Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Praise the Lord for Pears!!

God just keeps the miracle rollin’ today! I got Yaya to eat (I use this term loosely as she droolled it all down the front of her bib) more of the sweet potatoes at lunch time. She acted like she didn’t know what to do with them once in her mouth but she always opened her mouth for me to put the food in. I was at first getting irritated in my head that she wouldn’t swallow the baby food, and then I was like…WAIT A DARN TOOTIN’ MINUTE! She is actually letting me put food in her mouth, who cares if she drools the entire container out of her mouth! And she did.

So I thought we should try a different flavor at dinner to see if she would let us put food in her mouth again. So I grabbed some pears (much more soupy and sweet than sweet potatoes). I gave Eric a spoon and warned him about Queen Drool. I was busy with putting out dinner that a sweet church friend brought to us (God bless Cheryl U.) And I hear Eric say to Yaya, “Oh you are finished? Oh wait, you are literally finished the pears are gone.” I thought, “Well yes but we can just scrape them all off her bib and save them for tomorrow.” I went to look at her as Eric was saying, “She ate the whole thing.” And lo and behold…she literally ate it! Like swallowed it. There were almost no pears on her bib. Eric and I stood there in shock for a minute and then laughed and then I almost cried. Our baby girl ate solids today!! Thank you Holy Spirit for helping her to make this transition! I pray this will only increase! Thank you sweet Jesus for answered prayers!

Double Stroller…who knew?

IMG_1945

I never thought I’d own one of these bad boys but I do now and I am way too excited about it. Sigh. I need to get out more…only I can’t right now. Anyway, I saw a woman with a Joovy Caboose Stand/Sit Ultralight stroller. Now I didn’t know that was its name at that time, but found out quickly that it was. She loved it and I was quite taken with it. It allows Eden to either stand and ride on the back or sit, while Yaya rides in the front. In the store while we were taking it for a test drive she was about sitting, but I suspect she will be a stand rider. She likes to get in and out of her normal stroller so much…well so much we don’t have a normal stroller for her. I actually gave her travel system to a friend of mine. But now she likes to be like Yaya. So she wants to sit in something too. I can’t manage the big jog stroller and and umbrella stroller at the same time and the radio flyer wagon is just to cumbersome and awkward. So double stroller it is! I also have to say I was elated when Eden chose the lime green over the back…it is much more trendy…and everyone knows how trendy I am. I wanted the black because it would hide stains better, but the the kid helping us with it sold me on the green when he showed me the entire thing can be removed and is machine washable…not to mention the lime green will be cooler…trendy here I am!! It also has a nifty storage area on the bottom and a cool drink and stuff holder. And it only weighs 21 pounds! Now I know what you are thinking, what?! That is heavy! No ma’am it isn’t when you compare it to what else is out on the market try 33 pounds for average weight! I haven’t gotten to break it in yet but I will soon, even if it is just around the driveway!

P.S. Got to break it in today…I wrote this post a couple days ago. It was so awesome, even Noah remarked how cool and easy to handle this stroller is!

IMG_1946IMG_1950IMG_1949IMG_1948

Keep Praying…God IS listening!

Okay so I was blown away the other night when I saw Yaya take a spoon and put it repeatedly in her mouth! So much so that I took a picture of it! Well two pictures actually…

IMG_1943IMG_1942

So try to imagine if you will how I felt when I got to take this next picture…

IMG_1952

Yes friends and family that is Yaya feeding herself baby food sweet potatoes!!!!!

Okay so I realize there is more on her bib than in her mouth, but Glory Hallelujah, she is putting it in her mouth!!! I just decided I was done with trying to put ground up graham cracker and nilla waffers in her mouth, which she hated anyway. So I got a spoon and the sweet potatoes and put some in her mouth…twice. Then I gave the spoon to Eric, he tried one time and she got angry and grabbed the spoon. We thought…oh well, we tried. But then she was babbling and pointing emphatically to the baby food container. So Eric moved it to her and she dipped the spoon in. I was fully expecting her to fling both the spoon and food across the table or to the floor and through a miracle of the Holy Spirit (and I am not being trite or even kidding here) she put it in her mouth and then swallowed. She then did this like 5 times!!! We were so excited and clapped and hoorah’ed for her. It was so encouraging! Now I don’t expect this to happen again mind you…but it was nice after a long day.

