A lot has happened

The last couple of days has seen a lot of change for us. When we picked up Ethan, we were told by the orphanage staff that for that last 6 months or so he has been lagging behind the other children and been very sleepy. They took him to the hospital in December for a CT scan and it was determined that he has hydrocephalus. There has been a huge change since the video that is posted on this blog to now. In the video he is walking, running and jumping, now he toddles when he walks. If he is not leaning against something, he will sway when standing or sitting. His health has been deteriorating. Our agency requested and the consulate has given us an expidited appointment. This morning we woke up in Beijing, packed quickly and took a plane to Guangzhou. First thing tomorrow morning I will take Ethan to his medical evaluation with one guide while Jamey and another guide go to the consulate to take care of those things, then go to the United office to confirm our new flights. If all goes well with our consulate apointment, and we recieve our visa later that day, we will be flying out of GZ on Friday, with an overnight layover in Chicago and be home on Saturday. We already have an appointment scheduled with our pediatrician for the beginning of the week.

Ethan has been transitioning very well, much better than I ever imagined. Today he called us baba and mama quite a bit on his own without any prompting. He started sharing his drinks and food with us, first a drink for me, then for baba, and back and forth until the drink was finished. He also told our guide tonight that his Baba likes him. Tonight when I was tucking him in, he took his bear that be brought him and told it it was time to go to sleep and layed his head on the pillow then covered him with his blanket. Ethan then covered himself and layed down.

I will try to update again before we head home, but I don't know if I'll have time until we're home. When I packed us for our trip to GZ things just got tossed into suitcases, not only will we have the offical adoption work to do, we'll need to get packed back up and ready to head home.

Things to pray for:
1. Please pray that our consulate appointment will go well and we will recieve his visa the same day.
2. Please pray that we will get our new flights confirmed. We are on a waitlist for our Guangzhou to Hong Kong flight on Friday. Pray that we will get to Hong Kong on time.
3. Please pray that Ethan will not deteriorate any further before we can get him home and seen by the doctor.
4. Please pray for Jamey and I, we were up half of the night last night on the phone with our agency and pediatricion getting things worked out and we are both tired.