Preslie’s story began in November of 2013. She was born to parents in China who I’m sure loved her so much but chose to give her up so that so that she could get the medical help that she so desperately needed.
My husband and I also started the adoption process in November of 2013. After losing three pregnancies, we knew that God had bigger plans for us and how we would grow our family. Adoption has been a passion of mine since I was a young girl and saw a documentary on these beautiful children being abandoned because of the one child policy.
Little did I know that many years later one of those beautiful children would call me Mama.
We filled out our medical checklist in November of 2013 we checked things like cleft lip/palate, limb differences and clubfoot. We finished all of our pre adoption paperwork and were LID by October 2014. But then we waited, we fund-raised and worked hard to raise all the money we would need to bring a little girl home from China.
On July 22, 2015 our adoption agency called us, “We have a profile for you to look at, she is a beautiful 21 month old little girl with a right club foot. Would you like to see her profile?” We couldn’t say Yes fast enough. She was our daughter and she was perfect.
In October of 2015 we became a family. From the moment we met our daughter she was unstoppable. She had one surgery in China to lengthen her Achilles tendon and, when we met her, was wearing a brace on both feet. We soon started physical therapy when we arrived home to strengthen her legs and work on the flexibility of her feet.
In February of 2016 she had a couple of serial castings done to start moving her right foot into the correct position. After those were done she was placed into a small AFO (ankle-foot orthotic) to hold her foot where it could become stronger.
In February of 2018 Preslie started serial casting again to prepare her foot for her what we hope to be her final surgery. She had six weeks of serial casting to stretch her Achilles tendon so that the surgeon could move a tendon in the top of her foot to hold her foot in the ideal position.
After her serial casting was complete she went into surgery.
After surgery she was put her last cast to for her foot to heal.
After six weeks in her final cast the doctors removed her cast.
And her foot looked great! YAY!
Did I mention that our sweet girl never complained once threw this whole process?
She taught us was that kids are amazing, and no mater what obstacle l they are faced with they will overcome it and continue threw life as if there was never anything standing in their way.
Preslie should have no long term effects from having a clubfoot. Maybe a smaller calf muscle on her right leg and a foot that might bump into the other every once in awhile but as we said in the beginning, nothing will ever slow our girl down.
She is amazing and showing the world you can do anything if you keep trying and never give up.
– guest post by Angela
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