In all seriousness, please, if anyone is still reading along with this blog…keep praying that she will want to continue to eat baby food so that we can move her off the bottle before her surgery Sept. 5th. Baby steps to baby food! Here’s two more pics…

IMG_1951IMG_1953

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Back to Church

We ventured out to church today…all of us. It was a big day. I was so thankful to be back with my family again. It was wonderful! Hope seemed to do okay but was definitely overstimulated. However, she didn’t show any outward signs that she was melting down. We will see what tonight and tomorrow brings. She LOVED the worship music. This girl is a music girl. She waved her hands and sang along. About three-quarters of the way through she noticed Cathy on the stage (my BFF). Cathy is in the small group of people that can currently build a touch relationship with Hope, meaning we see Cathy weekly so Cathy can touch and hold her now. Some days Hope is keen on that, other days not. She was very excited to see Cathy on stage. We made it through all the scripture readings but when the sermon started she had just finished her bottle and she was done with the sanctuary. Eden made it only a bit longer than Hope and then wanted to go see Daddy. Eden has not been to church in 3 months so she was not happy about being left in Sunday School. So we kept her with us as well. We then played around in the gathering space outside the sanctuary.

IMG_1906

IMG_1904

We snuck back in for Communion and broke line…thanks everyone for understanding. We were going to bolt right after that before church let out but we kept getting snagged by people. As it would happen, we ended up being almost the last people to leave the church. Hope did great and had a couple funny encounters, well Eric and I thought them funny. But since sharing them would be at the expense of people we love and who love us, we will keep the humor to ourselves. I am praying that she doesn’t wake up tomorrow in shut down mode where she has to sit on me all day, but if that happens we will all manage. It was a great day to be in the house of the Lord! We were blessed so much by the compassion and love from his children that we have the privilege to call our family. I hope we will get to go back next week…but it goes without saying that we are still playing each day as it is dealt and not putting much on our calendars. Hope is adjusting well, yesterday in fact was her 2 month Gotcha Day anniversary. Hard to believe we have had her only 2 months and that she has only been home 6.5 weeks! That little girl has made some serious strides in her little life and we want to protect all that she has gained as much as possible. Keep my sweet Eden in your prayers too, she is also adjusting and making great strides. She is so sensitive and fragile and yet hard as nails, hard to explain and often I feel like as much as Hope is attaching, Eden is, in fact, DE-ttaching. It makes me sad, but I know that God has her in the palm of His hand. Then there is Noah, my sweet, sweet Noah. He is just amazing, but he gets low often too, it is hard on him sometimes with these two high maintenance girls. This is his…do you HAVE to take my picture face. It’s still handsome tho.

IMG_1869

Eden Speak

Eden has he own little language and she cracks me up sometimes. Here are some of my favorites…

Verking. “Mommy, help my train is not verking!” (who knew she was Scandinavian)

Mag-a-nets. 3 syllable word. “Mommy can I play with Buhbuh’s mag-a-nets?”

Bumbrella. “Mommy can I have your bumbrella for the rain?”

Brace-a-let. “Look at my pretty brace-a-let?”

Dare and is. “Look Mommy! Look right dare! Is right dare!”

IMG_1871

Friday, July 13, 2012

Cleft Appointment-Part 2

Okay so I love Children’s Hospital and their Interdisciplinary Team concept. I really do…but WOW was yesterday grueling. My entire focus was for the last 20 minutes of a 2.5 hour visit. We started with the Audiologist…sweet girl that poor Yaya just went nuts on. We had to know if there was fluid in her ears so you have to actually touch her ears and put a little thingy in it to check and then there was the otoscope in general, plus the hearing check sound booth…yeah it was terrible for Yaya. Plus, she was due a bottle about the time we were called in there. The result…she has fluid in her ears. No big shock, will likely mean tubes. The ENT would see her later in the appointment. So back out to the waiting room. Then we quickly got called back to our next station, so quick in fact that Eric was not back from the restroom when I was pulled back. We had to weigh and measure Yaya. She hates this you know. It’s been 3 times this week she has done this now. But I stepped on the scales with her and then was in a dilemma because I had no one to hand her off to but this really cute tech named Jason. Yaya readily went to him to my shock and concern. When I went to get her back she pulled away from me and leaned into him! WHAT?! The nurses laughed and said, “Don’t be offended, it’s just Jason, he has that affect on all the ladies.” Upon a second look over Jason, I would have to agree.  I took her back and then Eric popped up. We went into a new room.

The first team to show up were from Genetics. Gotta say, I didn’t see this coming. I had no idea this group would be here. These two people were the most stressful for Yaya. The man was tall with a strong Eastern Block / Russian-esque accent and the other person was an Asian woman. Could it get any worse for Yaya?

