February Fun

Life has been busy!  I realized that I haven't updated in a few weeks.  We are still in survival mode over here.  We take life day by day over here.

MRI-

P went in for her MRI so that they could take a look at the outside of her digestive tract and to get a fuller picture of what was going on.  Unfortunately we had to sit and wait for a long time because there was a patient in emergency that needed the machine so we got pushed back a couple of hours.  She was a trooper!  She did great during the wait and did great for the procedure as well!  The only thing that I was unaware of going into this is that they would be putting a breathing tube in.  I put my brave pants on and tried not to freak out about it!  She was knocked out for 3 hours for the MRI.  I, of course, was a wreck.  I gnawed through a roll of tums and wandering aimlessly through the hospital and at one point sat in the lobby and stared at the ceiling.  I am REALLY not a very patient person!!

A girl and the iPad and her blanket...happy baby!  The earbuds didn't last very long.  We forgot HER headphones.  :(

Watching her THIRD movie as we wait patiently for our turn.

Beating momma at Go-Fish!

Infusion #2-
P still fought the IV for her infusion.  But once the IV was in, she did great!  She had plenty of company for this infusion.  Her Grammy and Papa Otto joined us and so did "her" Joe.  They had a great time playing with an IV kit to help her become more comfortable with the process.

Dr. P & Nurse Joe giving the babydoll an IV.

Goofing around!

P has started her anti-rejection medication, Imran.  Finally one medication that tastes good and that she actually doesn't mind taking!!  She is still on the Iron (which she hates) and is now on Vitamin D as well.  We will be starting some probiotics for her as well pretty soon.  She is still drinking the Boost drink boxes.  We are starting to get creative with shakes/smoothies in addition to drinking the drink straight from the box.

We met with the dietician as well.  Right now, she wants to keep P on the least restrictive diet. Other than adding the drink boxes, we haven't made any changes to her diet at all.  This could change as we proceed but the biggest concern right now is getting weight back on her and we will do that in any way possible!

This week we meet with the Immunohemotology unit to determine if P has an immune deficiencies.  We also go back to do more blood work to see if any of our levels have changed.  Keeping our fingers crossed for positive news on both fronts!!

TACOS! A friend of ours made dinner for our infusion day.  P was a HUGE fan!  She has been obsessed lately with tacos and pepperoni.  Must have something to do with the spicy factor.

Sometimes we let her do anything that makes her smile.  She insisted on taking her baby, Mabel, and her stroller with us to the high school basketball game!  Whatever makes her happy!!

P and Momma built a fort.  She decided that she needed to post a sign that no gorillas were allowed!  :) 

THIRTY!!

Pretty excited!  One of the scary parts while we worked through this diagnosis was the fact that P was losing weight.  At her well visit in October she weighed in at 32 pounds.  She has always been a little peanut but we were excited that she had broken the 30 pound mark!!  Since then, however, P has continued to lose weight during this flare up.  When she went in for her scope on January 11th, she weighed 25 pounds.  That was really scary for me!  For her to lose the weight that she really can't afford to lose is frightening.  She was wasting away!  Since the diagnosis, we have worked really hard to focus on her food and have given her some high calorie items.  This weekend, we popped her on the scale and checked again. THIRTY pounds!!  She has gained 5 pounds in the past week and a half!  So excited!!  Hoping that as she continues treatment that this continues in a positive direction.

We were given an awesome stash of Boost Kids Essential drink boxes that have 1.5 kcal.  They have more calories in them than most other drinks that we have found for her.  P loves them!!  We have a stash to last a couple weeks but will need to purchase more in the near future.  They are not cheap.  SO...if you know of anyone that is a medical professional, nutritionist, dietician, etc that receives coupons, please ask if they have received any coupons for these.  We would love to reduce the cost of those if possible.

Pumping Iron

At each infusion, P will have her blood taken and sent to the lab. We got the results today. Everything is normal with what they usually see in patients like her. There were two things that Dr. Cardenas wanted to attack sooner rather than later.

The first one is her white blood counts.  The numbers indicate a possible abscess in her intestines.  So our MRI was moved up two weeks.  We will now have her MRI on Friday, January 27th.  Please pray that she tolerates the sedation for the MRI and that no abscess is found.  If they find one, she will be put on a round of steroids and then have another MRI done.  If it still found after the 2nd MRI, they would do surgery.  We want to avoid all of this if at all possible.  Prayers would be greatly appreciated!

