CHOP Visit

Today, we spent most of the day at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.  We were there for our first adoption clinic appointment. CHOP offers this as part of their services for adoptive families and it is worth every penny.  We were scheduled to meet with Dr. Hachen (pediatrician) and Amy an OT and we did.

Echo

Dr. Hachen noted several things that we had noticed and some that we hadn't.  Amy was able to do a very thorough developmental assessment on Liliana.  She noticed the same things that B.J. and I had been noticing, specifically, that while Liliana is at age level with some of her skills, in other areas she is very delayed.  Amy used a screening tool where you are supposed to stop once there are three things the child can't do, but if you went on, sometimes Liliana could do things that were four and five steps above where she couldn't do the task.  Amy said it was not uncommon for children from institutions to have things like that.  Most experts say that for every two to three months in an institution, children lose one month of growth and development.  Based on that, in some areas, Liliana is where we would expect her to be, but in others, she is very delayed.

Charming Dr. V.

During Dr. Hachen's exam, we mentioned some heart things we had been noticing.  She listened to Liliana and she heard a clear murmur.  She wanted to get it checked, so she had cardiology squeeze us into their schedule right away.  So after bloodwork (she was so brave while they drew vial after vial), we saw Dr. Vogel.  He heard the same thing and also noticed her very fast heartbeat.  He wanted to have an echo done. So we were taken down the hall and they did an echo.  Liliana was starting to get tired of all of the testing, but she held on with the encouragement of food and videos on the iPad.  They found a one inch hole in her heart which they will need to repair.  If they can, they'll do a patch but if there isn't enough tissue, it will have to be open heart surgery.  Funny thing is, at some point in the adoption process, I remember feeling like Liliana had a heart condition, so this was surprisingly not surprising.

Playing in radiology

After we were done with cardiology, we had x-rays done and then we were done for today.  They want to do some MRI tests, ultrasounds, and visits with audiology, and urology and depending on results, neurology and a few others that I don't remember right now.

Liliana was a trooper for the day.  She did great and I am so grateful to have the clinic helping us navigate all of this.  I know God has something great in store for Liliana and I can't wait to see what He has in store.