The man started asking us if we had a family history on Yaya, to which we said, “No." He persisted with, “Really? Nothing?”  My calm response, “Nope, nothing.” He continued, “You mean you don’t know her parents?” <slowly draw air in with my nose> “Sir, she was born, abandoned, and found all on the same day?” He mulled this over a second and asked, “So you don’t know when she was diagnosed then with this cleft.” (ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! SERIOUSLY?!!) “Well sir, I’m assuming they diagnosed it the day she was born when they first saw her in the hospital.” He pressed on, “So are you her parents now? Or just foster parents.” I looked at him incredulously, I mean I suppose we could be a caretaking couple for the real parents who are back to work fulltime or something. So I responded with a little more heat in my voice than I wanted, “We both went to China to get her, she is ours.” I won’t post all the other mean comments that were racing through my head at this point.

In the mean time, the sweet Asian woman was trying to get Yaya to stop screaming and make friends with her. What she didn’t know was that Yaya has an aversion to Asians currently. So the woman was getting closer and closer and well I couldn’t take it anymore. I gently said to her, “Ma’am, I don’t want you to take this personally but Yaya doesn’t like Asians currently, it began in China in a medical clinic…so really you are just upsetting her more. You  may want to move away from her.” This nice woman quickly moved away and sorta laughed, I couldn’t believe I had to say that to her but Yaya was a total wreck at this point. Then, ridiculous question man came to do his examination, which involved a little paper tape measure that he put all over her face, ears, body etc. She loved it…no wait, she went nuclear! After the torture measuring session they left and then shortly there after the actual doctor came in and was very knowledgeable about international adoption and just said she has no markers of any secondary syndrome or genetic anomaly and we would just watch her over the next 6 months to a year and to call them if we had any concerns or questions.

Next we saw the Speech therapist and it was a good meeting and they didn’t touch her. They are pleased with what we are currently doing and said to keep it up. Then we finally got to see Dr. Grant! Yay! We LOVE him. He is everything everyone says he is and more. Wonderful bedside manner and easy to talk to and like. He explained everything very clearly to us and with diagrams…wish I had thought to grab his paper he drew on. But oh well. He says we will only have two surgeries to close her lip and palate…one for the lip and one for the palate. Later when she is about 5 he will lengthen the place where her nose attaches to her lip a little to make her nose look like it should. Then when she is about in the 2nd grade they will refer us out to get the bone grafting done to form the rest of her gum line. If she is satisfied with the initial surgery on her lip he will leave it as is, if she is concerned about it cosmetically then they will do a little revision if the child wants it he said. Interesting. So we are on the books for her first surgery to close her upper lip on Sept. 5. I can’t believe it. It is hard to think about losing this precious face that I have fallen in love with. It’s weird but I am not alone in this weird conflicting feeling, we hear that most families have this feeling.

So now I am gonna have to get some professional family pictures set up soon! We also are on a new hard core approach to getting her eating. Dr. Grant was not as upset about her not eating as the IAC but he did say if she was eating baby food that would be easier for her in recovery. Plus, his thought was if we can get her eating before surgery it won’t be foreign to her after surgery. So please pray for her. We also were concerned about the arm restraints only because her one soothing posture is her left thumb in her mouth to fall asleep. He was very laid back about the restraints and said that there really wasn’t any clinical evidence of increased damage done if the older children did not have the restraints. So if Yaya rolls with them then fine, if not, then take them off and just monitor her. So that was a relief to us. The recovery time for the lip revision is like 2 days on Tylenol then she is fine. The recovery time for the palate is longer…he said she would be miserable for about 2 weeks. Yuck.

The ENT popped in and checked her ears. Definitely fluid and wax but no infection. Tubes in the same day we do lip revision. Then we saw the schedulers for both the ENT and Dr. Grant and we were done. Whew. Big day! She slept through the night without waking, praise the Lord. But she is very clingy and yet distant today. High maintenance for sure, as is her sister Eden. I just need a whistle and a black and white striped shirt and we’d be good to go.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Cleft Appointment–Part 1

I’m too tired to post about the long grueling appointment so I will just post what people really want to know…

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012 – Lip repair surgery date, tubes in ears as well.

Please keep Yaya in your prayers with regards to her eating…we HAVE to get her on solids and off that bottle before this date or it just makes things so much harder for her.