The other thing they found was low iron numbers.  Out of everything, this is the thing I can handle easiest!  We will begin pumping P with iron supplements to help her numbers.  She may be on them only until her next labs or she could be on them much longer.  The only downside is that the liquid iron doesn't taste very good.  :(  So I am sure this will be a battle each time she has to take it simply because of the taste but we battled a horrible tasting antibiotic 3 times a day with her in September.  We can handle this!!

Infusion Day

Those of you who know me well, know that I am not a calm person.  I am a hypochondriac. I have very high anxiety.  I am a walking basket case.  And then you add on top of that anything to do with my kids and I am a wreck!!  Good things, bad things, scary things...all of it.  So you can only imagine how well I am handling all of this!  Surprisingly, today I was relatively calm.  Even surprised myself. I started to think that maybe I am finally pulling myself together...and then tonight happened.

Checking out the play area in the waiting room.

She LOVED this wall and could have played with the different levers all day.

Today was P's first Remicade infusion.  I didn't know what to expect but everything I had read online talked about how much patients started to feel better so quickly after beginning treatment.    We arrived at Floor 7 of Mott's Children's Hospital.  Hematology/Oncology. Every kid in there is battling something fierce!  Some are quite obvious.  Others are invisible.  Like Crohn's.  I am finding that people don't know about Crohn's or don't understand it.  The child doesn't necessarily "look sick" but yet their gut is going crazy inside of them!  (I will get on my soapbox later about this disease and what I have learned.)

We met right away with Mallory.  She has been the nurse in the Gastroenterology department that has communicated the most with me leading up to today.  I feel like I have talked to her almost every day in the past week as we arranged certain parts of P's treatment or through email as she answered some of my more irrational questions that I would send to the office in the middle of the night as I laid awake.  I wanted to hug her when I saw her.  She has been so kind and reassuring.  She went over some of basic information with us and answered some of our questions.  She also gave us a binder full of information.  A binder!?!!?  You KNOW I love a good binder!!  (Of course I had created one of my own already but I was still excited.)  It is such a great resource to have as we try to navigate all of this.

We were sent into another room for P to get her IV.  Have you met our little drama queen??  You would think that she was being murdered the way that she carried on and on and on....and there wasn't even a needle insight yet!  Just the anticipation was enough to send her through the roof.  I am pretty sure that all of Ann Arbor heard our little sweet P not acting so sweet.  Our nurse was fantastic with her!  Very patient.  She kept telling me that they have had worse.  (I am not sure if they just say that to make me feel better or if that is really true!)  After we got the IV in and Penny and I were both soaked in sweat, they were able to take a lot of blood for more labs to be done before beginning treatment.

Penny was set up in her only little cubicle of sorts.  It had a recliner for her, a rocking chair and two other seats.  We were on the end and it was the perfect spot for her to be in.  Not to mention that it was right next to the fridge full of juice boxes, bagels, popsicles and ice cream.  P was pretty happy about that!  We scheduled the rest of her treatments for the rest of the year and they told me that they would make note of putting her in the same spot each time.  She was then hooked up to the Remicade...and there we sat...and sat...and sat. We were there for almost 5 hours.  Seems like a long time but it actually flew by!

During this time, Dr. Cardenas came to speak with us about all of our concerns and talk about her treatment plan.  It doesn't sound like we will have infusions as often as we first thought so that is a good thing.  There is so much that is unknown about this disease and every patient is different so we will just take it day by day but we feel that we are in very capable hands and in the best place that we can be.

Getting use out of her new colored pencils.  We put together a little bag of tricks to entertain us.

Snuggled up watching Tangled.

Dr. Cardenas met with us for quite a while and also checked P out while we were there.  It was fantastic that they were able to combine the treatment and our first meeting with her at the same time. 

After the IV was put in, P tolerated the treatment just fine. She did spike a fever, which I was told was very normal and that it would subside probably before we even left...which it did.  We were told that everyone reacts differently but most either sleep all evening and just want to be snuggled up OR they have an energy burst and are hyper.

Momma and Dadoh bought her a little present for doing such a great job at her first infusion!  She loved her little gnome that she named Lovey.  Love seeing that smile on her face!!

On the way home, P asked for McDonalds.  Whatever that little peanut will eat right now, she gets!  Before we could even get off the exit and get it for her, she was passed out.  It's exhausting being so brave!

