GongYi Home of Hope

This Christmas and New Years was a very exciting time at the Home of Hope. Not only for the Reasons of the Seasons but also because during this past four weeks four new babies have joined our Home of Hope family!

Left to right (above) are Jacob Xiong Tian (DOB: 12/31/2006, Arrived: 1/4/2007), Rachel Xiong Xin (DOB: 12/15/2006, Arrived: 12/22/2006), Dawn Xiong Chen (DOB: 1/1/2007, Arrived: 1/9/2007) and Simeon Xiong Yi (DOB: 12/17/2006, Arrived: 12/21/2006).

Jacob has no major health issues although a note attached to his blankets said the doctors felt he had some type of lung problems when he was born. There is no evidence of that now. He is a healthy little boy and loves to eat. Right now he takes in 155ml of formula, four times per day along with his water between feedings. Is very alert and seems to take in all that is going on around him.

Rachel, on the other hand, is a different story. She has one of the more severe cleft lip, cleft palate conditions we have seen. If you have been following the Home of Hope for some time you will notice her nose area is very much like that of Isaac Ma Shi Hao (shown here on the left after his last surgery. Prior to his surgeries and when he first came, his mouth and nose looked much like Rachel’s) when he first came. This is the most problamatic appearing part of the malady but in fact is not the most severe, as it can be corrected with surgery and later with orthodontic work.

The difficult part of Rachel’s case is there is virtually no upper palate so one will need to be constructed, with her surgeries starting when she is six months old. The most interesting thing about Rachel is that even with her severe cleft problems and unlike our other cleft babies, she has no problem eating… and loves to do so. Her intake is the same as Jacob’s as mentioned above. When we are working in the office, Nathan likes to put Rachel in a bassinette and set her on the floor by his chair as he works. She is a real sweetie and whether eating or sleeping she “Coos” almost all the time!

Dawn is a very quiet and peaceful child. It is almost like she has this sense that she was thrown away but found by some people who love her… who are determined to keep her safe and are determined to give her a happy life…. and of course, she is right!

She too has a cleft lip condition but it is very minor, with no cleft palate involved. (Her condition is very much like Autumn Xiong Duo‘s was and as you can see this type of surgery is very successful.) At six months of age they will repair her lip and at one year old some remedial work will be done to her nose area. The cleft lip does work into the gum line so she will also need some orthodontic work in the future.

The heading of this section is “Growing, Growing, Growing!” We now realize that our Nursery is not large enough and we need to expand the size of the Nursery to accommodate our present children (including these four new babies) as well as the future new ones that come in. We have already increased our Nursery staff to six full time nurses. We need to raise approximately $15,000.00 for the expansion of our nursery.

Simeon almost didn’t make it! When we first found him on the ground outside our gate, we thought that like Jacob, he had no major physical problems. After we called the police out (which we do each time a baby is left at our gate… ) to complete the documentation about the baby’s being abandoned, we took Simeon to the nursery to bathe him and put him in clean clothes. It was during this time we discovered he had no way to evacuate his solid body wastes. We rushed him to the local hospital and they told us they were not equipped to treat this condition (needed emergency surgery) but that if it wasn’t done immediately the baby would not last another 24 hours. This did not give us enough time to get him to Beijing where Dr. Xu (the doctor who does all our surgeries) is located.

We called Dr. Xu and asked him for a recommendation for a doctor in ZhengZhou. As it turned out, one of his med school classmates is now the chief surgeon at the children’s hospital in ZhengZhou. Dr. Xu called him and he was waiting for us when we arrived. They immediately rushed this little five day old baby into the operating room.

The procedure is a three step procedure if all goes according to plan. (Which it didn’t) The first step is to bring the end of his lower intestine out through a small incision in his lower stomach and stitch in place where it will remain for six to seven months. This allows the solid body waste to evacuate. The second surgery is to create the opening for his normal evacuation and add a section similar to the lower intestine from the opening up toward the area where the lower intestine ends along with making sure the muscles involved in his passing his body wastes function properly. Once that surgery heals they will do the final surgery which is to place the end of his lower intestine back inside his stomach and connect it to the area they repaired in the second surgery.

The problem was that two days after the second surgery, Simeon stopped passing his body fluids so they had to rush him back to surgery and insert a tube into his bladder and out another incision in his little stomach. This remained in place until the 12th of January when they removed the bladder tube and now his liquids evacuate as they should.

On the 13th of January we brought Simeon home. He is doing really well, and since in Chinese hospitals each patient must have a family member in attendance with the patient 24 hours a day, we kept one of our nursery house mothers at the hospital with Simeon, rotating them in and out every other day. Now that he is home, they have all spent time at the hospital under the doctor and nurse’s tutelage and know exactly how to care for him. God is faithful!

Again, this was all unexpected and the hospital costs were beyond our budget and budgetary planning. If you wish to help with Simeon’s expenses you can find out how to do so on our Donations page.