More later…blessings…yawn…nighty night.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Feeding Specialist Appointment

Yeah so, this was a disaster but in a sorta good way. I mean, it didn’t go well for Yaya; as in she got hysterical. No real big news there. Oh and she managed to pee all over me but not get her skirt wet…what’s up with that?! The long and the short of it is that apparently it is a much bigger deal than I thought about Yaya only being on a bottle. I mean I know it is a problem and we have a long road ahead of us, but our girl Amy was really not happy about it. So we are gonna have to be much more aggressive but now we get to introduce a reward for torturing her. Yay. No seriously, we can’t force her to do anything per se but we can be more aggressive than we were being. If she resisted at all we would just drop it, but now we can’t. We also are going to introduce some overall desensitization for her. She has some sensory stuff anyway so it will help. Some of it I have tried before and she seemed to like it so now we will step it up. If you can get her body to calm down, her mouth will also calm down.  We also are going to try to sneak in a powder dissolvable food between her cheek and gum and see what she does. Meaning crush a tiny bit of graham cracker or saltine between or fingers and put the crumbs in her cheek. So we have a new approach now and we hope it will prove to be as fruitful as the first stuff we did. I mean, honestly, I didn’t think we’d ever get a spoon in her mouth and now she doesn’t even seem to care if we do it as long as it doesn’t have food on it. So we are hoping she will rise to this next challenge too.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

We just can’t get enough of the ER…

Yeah so we are loving our $250.00 ER deductible…not! I guess I should be grateful for health insurance at all but when you rack up $500.00 in 4 days it hurts a little. I am proud to say I was NOT me again. It was Yaya. But that doesn’t actually make it any better. Remember the independent walking thing that happened just this past weekend, yeah well, she isn’t actually very “good” at it yet and she tends to fall over a lot. For most toddlers this is just part of the process, but with Yaya it’s a bit complicated in that she has no idea how to catch herself when she starts to fall. (Think back to the posts where we had to teach her to crawl and she only did it for a short time. That is what is coming back to bite her now. Weak arms and not knowing how to transition from up to down.) So when Yaya face plants…she really face plants. She was coming around a corner and was walking on tile, she lost her balance and over she went, just 6 feet away from me. I couldn’t get to her fast enough. When she came up she had a face full of blood. We did some inspecting and saw that she was bleeding from her left cleft. It looked like just a small tear, but since we had no protocol for this we called a nurse. The nurse, without batting an eye said, “Take her to get an x-ray now.” Something about blunt force trauma on the face cracking some sort of palate in the sinuses that can cause your brain fluid to leak into your nose and in Hope’s case down the back of her throat…blah da blah da blah da. We were like, “Really? I mean she has stopped crying, it isn’t bleeding. We see the cleft doctor on Thursday…really?” The nurse calmly replied, “Yes. Really. There is likely nothing wrong but better safe than sorry.” Sigh. So Eric and Yaya headed downtown to Children’s Hospital for 3 hours, where they didn’t get an x-ray and two different doctors looked at her and said she was fine and didn’t need one. Then he and Yaya drove back in a HORRIBLE thunderstorm. Noah, Eden and I were all in Eden’s bed trying to get Eden to “sleep”. I’m not gonna lie…some lightening hit near our home and it was freakishly loud. It was a long night for us all. But Yaya was fine and that is all that really matters. Just another day in the life…

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Nothing says “Birthday” like ER visit…

 