We went straight to her sitter's house to pick up Gus and attend the Norwex party our sitter had tonight.  When we got there, P was super crabby and rude.  I tried to let it go because she had been through a lot today.  But shortly after, she started playing with her friend, K, who was also there with her mom and before you know it, P was SKIPPING through the house!  SKIPPING!!  And running around!  We heard giggles and screeches!  Clearly she is responding with the hyperactivity!  :) This behavior is something we haven't seen since June.  I had to leave the room to pull myself together.  Remember how I talked about the crying with good things and bad things.  This was a good cry.  So excited.  So encouraged.

The video above is what is currently going on in our household at almost 10 PM.  Love this goofy girl!!  If tonight is any indication of this medication doing its job, then I am very excited! I know it is too soon to see results, but I am so hopeful!!

Princess P

So what is next for Princess P?  Here is what we know so far.  P will start on two different medications.

1) Remicade- P will get this through an IV.  She will go for infusions every other week for now. We will be making the trip to Ann Arbor quite a bit!  Each infusion could take between 3-4 hours to administer.  I am working to put together my bag of tricks for these trips to Mott's.  P declared that she needed a new bag just for the doctor.  She shopped the Thirty-One catalog today to pick one out.  She also decided she needed it personalized with "Princess P" instead of her name.  She makes me smile! 

2) Imuran- This is a daily medication that she will take to help keep her body from rejecting the other medication.  Also used for transplant patients so that they don't reject their new organ.  Same thing goes for P. Her body is working overtime right now and it will be confused by the Remicade as well.

In addition to these medications, P will meet with a dietician to develop a well balanced diet that her body reacts favorably to.  We will work figure out what foods might trigger inflammation for her.

We are excited to begin treatment now to help get her into remission quickly!  We are also hopeful that she will begin putting weight back on.  She has lost about 20% of her bodyweight since Thanksgiving.  We are looking forward to getting some meat back on those little bones!!

What is it??

We have received a ton of support and prayers for our little lady.  THANK YOU!    We have also received a TON of questions.  Just like with our adoption journey, we didn't just live it...we wanted to help educate others about it.  Many people have no idea what Crohn's is.  Honestly, I had no idea either.  I have done quite a bit of research lately.  ;)   Just a few quick tidbits for you!

What is Crohn's?
I could stumble through telling you all about it or I could refer you to this link that explains it quickly.  (Yes it is a link for teens but I found this link through the parent site and quite frankly the teen link makes it sound less scary!)

http://www.justlikemeibd.org/about/what-is-crohns-disease.html

Some quick facts
I found this image from another family I met and really liked how it gave some quick, important facts. The biggest thing for me is that there is no cure right now.  P will live with this the rest of her life.  She can still live a very full life and the goal is to keep her in remission as much as possible.

Crohn's

Many people have asked about our spunky little girl.  We thought that the easiest way to explain things would be by using our old blog.  So...here we are again.  Hold on because this is a long one!!

On November 22nd, I picked P up from the sitter and was told that there was blood in her stool that day.  I didn't freak out right away because that can mean many things.  We decided just to watch it throughout the weekend and if it didn't clear up, we would call the doctor.  We went to the Lion's game on Thanksgiving.  On one trip to the bathroom, there was a A LOT of blood.  Still trying not to panic.  It only seemed to get worse so we made an appointment with our pediatrician.  It was decided to treat it as a fissure (small tear).  I called again on December 5th because nothing had changed at all.  The pediatrician sent us to the ER.  She let us choose between U of M Mott Children's Hospital and Detroit Children's Hospital.  We decided to head to Mott.  Penny underwent some physical exams, X-rays and blood work.  Nothing was found.  So we were given a referral to Mott Pediatric Gastroenterology.

Chilling with Daisy

She did NOT like getting an IV put in.  But soon became very curious.

And she is now at her wits end!!  Poor girl!

We met with Mott's Pediatric Gastroenterology on December 16th.  We were instructed to drop off a bunch of "collections" to our local lab.  Joel "manned up" (Is "manned" even a word??) and collected all of the stool samples.  One of the samples tests for intestinal infections but takes about 10 days for the results.  So we were put on a powerful antibiotic in hopes of treating the infection quickly...if that was in fact what it was.  It was a painful 10 days!  She had to take the antibiotic 3 times a day and it did NOT taste good.  The first few days we saw a lot of it come back up.  :( BUT we finally got in our groove and she was a champ!!  She did a great job finishing the antibiotic.   We saw some of her spunk come back.  We were very hopeful that the antibiotic was taking care of the problem.  During this time we also scheduled the upper and lower scope...just in case.  As luck would have it, there was no need for the antibiotic because there wasn't an infection.  We were instructed to move ahead with the scope.

