Tuesday

As you can tell from the pictures, Brighton is doing much better. She is slowly accepting our company and really interacting with us. She only had about three major grieving meltdowns yesterday. The meltdowns are intense, but as you can see, there are some precious smiles in the in between times. We actually are joking that she is Nathan's baby, because she has become very attached to him, in fact she has called him "MaMa" and really prefers him over us, while it is quite funny at times, it is also difficult.
Yesterday we finished the Chinese side of the adoption, complete with a family ceremony and visiting with other adoptive families, it was a great experience. Most of us families are experiencing much of the same things. Among one of the things we are experiencing is severe jet lag, the positive side to that is we are having great family time (all four of us) at 2am watching every episode of "King of Queens" that we brought. I am going to be sad when they run out, after that we'll move on to "Everybody Loves Raymond".
After our adoption declaration ceremony yesterday, we went to a Western Doctor, and boy am I glad we did. Our agency had encouraged us to have her skin condition confirmed, so we did....BUT come to find out the medicine she had been given does not work. China is the only country still using this particular medication that has in fact become ineffective. So now we have the best stuff, and she will be healed in three days tops, also he gave us some for ourselves to make sure we are covered if need be. We really like that Doctor!!! We had to have our laundry done in a special way to kill the "cooties" and I am boiling alot of our clothes one little pot of water at a time. The doctor told us she has had this a very long time, so her skin is very discolored almost everywhere. Much of the scaring will go away in three months but some of it will take up to six months because of so much dead tissue. I must be honest, it made me mad that she had not received help and allowed to make it to such a severe place. The doctor said that even in the orphanages they do not get to this extent because they are treated. This was from long term neglect that was not detected by the system until she was brought in for adoption, which at that point the orphanage director must have gotten her some meds and then brought her straight on to us. I had wondered why the meds they gave us had never been used, now the picture is very clear. Why let a little one have this type of discomfort and real agony is beyond me....I don't want to be too graphic, but take my word for it, it is very itchy.
We are missing our family back home, and really appreciate the kind words of encouragement, believe me I am soaking them all in!!!!
Till tomorrow,
Blessings,
Tammy