IMG_1820

Well, welcome to 40. Hooray. Yippee. Woot. Woot. Sigh. So I woke up the Friday of my big “Girl’s Weekend” and I felt…well…horrible. I was tired and somewhat achy but I attributed it to a night of waking a couple times with Yaya. As I was waiting in the driveway to pull out my Father actually asked me, “Are you okay to drive?” I scoffed saying it was nothing and began the 2 hour drive to my parents house at the lake. I must say it took me more than 2 hours and I kept finding my mind drifting and my speed slowing. I listened to my Steven Curtis Chapman playlist and worshiped while I drove…drove slow that is. I arrived at the lake and all I could think of was…I have to lie down, I can’t stay up. I lay down on the bed upstairs for a little while then thought…I should go get in my bed downstairs. I went down and stayed in bed for 3.5 hours. I forced myself awake and was freezing. I found an old jersey zip up jacked and headed upstairs. I tried to eat something but ended up pushing it away and literally lying my head on the table. I headed outside to the porch and knew I was likely in trouble when I was cold in the 90 degree weather when the warm summer breeze blew. I kept the jacket on. After an hour, I physically could barely sit up in a chair I was so exhausted and aching so badly, so I went back to the upstairs bed. An hour later my sweet dear friend Ana showed up. She looked a me and put her hand to my forehead and said, “You have a fever go find a thermometer.” I whined that I didn’t want to do that, but went in search of the old school thermometer of my childhood…good ole’ mercury and glass. I shook it down and put it under my tongue and actually said, “Ana how long do you keep these in…they don’t beep.” We laughed and decided it was 2-3 minutes. After such time it read…100.8. Nice. It’s 5 pm on a Friday and I think I might be dying…no doc in the box here in Dadeville, AL, (population 2,000) is open past 5 pm. So we are off to the Dadeville ER. It wasn’t far and it is was tiny. We actually passed it thinking the signage looked more like a Vet Clinic, but no…it was the ER. Swabbed, poked, prodded, pee’d in a cup, one weird interaction with a poor drug seeking diabetic man with his knuckles rotting off and 3.5 hours later we left. And NOTHING was found. Dehydration, exhaustion, stress and what was likely a nasty little virus was the diagnosis. I got an antibiotics prescription and began drinking copious amounts of water.

When Ana and I arrived back at the lake house my other dear friends Holly and Cathy were already there. Everyone was so sweet and waited on me hand and foot. I have awesome friends!! I felt better just knowing that I wasn’t dying and having my girls with me. Ana, God love her, had twisted her ankle a couple days before and really needed to prop it up and rest herself but ended up cooking us dinner at 8 pm. Then she made homemade cinnamon rolls at like 11 pm so they could rise over night! Can I tell you they were fabulous and now Holly wants to be a farmers wife…but that is a whole different blog post. All three ladies brought and cooked all the meals, it was so nice. I didn’t sleep much that night but did awake feeling more rested and better. The weekend was still awesome even though I had to lay down a bit. Of course it wasn’t like we did anything. Lying around and chatting was pretty much the agenda. We didn’t even make it to the water to float around. Holly and Ana were able to stay another night and we didn’t leave until Sunday afternoon. It was a wonderful time with my dearest friends. Ana even baked me a cake! My girls got me gift cards for Pink, DSW, and Starbucks!! Oh yeah!

What a blessing I have in these 3 Godly women. Being able to share in their lives and have them share in mine is a gift beyond words. It is an honor to stand in the trenches with them and a joy to share in their triumphs. We must gather together like this more often, it is so good for our souls; and for our families!

While I was gone, my family back home fell apart without me…yeah right, as if! They did so fabulous it almost gave me a complex. Hope began walking independently all over the house on the Friday I left and slept through the night without waking both nights. Upon my return, she was clingy, woke up several times and had a night terror. Nice. I can’t help but think it is ME! But in all seriousness, it was good to know that I can get away and my family is happy and well cared for. All in all, despite the crazy sickness, it was a wonderful 40th birthday celebration. The only thing that would have made it better would have been time with my amazing husband, the man who actually let me go away for 3 days.

God is good, friends, God is so good.

IMG_1826

IMG_1831

IMG_1832

Friday, July 6, 2012

An Unsolicited Kiss…

There is nothing so wonderful as an unsolicited kiss from a loved one, especially a child. July 3, 2012 was a particularly special kiss for me. I got it from our sweet Hope! Eric was holding her while standing up and talking to me. I noticed her leaning out to me and she had a funny expression on her face. She had her little mouth as pursed up as she could make it…I quickly realized she was “puckered up” for a kiss!!! I exclaimed, “Does Ya-ya want a moochie moo?!” Then I quickly leaned in for my wonderful kiss! Then Eric and I gushed our excitement and praise and I asked for another kiss. She leaned out and gave me another one… it wasn’t as good as the first because the second one I asked for, it was still pretty darn fantastic though. What prompted her to do that out of the blue I don’t know but I LIKED IT! Poor Eric got nothing. He asked, but she shut him down. He didn’t mind though we were both just so glad that she initiated an action as intimate as a kiss with one of us! It is one of my heart’s new treasures.

This isn’t the kissy face but I love it all the same!

IMG_1842

Thursday, July 5, 2012

It’s My Birthday!

Today is the big 4-0 for me. I don’t feel like I’m 40, not that I’d know what 40 feels like or what it should feel like, or that it “should” feel like anything. It’s a milestone for sure but I don’t know that it feels very milestoney per se.  The 30s were good,  a busy and good decade for sure, and here are some highlights...

