Celebrating: One Year Home for Lily & A Bone Marrow Donor Located for Hannah

What a day to celebrate!!!

Early this morning a letter came via email from Seattle stating that "a donor source has been identified" for Hannah's bone marrow transplant -- Hallelujiah!!!

We are now working with Kaiser & the Seattle team to get all of Hannah's pre-transplant appointments coordinated & set a date to go to Seattle. THIS IS HUGE NEWS!!!!!!!!

No, I'd rather not have Hannah need a BMT but if she needs it -- let's get the show on the road. Today is exactly 10 months since Hannah was admitted to the hospital for Very Severe Aplastic Anemia. The chances of a successful transplant drop after the one year mark so we are eager, at this point, to get the transplant.

Also celebrating today -- it is exactly ONE YEAR since we stepped off the plane with our sweet miss Lily from China. She has been a citizen for one year & Hannah has known her little sister for one year.

I can't imagine this past year if we had still been waiting for our referral. The past 10 months have been filled with more hospital stays than I can even remember but Lily has brought much joy, happiness & therapy. Truly, she is therapy. Thank you, Lord, for the amazing gift that Lily is to our family!!! She is such a treasure.

In one year she has learned so many things -- to name a few: to walk, climb stairs, say just about everything, work the karaoke machine, take pictures with my camera, download songs onto my phone (didn't know it could do that!), jump on Katie's trampoline, enjoy bath time, pray at meals (she loves to hold hands, bow head & add "amen" at the end), enjoy a regular routine whether it is at Kim's home or our home, love her sister and love her entire family - even though we have been apart so much over this past year.

I thank God for so many things about Lily -- today at nap time, I was rocking her & just thanking God that she is still so tiny. Call me crazy but I feel like her tiny size is a gift from God to me. I can still rock her like a little baby & it makes me feel that I have not missed so much of her life. I can easily carry her with one arm and I love it! She fits perfectly on my hip and she fits perfectly in our family and perfectly into Kim's family (which is really our family, too!). Truly, this past year Lily has been raised by all of us. She has spent more days at Kim's place than ours. Never did I imagine it would be this way but each day I thank God for the family that Kim & her family are to us. None of us imagined that Hannah would be so sick this year ... how could we? God knew & that is why He provided what all of us need to keep making it through: each other. Thank you, Lord!!

By the way, today is Kim's birthday -- Happy Birthday "Auntie Mom"!!! I love you & thank God for the fun, crazy, caring, loving, kind, thoughtful, hysterical, intuitive, generous person that you are! My life is better each day because of you!!

All God's best from HOME --