We went for the scope on Wednesday, January 11th.  For those of you who know me, know that at this point, I am not handling this well.  I was a mess leading up the 11th.  Poor Joel had to deal with the patient and the patient's emotional wreck of a mom!  P did great during the procedures and did pretty good coming out of it as well.  Joel and I were able to meet with Dr. Adler and Dr. Cardenas before going back to see P.  They showed us (aka Joel) pictures of P's digestive tract from top to bottom and everything in between.  Everything that they saw looked like Inflammatory Bowel Disease.  And under the umbrella of IBD, it was looking more like Crohn's than Ulcerative Colitis.  (It can be difficult to determine between the two in kids as little as P.)  We still needed to wait for some of the biopsy results.  We also have to do an MRI to get a full picture of what is going on.

We received a call on Friday, January 13th from Dr. Cardenas that confirmed P's diagnosis of Crohn's.  We have been placed on Dr. Cardenas' caseload and will begin meeting with her next week.  Stay tuned for what comes next in this journey.

Hello old friend!

Well, it has been a while.  Apparently having two kids really does fill all of your time!  The writing went by the wayside and I kind of miss the opportunity to get my thoughts written down.  SO...if you have subscribed to this blog and get emails sent to you, you may end up feeling the need to unsubscribe if I get annoying.  ;)  So here is just a bit to get you caught up.

The last time I posted I talked about how I was de-crapifying our house.  Well, guess what....still working on my mission to get crap out of our house.  This will forever be a struggle for me.  Confession time.  I wouldn't say that I am a certified hoarder, but it certainly has become a hobby.  I save things for the "what if" or "I might" times in life.  I am still working on letting go.  It is a work in progress.  My mom helped me this week to really focus on this goal.  We have about 40+ trash bags full to go to either the garbage, donation center or to my sister's house.  (Giving my sister all of the clothes that my kids have outgrown.)  Lots has left the house and it feels awesome!!  I still have areas to work, but it has been an extremely productive week.

Along with de-crapifying our home, comes sorting through all of my clothes.  UGH!  This kills me every time.  I have a strange emotional connection to my clothing.  I continue to hold on to clothing as my weight fluctuates.  Just in case I am back in that size, whether it is smaller or larger.  I have started working with a doctor to help me focus on becoming healthier.  I meet with him every other week to discuss changes that I need to make and track my progress.  With his help, I am down 2 pant sizes since Christmas 2015.  AND I don't plan to get back into those sizes.  SO...reluctantly I have gotten rid of 2 of the 6 sizes in my closet.  (Yes....I practically have a clothing store in my closet.  6 sizes worth!!)  I did also get rid of some of the other items in the remaining 4 sizes and kept only some items as I hopefully fit back into those sizes throughout this journey to getting healthy.  This is a huge struggle for me.  Has been my entire life.  And I fear that this is a battle that I will be fighting for the rest of my life.  But since I am now closer to 40 than I am to 30, I need to really focus on this journey both for me and for my kids.

So 2016 is still about de-crapifying my life.  My home.  My closet.  My diet.  My health.   My insecurities.  My self-doubt.  All of it.

Here's hoping that the second half of 2016 continues in the same direction that the first half started. Stick around if you want to see where this journey takes me.

Crap!

So pumped!!  I am excited to try to do this in our house in 2014!  We have decided that for Lent this year, we are going to focus on simplifying and decluttering our life to focus on the important and the necessary.  We have decided on 40 areas of our home that we will focus on.  Check out White House Black Shutters for more info.  She has some free printables and helps you to organize your thoughts in order to do this!  I am such a "saver" when it comes to the crap we have in this house.  This will be difficult to do, but I am excited to take care of the crap we have around!  My goal is to tackle the 40 spaces below.  I tried to break them up into manageable areas that small enough that they can be done easily each day after the kids are in bed or right when we get home from school.

