lunch, because that is what Tate wanted.

We ate lunch, and enjoyed listening to our Chinese cherub tell us ALL sorts of things.

It always seems that when we have big medical days, Tate talks a lot about his foster sister and brothers from China.

He talked about them a lot yesterday and today.

You can only imagine my heart.

Then it was time for the ride back home.

Big medical days are exhausting, on all accounts!

You all, thank you.

Each and every one of you.