Say Yes to No-nos!

post from Love Without Boundaries
www.lwbcommunity.org

After surgery for cleft lip or palate, it is all too easy for children to hurt the incision by putting hands or toys in their mouths. For this reason, after surgery children wear arm restraints, commonly called “no-nos”.

No-nos need to be worn for several weeks while the surgical site heals. These soft, Velcro-wrap arm restraints are surprisingly expensive and difficult to find in China. Luckily, however, no-nos can be reused over and over. Do you or someone you know have a used pair?

LWB volunteers traveling to China this fall hope to take as many no-nos as they can pack into their suitcases. Donated no-nos will be distributed to healing homes where children recovering from facial surgeries can make good use of them.

If you have a pair that you would like to see used again, please contact  Love Without Boundaries at specialprojects@lwbmail.com, and they will provide you with the mailing address of an LWB team member with room in their suitcase. Thank you for your help!

Referral

We have formally accepted a referral for a 3 year old boy named Yangkang from the Anhui province. He is one month younger than Mia. He was born with a large VSD and received surgery at 3 months of age to correct it. Our doctors believe that he is now low risk for further heart issues. We are requesting a little more information from China, but we submitted our LOI (letter of intent) to our agency today.  We will happily share a picture when we receive our LOA (letter of approval) back from China.

The month of July was an emotional roller coaster. We were LID on July 10. On July 14, the first shared list was released since our log in date. On July 15, I emailed our agency to ask how many LID families they had and how the agency goes about matching.  They emailed back with their response and then later that day, I was told that a little boy’s file had just been released to the shared list. After much consideration, we had to say no. Sadly, his multiple special needs were more than we felt we could handle. 

Then on July 23, a dear woman from our church shared with us information on a little boy that was being advocated for by Love Without Boundaries. His name was the same name that I’ve had on my heart since we were in the process of adopting Mia. I contacted LWB to find out what adoption agency had his file, and then contacted that agency to see if they would be willing to transfer his file to our agency.  The agency had just received his file the previous week, and was not willing to share until their families had a chance to consider him, which I completely understand and is only fair. However, seeing this little boy’s file and having to turn down a referral caused a lot of distress and confusion. I prayed that God would give us the referral from the next shared list the following Monday, July 28, and that the boy with the other agency would be matched by Monday also, if he was not the one for us.

So, Monday night came, and we received a referral from the shared list for our son Yangkang! The next morning I found out that the boy with the other agency had been matched as well. Praise God.

                                                                                                            LORI