1. Entertainment/Bookshelves
2. Pantry
3. Tall kitchen cabinets
4. Kitchen drawers
5. Upper kitchen cabinets
6. Lower kitchen cabinets
7. Sewing/hairbow supplies
8. Laundry room cabinets
9. Front hall closet
10. Half bath storage
11. Front door shoe storage
12. Playroom cubbies
13. Kid's bathroom cupboards
14. Linen closet
15. Toy area in loft
16. Loft bookshelf
17. Penny's closet cubbies
18. Penny's closet clothes
19. Penny's drawers and baskets
20. Penny's hair accessories
21. Gus' closet clothes
22. Gus' closet shelves
23. Gus' dresser
24. Gus' bookshelf
25. Joel's dresser
26. Beth's dresser
27. Nightstands
28. Master bedroom bookshelf
29. Armoire
30. Beth's closet clothes
31. Joel's closet clothes
32. Beth & Joel's shoes
33. Closet shelves
34. Master bath storage
35. Thirty-One kit
36. Thirty-One team stuff
37. Thirty-One inventory
38. Office cubbies
39. Office closet
40. Office desk

I know that there is a lot more that I can and need to do.  Didn't even touch the garage or the basement on this list.  I think I will save those for this summer!!

I have already scheduled Purple Heart to come and pick up my donation bags every other week.  (Check out donatestuff.com to see if there is a someone that is nearby that will take your donations.)  That will force me to get rid of stuff now that I know someone is coming to get our stuff to donate.  

Stay tuned as I try to accomplish this lofty task and if you are lucky, I may show you pictures of just how bad it is and just how good it is about to get!!

FIVE!!

Five years!!  Can you believe it has been five years since we let the world know about the journey we were taking to become family?  Five years ago we started this blog as a way to share with friends and family about our adoption process and hopefully to share more about our life as a family of three.  I had no idea when I started this blog that we would be matched by the end of the month.

It seems like an eternity ago that we were at the beginning of our journey where your heart jumps every time the phone rings.  Every day was filled with prayers for our future child and his/her birth mom.  Every day was just another lesson in patience. (For the record, I am STILL learning how to be patient.) Every day we would waiver between hope and despair.

If someone had told me five years ago when I started this blog that I would be the proud momma of TWO  and that we would end up taking a twenty something year old under our wing, I would have never believed it!  Five years ago I was in a pretty dark place.  Desperately clinging to any glimmer of hope I could find.

When others found out that we were struggling on our path to parenthood, they shared their stories and struggles with us.  Many of which were going through this at the same time as we were.  Since then, every single one of them has become a parent. (And sometimes more than once!) Pretty awesome when you think about it.

When we started writing, we intended to utilize this blog to share with friends and family.  It has become so much more.  We have met people that we would have NEVER encountered otherwise.  I am so glad that we have a platform to share our journey and to share our family.  Thanks for joining our journey!

Before him

Before him I didn't know how much I could love someone.  I didn't know that my heart would jump with joy and break in half and that I would be able to feel both all the way down to my toes!  I didn't know that I could love someone so much that I would think about them constantly and worry about their every move and every breath.

Even as an infant, he would put his hand on mine like this.  LOVE!!

Before him I didn't know that I would agonize over decisions that affect his little world like preschool, daycare, kindergarden....oh my!  That sends me into panic mode just thinking about it!

Before him I didn't know how much fun it would be to play with cars or trucks or anything "boy".  I didn't know that I would laugh at gross boy words like "poop" simply because his laugh was infectious.  (It is not ladylike to talk about bodily functions...but for him I will make an exception.)

Before him I liked to have my space.  Now I will take every hug, snuggle and cuddle that I can get!  Even if these means that he climbs in my bed every night or at some unknown early morning hour and I end up with his feet on me!

Before him I didn't realize how important every tradition was and how I would want to start a bajillion new traditions for our family and how I would want to make every new experience special.

Before him I had no idea what the world of little boys was like.  In a house of girls, everything was pretty and pink when I was growing up.  My world was full of blue when he came around.

Before him I had no idea how much I would love having my little man with me!  I had no idea how much fun little boys were.  I had no idea that he truly would be a dream come true!

BETTER

I want to better my world in 2014.

A better mom.

A better wife.

A better counselor.

A better sister, daughter and friend.

A better human-being.

I want to do a better job.

I want to be a better leader and a better follower.

I want to focus my energy better in my life.

I want to do a better job at helping the world around me.

I want to feel better in 2014 by working to become healthy.

