LWB first met Emily a year ago, and who could forget her! This spunky little girl with a big personality was dealing with multiple special needs, including three missing limbs, cleft lip, and a heart defect. Emily had her cleft lip surgery during our 2012 Cleft Medical Exchange last April and then stayed at Heartbridge Healing Home before and after her heart surgery. In December Emily, now named Jennai, was adopted by her American family. Read more.
A little over a year ago little Abby was admitted to LWB’s Henan Healing Home. Because of her bilateral cleft lip and palate, she had great difficulty feeding, and the HHH nannies set her up with a feeding tube. Having reached a healthy weight, Abby was able to be part of LWB’s cleft exchange trip held in April last year. After a difficult surgery, her results looked amazing. Happy to be rid of her feeding tube hat, Abby smiled more, became less shy, and gained more weight as feeding was so much easier. Read more.
Jaylinn is one of 49 children whose life was changed by LWB’s Cleft Exchange trip held in Kaifeng last year. This beautiful young girl is one of those babies who drew the medical staff and volunteers to her with her social and interactive personality. The volunteers would rush to her bed each morning upon arrival at the hospital, hoping to get to take care of her that day. Read more.
Adorable Asher from Anhui is now nine months old! You may remember him from the Cleft Exchange in Kaifeng last spring where he had his cleft lip repaired by our LWB medical team. After the cleft trip, Asher recuperated and continued to gain weight at our Anhui Healing Home.
This lovely boy entered foster care in July and is settling in well with his new family. Read more.
The value of volunteering lies at the very heart of Love Without Boundaries, which is nearly entirely run by volunteers and likely would not exist without their efforts. VolunteerMatch, an organization that matches up volunteers with organizations in need, recently held a “Why I Volunteer” photo contest spotlighting outstanding volunteers, and we are thrilled to announce that our very own Dr. John Ness was the winner! Many of our readers will remember Dr. Ness from the Cleft Exchange trips and might especially remember the above photo of him in the “baby pile,” surrounded by some of the babies whose cleft lips and palates he helped heal this spring. Read more.
Many of our supporters will remember little Garett, who was cared for in our Anhui Healing Home. He had an extensive cleft, and he loved to smile at everyone with his eyes twinkling.
To say that Garrett lived life with gusto is the understatement of the year, and we know more than one of our nannies joked that she was completely worn out trying to keep up with him. Read more.
In April all six of the babies in the Henan Healing Home had successful cleft lip repair surgery during LWB’s 2012 Cleft Exchange trip held at the Kaifeng Children’s Hospital. These babies have all healed and graduated to foster care programs. With the discharge of these babies, new babies have entered the home to receive the devoted care of the nannies and nutritious formula in special bottles designed for babies with cleft. This cycle of nurture and healing continues to help more babies born with cleft lip and palate gain health and healing.
Read more.
Last month 49 children received cleft lip or palate surgeries during LWB’s Cleft Medical Exchange in Kaifeng. One of those precious children was a very special little girl named Emily. Eighteen months ago Emily was born, missing both legs and one arm. When Amy Eldridge, LWB’s executive director, and Sheri Russon, LWB’s administration director, visited China in March, they met sweet Emily at her orphanage in Guangdong Province. They knew that this little one would need a little extra help finding her forever family and set the wheels in motion for her to be able to receive surgery during the cleft trip. Read more.
My cleft trip summary was supposed to be submitted right after Maureen Brogan’s beautiful post, but to be honest, I didn’t have it in me. I needed a breather as I felt both emotionally and physically raw after returning, and trying to sum up the week I witnessed in China with a few clever sentences seemed trite and disingenuous. I wrote earlier that these trips were hard, but I had no idea. I came back to the US changed. No epiphanies, but the world looked and felt different, and the problem was that I couldn’t articulate why, either to myself or others. Until tonight. Read more.
Cleft trips are always emotionally and physically exhausting. The months of preparation, the long plane rides, the huge, overweight suitcases that are wrestled through the airports and begged through check-in without overweight fees, the physical aliments in a foreign country, and the long, hard hours in an unfamiliar hospital all become insignificant compared to the moment that the first child comes back from the operating room. Read more.
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