For The Least Of These You Did For Me

Welcome to our family's blog. We are the Duryea family and we have seven children. You might be wondering why we chose this name for our blog. Well, to begin with we have three beautiful biological children and three beautiful children from China. I'll share our journeys to China to bring home our beautiful children later. For now, I'd like to share why we chose this name for our blog. The Lord showed me this verse when we were first seeking adoption. The Lord chose to grow our family through adoption. However, the Lord has also opened our eyes to the needs of orphans , especially in China. We consider "...looking after the orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:17, as a way of life for us, a calling.

As I read through the many stories in our adoption agency's storybooks, there are countless stories that begin with "...after many years of experiencing infertility, we started the adoption process and are now a forever family"

If you are one of the countless couples that have experienced infertility, let me share with you the wonderful way of starting a family and at the same time providing a home for a needy orphan. God loves you and cares about you. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11. If you are feeling hopeless, let me promise you that the Lord hears your cries. If you haven't ever trusted in Jesus and put your hope in him, do it now. Your life will be better than you could ever imagine. I never planned or dreamed I would go to China (3 times) and have this wonderful family. My plans surely would have never been as wonderful as they are today.

I had endometriosis for many years, yet I was able to conceive and have three beautiful children. After Sarah was born in 1998, I experienced severe problems and had surgery. However, I was unable to conceive, probably due to the scars left by endometriosis. Like many of you I had emotional scars as well. Even though I already had three children , I still felt called to have a larger family. Many months, tears, and prayers later we considered adoption. I heard about the plight of baby girls in China and the one child policy that left them abandoned. As we were praying about this, David's family in St.Louis was having a first time ever family reunion. I knew this wasn't coincidence, because David's cousin, a single mom, adopted two girls from China. One was 5 years old and the other was 9 months. This gave us the opportunity to meet them and talk to his cousin about adoption. When we came home we saw an advertisement for an adoption seminar in our area. We attended and were ready to start the paperwork to begin our adoption for a baby girl from China. Our lives would never be the same again.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Luke's First Cochlear Implant Surgery

                                                        Monday, May 13, 2013

Today begins the start of a brand new life for Luke. Today is the day of his cochlear implant surgery.

We had to be at the University Hospital's Surgical Center at 6:45 am. Luke was the first surgery of the day which I was very thankful for since he was not allowed to eat or drink anything. How do you explain to a deaf child that he is not allowed to eat or drink? Thankfully he was very good the entire drive there.

We knew Luke might become upset when they started to prepare him for surgery because of the way he reacted to the sedation he received for the CAT scan. Well, as soon as they put the ID tag on his wrist and I started dressing him in his gown, he started to throw a temper tantrum. I don't know if he remembers something from his past surgery or if he was just scared. Either way we understand that this is a very natural reaction.So, the anesthesiologist had me carry him up to the restricted area and than he carried him to the operating area kicking and screaming. 

After only two hours the surgery was completed and is a success! They had two representative from the manufacture at the surgery also. They also turned on the implant to make sure it was working properly. It does work and Luke will be hearing as soon as his incision heals and the audiologist turns it on again on June 13, 2013. This will be a special day for Luke because he will really hear well for the first time.

The surgeon also said that he could see from the CAT scan that his nerves are alive and his cochlear is not deformed. His deafness could be genetic or could have been caused by a drug used to fight infection but can cause deafness. It was once used in the US in the 1940's and 50's.

On a previous post I mentioned the way God had ordained our meeting a young waitress who had cochlear implants at a Steak and Shake restaurant while we were praying about adopting Luke. When we came home from China we had our first visit with the ENT. He told us about his first cochlear implant patient and how she was going to college and is even a waitress at a restaurant. When we told him that we met her he couldn't believe it. We told him that this was God.  We believe that God encourages us by bringing people into our lives. In every step of Luke's adoption we have seen God's hand bringing us through and being with us.

Well, we were telling this story to the post-op nurse after Luke's surgery and some how it quickly was communicated to Luke's surgeon who happened to be preparing for the next surgery. He quickly came out of preparing for surgery to tell us that the young waitress we met was his patient too. He put in her second implant on the other ear. Everyone is so amazed at Luke's story and is in awe of God's hand upon this little boy.

Just to let you know that Luke is doing very well in his recovery. The next day after his surgery he was playing and back to his normal self. You wouldn't even know that he had major surgery the previous day.We are so thankful that God has given our nation such wonderful technology and the best healthcare in the world. We are also thankful that God has led us to use our resources to help a deaf orphan to have the miracle of hearing.







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