I simply want 2014 to be BETTER!!

Last year I chose the word SIMPLIFY.  Well....I am still working on that.  So this year I will do a BETTER job to SIMPLIFY!  How do you like that?  This way I feel like I haven't failed at 2013...simply going to be better at it than I was in 2014.

There are so many things that I want to do to make 2014 a better year for me and for my family....I just need to focus!  I tend to go in a thousand different directions that it is hard to focus on the true outcome.  I need to focus on being better at planning to be better.

And to top it all off, I want to work harder to keep a better account of our life and thoughts on this blog.  For crying out loud!  I only had 6 posts this year!!  (Including this one!!)  I certainly simplified the blog in 2013....barely took time to write.  (Perhaps that is what happens when you get a "gift baby" overnight and are still reeling from the surprise and wonderful change in our family.)  In the past I have felt that this blog helped up communicate with our family and friends.  In addition to the communication, it has been therapeutic and a great way to share our love of adoption.  In 2014, I will be better at keeping up with this because I know that if I don't, I will be disappointed in 2015.  I would hate for my word in 2015 to be "repeat".

2014 with be BETTER!!

If you want to join me and choose a word, check out http://oneword365.com.  Share your word with me, share it with your friends and family.  Let others help you on your journey as I hope you will help me to focus on making 2014 to be BETTER.

Hurricane Augustus

I used to believe that my little man was so sweet, well mannered and well behaved.  He would sit nicely.  Hew would listen.  He would smile at the camera when he was asked.  He was a gentle, silly little soul.

And now we have this....

He is like a hurricane at times.  I absolutely adore my little hurricane.  Even if he is a crazy, rowdy, rambunctious 4 year old full of energy and a little bit feisty.  We often have to remind him to use his listening ears and I feel like I am using his full name A LOT these days.  Very rarely does he just walk.  He can often be found running!  There are days that we get home and I let him out the slider to play in the backyard.  It is fenced in so I know that he is safe to run and run and run....and that is exactly what he does.

Yesterday at preschool, Gus got an "uh oh" face.  (They get smiley faces until they misbehave and then the card gets flipped to an "uh oh" face.)  As educators, my husband and I both feel strongly that our children should behave in school.  You can imagine how my heart broke thinking about how he misbehaved in school.  Turns out he, and two other students, were tackling kids!  When I got to thinking about it, I realized that maybe Gus has been around football practice too much!!

Gus can be quite a handful at times.  After yesterday's event, I started reflecting back on the past two years and the variety of events we have been at where I could have used my running shoes to chase after Gus.  I thought about the variety of comments others have made about my little hurricane.  The comments this past summer have started to bother me and the incident yesterday was the final straw.  I need to do something so I decided to start doing some research.  Over the course of the past 24 hours, I have read a bunch of articles, looked back in my files from my master's degree program in counseling and cried.  

I found a variety of great activities to help keep my little hurricane occupied.  I found a lot of "experts" who talked about discipline.  And of course, the ever present issue of attention deficit disorders and medicating children.  The best resource I found was on THIS BLOG.  (It is a great post and I strongly recommend it to anyone who has a high energy child in their life.  It is also good for those of you that have calm, well mannered children so that you can see why some of us are so crazy!)  As I read through the post, the tears flowed.  It sounded just like my life! It was like she was writing about my little hurricane.  And then she said something that hit straight to my core.  "It was in that moment I realized, he is not a bad kid, he is just an energetic one."  I needed to hear that!  My Gus-Gus is NOT a bad kid.  He is just very energetic.  

This mom also decided how to approach her son and his actions.  "I learned to embrace this energy of his and try to work with it rather than fight it."  From the moment I read that line, I knew that I needed to find a different approach or I would drive myself insane.  I am going to "tackle" Gus' energy in a different way and hopefully get some better results.  So next time you see me chasing after my little hurricane, please remember (and remind me, too!!) that it is a process and that learning to embrace this little boy and all of his energy will pay off in the long run!

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

"It's not you....it's me."

Five years!  It has been 5 years since we turned in our first adoption application to Bethany Christian Services.  It has been a wonderful relationship with BCS.  We had a few rough spots that we worked through but most of all there has been pure joy during our five year relationship. 

