It's about time for another post. First, I want to update everyone on Mia's situation. Mia's got a hole in her heart which, while not life-threatening, requires her heart to work extra hard in order to pump blood through her body. Whenever she undergoes any kind of stress, her heart rate jumps up into uncomfortable levels. The hole might heal on its own, and it might not. If it doesn't, they may need to perform surgery when she's about 5 or 6 so that she doesn't have heart failure near the age of 30. It's nothing pressing, but we pray it will heal so she can have a healthy, normal life.
They are not yet sure if she'll need laser eye surgery to help the blood vessels expand to the outer edges of her eye. It might take care of itself.
The last time I checked, her weight was up to 1150 grams. That's about 2 1/2 pounds. We were looking forward to the 1600 gram mark, because we figured that we'd be able to start holding her around then. Stef has been anxious to start Kangaroo Care. Baby kangaroos are born quite underdeveloped. They continue their development outside the womb in the pouch, where they get to spend a lot of time skin-to-skin with their mothers. Premature babies are a lot stronger when they get to spend time skin-to-skin with mom. We were told that Mia had to be strong enough to breathe without the help of a respirator.
While she has been strong enough to breathe on her own for a while, her oxygen level in her blood would go down when they took her off the respirator. The nurses have been taking the respirator off for a half-hour at a time to see how she does. She's gotten better and better at keeping her heart rate normal and oxygen saturation levels above 90 (usually around 95) when she's off the respirator. We finally get to see her without a mask every once-in-a-while.
Yesterday, during Sunday School, I got a call from the hospital. I was a bit worried at first, but they were calling to let Stef know that she could start Kangaroo Care. I was so excited to tell her. So, Stef got to hold Mia up against her chest for the first time. For now, she can do that every day from 12:30 until 1. Once Mia's up to about 1600 grams (I believe), she should be strong enough to stay out of the incubator without little electrodes on her back and foot. She's doing very well. We're so grateful for all the prayers on her behalf.
Life has been a whirlwind since Mia was born. I've had piles of forms to fill out and countless meetings with doctors and town hall workers. Every few weeks we meet with my supervisor, the doctors, and a translator from the prefectural office. At first, I was a bit wary of having the prefectural translators help out. After all, the church members had been helpful enough, and the translators might have contributed to us getting kicked out of Grant and Etta's apartment. One of the translators, Murakami-san, was very kind and understanding of our situation, so we decided to go ahead and have him translate for us. That turned out to be a fantastic decision.
Right now, I work during the week and make the 4-5 hour journey to Matsuyama every Friday night to be with Stef and Kelsey. My board of education has shuffled my schedule so that I can work Tuesday through Friday and be with the fam until Monday afternoon. My mom's been with Stef for about 3 weeks, and that's lightened Stef's load considerably on the days I'm not there. We still miss each other terribly, but at least she's got someone to keep her company during the week. Mom goes home in a little over a week, so things are going to get a bit tougher for Stef.
Before Mia was born, we visited Kitt, one of the JETs in Imabari (where we went to church before we moved to Matsuyama). We commented on how convenient it was and how much easier life would be if we were there. Stefanie and I were very worried about bringing Mia back to Uoshima. Since Uoshima is so scarily inconvenient for newborns, we were considering moving Stef, Mia, and Kelsey to Imabari after Mia gets released from the hospital. I would go to Imabari on weekends after working in Uoshima all week. In the meantime, we'd see about getting transferred to a place with a hospital. The JET Program is usually pretty strict about transfers. It's difficult to get a transfer, and we'd have to wait until the end of July to do so. We were gearing up for some pretty difficult times the next few months.
Then Murakami-san mentioned something. He asked us if we were considering a transfer. We told him that we wanted to be closer to a hospital, but that we had heard about JET's strict transfer policy. We asked if it was possible, and he said that transfers were approved in extreme cases, and that he was the one in charge of transfers in Ehime. We told him that we'd love him to pursue a transfer, if possible. He said that he couldn't promise anything, and would get back to us when he knew for sure.
