Teeth, Ears and.... Eyes? (We Got 2 out of 3)

We can check 3 more appointments off our list for Maggie: dental, ENT & eye doc.  Well sort of.

Here's what we found out.

Dental
Teeth are as good as can be expected at this point.
She will need major dental work over her childhood to position her teeth correctly.
Brushing is crucial for her, as cleft kiddos are more prone to decay.
For now we just keep an eye on her teeth & mouth. Around age 3, we'll start to determine how speech comes into play and if further surgeries are needed to help aid her speech development.
Go back in 6 months.

Hearing/Audiology
Tubes look GREAT!
Hearing test went flawless-no tears and she heard and responded to everything perfectly!!!
Go back in 6 months.

Side note:  This was a huge difference from last attempt a few months ago: The 1st go-around she didn't respond to the sounds in part because she couldn't hear them (we believe she really had significant hearing loss due to the amount of fluid in her ears), and also because she was stuck in that crib alone and didn't KNOW to respond to noises. Heartbreaking.  I actually had tears running down my cheeks during this 2nd hearing test. In the back of our head, tucked away behind our more pressing needs of her surgery, we were worried she had true hearing loss.  To know that she can now hear well was amazing.  She was interactive and responsive and SO DIFFERENT than she was a few months ago.  I was so overjoyed at how far she had come. Yet it was also bittersweet because how simple was it to place tubes in her ears to allow her to hear better and give her the family she deserves so she knows to respond... there are MILLIONS of kids who will never get this and it makes me so sad.

Vision
Appointment failure.  Not because she can't see, but because she didn't cooperate. At all.  She screamed. And screamed. We tried to pry her eyes open and they were rolled back into her head!!  All the while Sam & Allie were manically pushing each other around in the stroller in the tiny exam room and laughing hysterically.

Somehow through all that the eye doc was able to see that she can see well and her eye muscles are working well. But she was not able to see her retina or the back of her eye at all to get a general feel for her eye health.  However, we have no reason to be concerned, so we'll wait.

Go back in 6 months and try again.

Common theme: all is well for now, come back in 6 months.  So far here is our list of appointments for the fall:
2 year checkup
plastic surgeon
dentist
ENT/audiologist
eye doc

Coming up: We're getting close to our 6 month gotcha anniversary and 6 months homecoming anniversary! Our social worker comes tonight to check in and write our 6 month follow-up report, which will be submitted to China.

Maggie also has a follow-up appointment at the adoption clinic in a few weeks, they oversee her care and we'll check in with them to see the big picture, which we think looks pretty good for her right now.

Other than that and our Help Me Grow speech/language visits once or twice a month, appointments should slow down for her for a while. I hope!