Cleft Lip Surgeries in Beijing

I am in the middle of one of my favorite things to do: looking at the transformed faces of the cleft lip babies. Dr. Lisa Buckmiller and her team started working her magic on the babies yesterday and before I left Beijing I saw River, and I just marveled. There are so many people who worked together to make this happen. I am so grateful to Dr. Bill Moody from the Philip Hayden Foundation who was able to take this on and find a place for the team to do surgery. I am also so grateful to the hospitals in Beijing who offered up their facilities and staff.
I wanted to show you the history of River at Starfish. A group of foreigners went with me to the big O to pick up some babies on May 4th this year. River was Mike's choice and he was also the one who named him. River was a month old and weighed 2.99kg or 6 and a half pounds, a small little thing. The one redeeming quality is that River could eat any time and any place and soon he started getting to Buddha Belly proportions! He is now pushing 9kg, quite a change. Soon, he was ready to go to Dr Niu (the dentist) for his orthodontic molding in preparation for surgery. He handled that well and nothing interfered with his eating. His favorite place to sleep was next to Olivia for as long as the two of them could fit into the one bouncer. He really has been the poster child of the cleft home. Yesterday, I saw the result of every one's contribution, and does he look good! There is still a little swelling because this was taken within and hour of him coming out of the OR, but you can see the results are phenomenal.
So by the time I fell into bed last night at 9pm, four Starfish babies had had surgery. River was first, but Sadie was after him and then Olivia and James. I am so eager to see what James looks like. He had a severe double cleft and I know the changes can be dramatic. We have had a few problems with the babies' health issues and I hope that we can clear that up so that more babies can have surgery. I think today it is Sophia and Tina who are on the schedule, and they both have double clefts and Dr Niu has fitted molds so their mouths are prepared for this.
Thank you to everyone who has offered their help. Getting 12 babies to Beijing was no small task. I will write more as I am able because it is a logistical nightmare knowing where everyone is and what is going on. We thank the sponsors of the babies because so far all the expenses to do with the surgeries have been covered. How grateful I am for their generosity!!
As a side note, Nava is back home from her surgery and Teresa came back from Shanghai too. It has been a month of action on all fronts.

Life, Love and Laughter,
Amanda

Starfish Children's Services
US Tax Number: 20-4682916
Xian China


At Starfish, we have taken care of 95 children to date, arranged more than 61 surgeries and had 23 international adoptions, so our little starfishes live all over the globe: the US, Netherlands, Norway and Spain and our latest adoption was to France. We currently have 47 babies under the age of 3 at two foster homes.
www.thestarfishfosterhome.org
http://chinesestarfish.blogspot.com
http://chinesestarfishcleft.blogspot.com
chinese.starfishthrower@gmail.com
Cell: 86.1348.812.4847