I shared a couple of weeks ago that Esther had had surgery.  We are about five weeks into the tissue expanders actually expanding and have at least three more weeks left of the process.  She receives injections in the expanders every two to three days and for the most part they have been fairly painless… which is incredibly surprising to me.

Esther is such a brave girl and Noah is doing an incredible job of being the supportive sister.  Last Thursday was especially tough for Esther though.  Over the past couple of weeks ML had been doing the injections for the expanders at home.  It sounds a little odd but the doctor had worked with him and felt that we was competent (because I’m certainly not) to do them at home.  It made things a lot easier than having to wake up before six and get to the hospital by seven on mornings when we needed to get an injection from the doctor.  We had gotten into a routine of doing them just before bed time and letting Esther pick a show (Barney is her distraction of choice) to watch while ML injected her expanders.  It worked great and normally we could get through the entire process with her barely noticing anything was going on. It was awesome!!!

But then last Thursday happened.  Thursday we had to go back to Children’s of Alabama so that her doctor could check on her progress and get some measurements.  Like I said earlier her appointment was at 7:00 a.m.  For the record y’all, I barely function at that time of the morning.  He went ahead and did her injection for that day… which is no big deal except that he injected a lot more than we had been in one of her expanders and it was immediate discomfort and pain for her.

I brought her home and took her straight to bed because she just wanted to try and sleep the pain off.  Before and after the injections I applied some of my pain cream mixture of essential oils.  She really felt like this helped and asked for it often that day but despite all the cream and sleep it was still uncomfortable for her.  She would wake up crying and scared and beg for me to lay with her.  I took her up on her offer and enjoyed snuggling with her and loving on her. It was really a nice bonding time for us.

As I lay there with her I couldn’t help but think over her first few months of life.  The first few months when she was in the hospital.  I wondered how often she had cried out and no one was there to cradle her or feed her.  No doubt, I believe she was well cared for her and she definitely had one special lady in her life but I imagine there were still times that she cried and no one was available to come meet her needs.  I enjoyed spending time Thursday and Friday doing just that.. meeting her needs.  Oh, that all the needs of orphaned children around the world could be met.  That they could cry to their mommy like Esther did and say to their mommy like Esther did, “mommy, I don’t feel like smiling today.” and then be reassured that it is ok to not feel like smiling when you don’t feel well and then rest in the arms of their mother.

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