Stef and I went on with life, praying that things would work out. One day, one of my JET friends sent me an instant message, mentioning Kitt wasn't renewing her contract. When I e-mailed Kitt to find out why, she told me that she was leaving right away. Even though I felt bad that her Japan experience didn't work out, I was excited about an opening for next year in Imabari.
Then, one day, my boss asked me if I would be willing to move to Imabari in April if the opportunity presented itself. Murakami-san had contacted my boss and asked if I would be willing to take Kitt's spot. I obviously approved of the move, but they told me not to get my hopes up. Uoshima paid a lot of money for me to come there, and it wasn't likely that they'd just let me go. It also wasn't a given that Imabari would take me. I mentioned all this to Kitt, and she told me that she suspected that something was up. Her boss was okay with her leaving mid-year, which is almost unheard of. I got excited. But weeks passed, and every time I asked my boss for more information, he told me that he hadn't heard anything and that it was bad to speculate.
We set up a meeting with the doctors, Murakami-san, and my boss, to discuss Mia's health. After going through the details of Mia's health, the doctors left and we had some time to ask Murakami-san some questions. Stef expressed her concern about having to care for Mia and Kelsey on Uoshima, and asked Murakami-san if he had heard anything about our transfer. He said that they were currently monitoring the surrounding areas for openings, and that they would let us know if anything came up. He asked if we had a preference between Imabari and Matsuyama. We mentioned that we had been told that it was bad to specify a preference, and he asked us, unofficially, what our preference was. I suspected that they were already trying to set something up with Imabari, so I mentioned that we'd prefer to go there, since we know people and rent is cheaper. After that, he didn't mention Matsuyama again. But he had plenty of questions about us living in Imabari. It was clear that, while he couldn't tell us anything until it was official, they were trying to move us there.
This past week, I had a JET seminar in Matsuyama with other JETs and a handful of native Japanese teachers from all over Ehime. During one of the workshops, a Japanese man came up to me and asked me if I was the one that was going to move to Imabari and start working at his school. When I said that I hadn't heard anything official, he backpedaled. Realizing he shouldn't have said anything, he said that he hoped that it would work out, and said that it was just between the two of us. Finally, unofficial confirmation! Or so I thought.
I called my boss and mentioned the run-in, and asked if he'd heard anything. He scolded me for talking about it, and said that he still hadn't heard anything. A few days later, my boss called to tell me that both boards of education had approved the transfer and that I would transfer in April, not July. The Japanese school year starts in April and goes until March. I'll finish out the school year here in Uoshima, and then we'll move to Imabari. We think we'll be taking Kitt's place in her apartment, but we're not yet sure.
We're very excited. Even though rent's more expensive in Imabari than in Uoshima, we won't have to spend 400 bucks a month on travel for church. Stef will have a lot more things to do with Kelsey and Mia, and we'll be closer to a hospital. We can't help but thank God for the way He's taken care of us through all this. We find it strangely coincidental that Kitt is leaving now, and that she happens to live in a place where we openly longed to live. Things will still be tough for the next couple months, but we're so hopeful for the future and what it brings.
Kelsey is really starting to become a handful. She is incredibly bold (to the point of our heads a-sploding). She doesn't listen to us all the time, and can throw a tantrum with the best of them. But she's also really cute. When we're walking with her and want to keep her close, we ask her to hold either Mommy's hand or Daddy's hand. She puts one hand over the other and says, "Kelsey's hand." She likes to announce to the world what's going on around her. For example, when Stef starts pumping milk, Kelsey shouts, "Mommy! Pumping!" And just in case we didn't know, she adds, "Kelsey! No pumping! Daddy! No pumping! Gamma! No pumping!" When Stef finishes pumping, it's, "Mommy! All done! Pumping!" Grandma says that she's going to be an announcer when she grows up. I figure she'll be a sportscaster for weight lifting competitions--"Krzyzvsky! All done! Pumping! Iron!"
To finish up, here's a little video of her in Stef's boots.
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