A Prayer Request, New Numbers, and a Strange Medical Finding

Hi again! One of these days we'll actually get back into the groove of posting more often, but you know how life is. We do have a very important prayer request for all of you though: my sister-in-law Casey (my youngest brother Seth's wife) has been in the hospital over the last few days following some stroke-like symptoms, some seizures and a horrible migraine. She has been through a whole bevy of tests, and the neurologist can't find anything wrong, so she is currently diagnosed with a "very complicated migraine." Obviously, it has been very scary for all of us. She is only 21 years old, and she and Seth already have a lot on their plate. Seth is in his 4th year of pharmacy school as well as working as many hours as possible to support their family. They have 3 small children and they live about an hour away from their extended families. Casey's been told that she may not be able to drive again for a year due to the seizures that she had, so that further complicates everything. Please pray for them: for Casey's healing, for their strength, for Seth's last week of school before Christmas break to go smoothly, for their finances, and for their children. God is faithful, and prayer is so important! Here are some pictures of their family: (Zavier, their oldest is 4 and is one of Yikealo's good buddies, Lexie is 2, and smiley Baby Drew is 6.5 months)

In other news, we recieved our new waitlist numbers today: we are now #84 for a girl and #62 for a boy. Not a lot of movement yet, but that's okay. It will all happen when it's supposed to!

We've asked our case manager to check into the possiblity of us being able to meet Yikealo's birth family when we travel to Ethiopia on our first trip, and she did find out for us that Y's older brother is still in our agency's sponsorship program, so they do have some contact with them. We ask for your prayers in this matter too - that God will give us wisdom to know how to proceed and that he will open the necessary doors for us to meet Mihiret and Edil if possible.

Speaking of Yikealo, he has had a nasty, croupy cough again during the last few days, so I took him to the doctor today for some prescriptions. Our regular pediatrician was off, so we saw a different doctor who pointed out to me that my son does not have a uvula (that little flap of skin that hangs down in the far back of your mouth.) She said that while she doesn't really know about Ethiopia, she used to work with a number of refugees from Somalia, and it was common for them to remove the uvula of an infant shortly after birth! I was very surprised that after all of the different doctor's appointments that we've been to, no one has every mentioned this to us, but there you have it - just one of the many possible bits of random information that you can come across as an internationally adoptive Mama!