Facebook Babies Update

In February, it was announced on Facebook that LWB won the Facebook challenge. With winning this award, we won $50,000, enough to help heal 10 heart babies. We thought you might like to see the babies and get an update on how they are all doing. Some are healed, some are in the hospital right now waiting for their turn, others are still waiting until just the right time. Everyone one of these children's lives will be changed forever with the money won through this contest.

Thank you to everyone who helped to make this happen!

Ying from Henan is still too tiny for surgery but is scheduled to have her ToF repair done in August. What a peanut! As soon as her heart is repaired, she will then have cleft lip surgery as well.

Yun from Zhejiang received surgery for ToF in February and is doing GREAT. This is a photo from the hospital bed.

Xiang from Guangdong was SO sick, and his aunties from the orphanage really didn't think he would make it. The Facebook funds came just in time and he had surgery in March. He received surgery for ToF and PA and is doing so well that he is being submitted for adoption. He was very blue before and now is a lovely shade of pink!

Ya received surgery for ToF and has been matched with her forever family now. That is what makes us absolutely the happiest.

Yang from Henan will be having ToF surgery next week. We can't wait to see his blue lips turn to pink!

Yun from Anhui received surgery for VSD and pulmonary hypertension and is doing so great!

Yan from Anhui will have surgery for VSD and PA soon. She needs a very specialized surgery so she needs extra prayers.

Yu from Guangxi received successful surgery for PDA.

Lin from Anhui received surgery for both PA and VSD!

And Xiong from Henan received surgery for VSD, PDA, and pulmonary hypertension. Isn't that a GREAT smile?

Karen Maunu
Medical Director

Help Heal a Heart!

"Born in my Heart" Art Auction
April 24-29, beginning the 24th at 9:00 am Pacific Time

In nearly every orphanage in China, children in need of heart surgery wait to be healed. In an effort to help as many of these orphans as possible, Love Without Boundaries began the "Born in my Heart" art auction five years ago. This is an annual event that serves as our special tribute to the miracle of adoption, and also as a fundraiser to help us provide these essential operations to children who need emergency heart surgery.

You can help to save the life of a child by taking part from April 24-29. Every penny raised will help to heal precious children and give them the opportunity to grow and thrive, and perhaps even find a family of their very own. So please bid often and bid generously!

Auction items will begin to launch at 9 am (Pacific) on Thursday, April 24th. Nearly 300 items will be added throughout the day, and the auction will close Tuesday, April 29th (again, with items closing throughout the course of the day).

We have some absolutely incredible items this year, all donated by LWB's fabulous supporters! Just a few of the items you won't want to miss are: "Jia: Portrait of Hope" by Leila Ashton (above): an original oil painting of one of our LWB heart babies, a life-size replica jade burial suit,

two giclee prints of "Qi Pan" by Zhao Kailin, personalized digital lifebooks, the most beautiful collection of quilts imaginable (including several "100 Good Wishes" quilts),

beautiful paintings (both originals and giclee prints), calligraphy, custom adoption videos, amazing photography, embroidery, gift baskets, jewlery, clothing, heritage items and so much more!

You will be able to access our auction from the Love Without Boundaries website homepage at: http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/, beginning April 24th.


You can also play a part in healing hearts by posting about the auction! If you have a personal or family website or blog, we would be so grateful if you would mention this event, as so many children are counting on us for surgery. Help spread the news that lives can be saved!

Thank you in advance for helping to make this year's auction our best ever!
Love Without Boundaries Art Auction Committee

Whole Care

One of our goals at LWB is to provide "whole care" services to the children in our foster care programs, which means that all of our program areas work together to make sure the kids have the best chance possible of becoming healthy and happy.

So if a child isn't gaining weight the way we think they should, we will investigate if a special formula is needed, or if a child becomes school aged, we will arrange kindergarten. And definitely if a child needs surgery, we will work with the orphanage and foster family to get them quality medical care.

All of these adorable boys are in foster care in Anhui and were also part of our medical program. Don't they look great? We hope this is the year that they all find their forever families.

Christmas Babies

As those of you who follow our news know, the number of orphanages contacting us now for medical support is beyond our financial ability to help them all. That is just a reality that we are coming to terms with. We have taken in so many children recently with emergency medical needs that we have exhausted our general medical fund, and so I had to make the very painful recommendation to our Board of Directors to close our “ER” until we once again had general funds to use.

The main issue is that we are not able to fundraise for the most critically ill babies, as they have to go immediately to the hospital. As most of you know, we normally put the children on our website who need surgery, and over a few weeks they are usually sponsored and then moved for their operations. But the urgent kids have to be moved without funding in place, which is why the general funds are so essential. With those funds currently exhausted….we had to say “no more urgent kids” for awhile.

Christmas morning, however, I woke up to the news of several newly abandoned babies who were in critical condition. I had told the LWB volunteers that our foundation would be closed for a few days over Christmas, to spend time with our families, but the sad reality is that babies become orphaned every single day, and there is no “holiday schedule” when a child is urgently ill. Of course our offices never really close.

And so on the day that is normally one of great joy, we were notified of two tiny little babies who would not survive without immediate care. One little boy was left in Anhui province, with an enormous tumor on his back which appears to have split open. The other tiny baby was left in Henan, again with a spinal tumor which was broken open and bleeding.

Both babies look so completely tiny and vulnerable in their photos. Both babies would not survive without immediate medical intervention. And it was Christmas Day… and we were being asked to give our answer on whether we could help save their lives.

So what do you say on Christmas Day when your ER is closed and yet two beautiful newborn boys are in need of someone to step forward and say, “yes we want you to have a second chance at life”?

Well….what would YOU say? My guess is that our answers are the same. And my prayer is that both boys will get the miracle they deserve.

http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/SponsorMedical.php

Busy Day at Shanghai Childrens

Below is a letter from Winnie, one of the LWB medical directors in China. Please keep all of the kids having surgery tomorrow in your thoughts and prayers. Little Dou (first photo) had her spinal tumor break open in the orphanage. We are all hoping she will be okay.

The twins are also listed on our website as urgent as their care is costing a great deal every single day and we haven't raised very much for them. "Moving forward on faith" is definitely what we are doing with their medical care. Their names together mean "rainbow" and their orphanage does so many international adoptions that I know if we can get them healed, they will eventually become a family's treasured new daughters. Keep fighting rainbow girls!

Dear All:

We will have a very busy day tomorrow. Dou, Hui and Li will have their surgeries at the same day. It takes a long time to do the CT for Hui because he doesn't sleep at all. Dr. Zhu has to use anaesthesia to get the CT done eventually. He is sleeping so deeply that his caregiver worries when he could wake-up.

I get a call from NICU regarding to the twins, the little one : Hong is having anemia and need to have the blood useage certificate. I go to the blood center to apply for the certificate, guess what? they don't charge me anything because they realize that Hong is an orphan. Also, the NICU nurses ask for Vitamin drops for the twins. From the pictures, you can see how well they are growing now.

Wen is still yellowish now. She is fed by formula and eats very well, but her color is not good as others. Yun is fully fed by formula today. She looks healthier and shows more interests towards surroundings. She may need several days more to wait for the stitches removal and her foster family in Shanghai will come to SCMC to learn the after care, then she will be discharged soon.

After removing the patches on her head, Yuan is leaving for Henan either on Thursday or Friday. She is still a happy girl even though the stitches on her head is noticable!


best regards,

Winnie