  • I birthed two amazing children and adopted another amazing child from China
  • God sent me to Lithuania twice and Kenya three times to be about His work abroad
  • Sold our first home and bought our second home…then moved
  • Helped a widow renovate her home…with 76 of my closest friends and family
  • Became self employed as a sign language interpreter and interpreted some amazing thing.
  • Changed churches twice
  • Sponsored (and continue to sponsor) 5 Compassion International children
  • Became a Compassion Advocate
  • Had another back surgery
  • Served with three different youth pastors mentoring and sharing God’s love with youth (now many of them are getting married and having children of their own!!)
  • Enjoyed 10 more years of falling in love with my husband

I have had a great birthday despite getting very little sleep last night. My dear husband at 5:30 am after Hope had been up for hours with me took her upstairs and let me sleep a bit more…finally. When I got up he had pancake batter and bacon ready to fry for my birthday chocolate chip pancake breakfast. He gave me a beautiful card that made me cry and a kindle gift certificate and then even cleaned up all of breakfast. I took Eden to school (late) and ran an errand to fix Noah’s closet doors. We hung out around the house playing with Noah and Hope and then I went to go pick Eden up from school and drop Noah off at gymnastics. Eric later went to go get Noah and brought home dinner from Logan’s Steakhouse…filet mignon…delicious! I got another card from the kids with cold hard cash in it. My sweet husband is doing something really cool for us over the next several months and this was the beginning of it. The girls went to sleep easily and then we played Wizard 101 and online game with Noah for a little while. What a great day. It was also punctuated with songs left on my voicemail from other friends and loved ones, not to mention all my facebook well wishes. Thank you Lord for this wonderful day! Tomorrow I get the rest of my birthday gift…a weekend with my girlfriends at the lake! Well one night and I may stay another by myself if Hope is doing well. I am blessed indeed. Best HUSBAND ever.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Hope’s 2nd Birthday!

birthday collage

Happy 2nd Birthday my sweet Hope Lynn! It was a good birthday party with 7 children in attendance (including Noah and Eden) and 7 adults (including Eric and I). So 14 bodies in the house for Hope to process. She did fairly well until about 45 minutes before everyone left. But that will come later in the post. She didn’t like her birthday cupcake I got her and pushed it away…far away. But when we started passing out slices of cake…well that was a different story. Now she didn’t want to actually eat it mind you but she did want to touch it and then fed it to both Eric and I. She got her hand all messy and we got some pictures so I was happy. And really isn’t that what this day was all about…me being happy?! The cake she won’t can’t eat, presents she doesn’t know how to open,  people that she doesn’t know that will likely freak her out later and decorations she doesn’t understand…clearly it was all about staging an event to preserve for posterity. We did that, so yay for us. I have great friends and family and I was glad they came to celebrate. Hope got some gifts she really liked and some new clothes. Eden loved the cake, loved the decorations and loved opening helping Hope open her gifts. By far the coolest gift was one that Mommy picked up at Target for my sweet girl. It is a musical instrument of bells. It is melodious and colorful and fun!

IMG_1790IMG_1775IMG_1782IMG_1784

How fun is that toy?! So the party came and went and I was able to get Hope down for a nap and I rested some myself. I was very out of sorts this day and I can’t really explain why. I was stressed on behalf of Hope and on my behalf. I could feel her anxiety level slowly increase throughout the party even though she didn’t show any visible signs of stress. She does exactly what Dr. Chambers said she would do, she works out her attachment issues in silence and they will come out at night. And boy howdy did they that night and the next day. It was just too big a week for this little darling. IAC appointment, errand day, play date at the park and we ended with birthday party. Too much in one week.

I also could not stop thinking of  Hope’s biological parent’s; especially her Mother. I know that whatever her feelings were about Hope be they positive or negative, there was no way she would not be thinking of Hope on this day; the day she gave birth to a little girl and then said goodbye to her. Sigh. Yuck. I pray that the Holy Spirit would find a way to this woman’s heart and give her peace about the daughter she will never know. I am thankful for Hope’s biological parents this day; because out of their suffering and difficult decision came our special blessing and joy. We started a tradition that I read about in one of my international adoption books where we light candles for Hope’s biological parents and remember them, as Hope gets older she can add candles for Eric and I if she wants or any other special person in her life.We are all going to do it on each of our birthdays. So for my birthday this coming up week, I will light candles for my parents and we will talk about them. We want the tradition to be one that the whole family can share. You can see them floating in water in a bowl in the collage. It was a good day and I’m glad we had the party.