Heather

I like to peruse other heart families' blogs.  It connects me to our heart world...a world that can feel very isolated at times.  A few weeks ago I came across a link on a heart mom's blog to an adoption agency called Reece's Rainbow.  This is an international adoption agency for children with Down Syndrome.  They do, however, also dabble in facilitating adoptions for children with other medical conditions that make them hard to place.  Long story short, I came across a little girl named Heather. 

Heather was born in January (two days after my birthday and one day after my husbands, by the way) in the Ukraine.  She was given up at birth because of a heart defect, Double Outlet Right Ventricle.  She faces surgical correction this Fall in a Ukraine hospital, and no one expects her to survive.  This literally killed me on the inside.  A surgery that is perfectly survivable in the US will likely kill this child in the Ukraine.  I immediately had flash backs to Sam on the vent in the hospital after his surgery.  THEN I imagined this beautiful little creature, on the vent in a hospital after her surgery.  The difference was, no one was by her bedside.  No one was waiting on her in a waiting room for updates.  No one was requesting prayers or questioning her doctors about her status.  I broke.

I spoke with the adoption coordinator about the possibility of speeding up her adoption so that, if we adopted her, she could have her surgery HERE in Atlanta where her survival rate would shoot through the roof.  Unfortunately, the Ukraine government would not let her come early, as there is a 14 month wait for adoptions.  But I had really started to get my heart set on this little girl.  My husband and I spoke and we were totally ready to start fundraising to bring this girl home with us when she was ready.  Again, my heart broke, because before we could pull ourselves together, another family spoke up for her and put their paper work in.

This is a good thing.  She WILL have family waiting on her, even if she isn't allowed to leave the Ukraine for surgery.  And, since I believe all things happen for a reason, I have decided that the reason God wanted me to come across this little girl and fall in love with her is because I am supposed to let as many people as I can know about her and her plight.  We can be a source of prayer for this little girl, who would be lost to the world otherwise.

Her surgery will be sometime before December.  If you can spare some time, say a prayer for her and her surgeons, that God will work a miracle for her and have her safe and healthy for her new adoptive parents to pick her up as soon as the Ukraine government will release her.  She will never know us, but we can do something big for her.  I believe in the power of prayer and I hope you will join me in helping this little one pull through!

~Kathy