It hit me today that we were breaking up.  I am a little bit heartbroken.  Our family is complete. We are perfectly content as a family of four. Now that Penny's adoption is finalized, we are done. We have no reason to visit the agency office any more. That is it.  That chapter is closed now. We are onto a new chapter of our life. I am excited about it. I love the fact that we will not be thinking about the adoption process any more. The stress and anxiety that I have will not be adoption related anymore. (Yes, I will always be an anxious mess...but not about adoption anymore.)

Today we went to visit BCS. We brought little thank you gifts for our social workers for all of their hard work and for putting up with me!! As you can imagine, I can be a little bit of a basket case and these ladies were able to handle it!  Faith was the social worker on our side. She helped us through some of our tough application steps. We hit quite a few roadblocks with the application for Penny and Faith was able to help us navigate through it. And she stayed all the way up to the end when we went to court to finalize her adoption. Dawn Baker was the social worker for both Gus and Penny's birth moms. Dawn was the one who called us when we were chosen.  She was the one who was right there to introduce us to our beautiful children. She was the one to take our first family pictures with our kids. Since we didn't have family with us at the hospital to celebrate with us, Dawn filled that role and hugged us and celebrated with us. And let me tell you, this woman is worth her weight in gold.  She does an outstanding job and is just truly a kind and wonderful woman.  If you have seen her on MTV's Sixteen & Pregnant reality show, then you have a small glimpse into just how great she is.  She was our STAR before she became the tv star!  We have been truly blessed to have her ad part of our journey for the past four years!!

I know that we will still see those at Bethany Christian Services throughout life. They do have a big family picnic and fun run that we will always attend if we are able. And we have been asked again by the agency to speak on their behalf as adoptive parents. We will always be more than willing to help them out and we are so honored that they would ask us.  What a great way for us to give back to an organization that had helped us so much!

On a side note- in 2009, when Gus was born, the agency facilitated 28 adoptions. So far in 2013, they have 31 adoptions as of today.  16 of those adoptions are "gift babies" like Penny was. How awesome that they are able to help so many kids find their forever families!!

So as far as the break-up goes....we will still be friends!

It's been a while...

WHOA!  Clearly life has gotten a little bit crazy. I haven't posted here in 3 months.  How nuts is that?  Life as a momma of two is crazy fantastic.  I am still in awe most days that Penny came into our life so quickly.  But she fits so perfectly into our family that it is easy to understand why God sent her into our life.

We are still waiting patiently for Penny's adoption to be finalized.  We have our final visit with our social worker at the end of this month.  I am very excited to think about the fact that this is it.  This is our LAST meeting.  In the past 5 years we have had many meetings for both adoption journeys.  To think that this is the last one....I am pumped!!  Hopefully I will be able to post again before the adoption is finalized...but if not, check back in June because you know that I will be celebrating!!!

Just a few shots of my crazy kids in the past few months...

Ever since Penny came into our life, I have taken up a new hobby making hair bows and headbands.  This one that she is modeling is a little over the top and clearly she is not a fan.  This is one of my favorite pictures of her even though she is not smiling.  I fully expect that I will see this expression many times in life as she looks at her crazy mom.

Oh how I love my silly boy!  He loves taking pictures on my phone.  I think he did pretty good here.  And I love his expression because it captures his silliness.  I could just squeeze on that little man all day long! 

Be still my heart!  I love these two so much!  And I love our morning snuggles.  Who wouldn't want to cuddle up with these two?!?

Penny's first field trip was to the Critter Barn in Zeeland, MI.  Gus LOVES animals so he was beyond excited!!  Lots of fun!!  If you are in west Michigan and have the chance to go to the Critter Barn, you definitely should.  It was fantastic....and free!!

Testing out Grammy's cookware!  What a silly girl!

Four years....wow!

Can you believe it?  Can you believe that it has been FOUR years since I received that amazing phone call that changed my world!  (Okay...it will be four years tomorrow but I know that I have a busy day ahead of me so I won't have a chance to write.)  If you want to hear more about that day, you can go back and check out this post.  Little did I know what life was about to bring me.  Joy!  Pure joy! Little did I know that it would come in the form of this beautiful little soul!

Now that our family is complete and we have been blessed to become parents to two beautiful babies, it is funny to look at how our family came to be.  I am such a planner and nothing about our story was planned by me.  I have no doubt that God had planned this and I believe that the way He brought Gus into our life was absolutely perfect!  I had  about four months to prepare for his arrival.  I had a chance to wrap my head around it.  I had a chance to create a beautiful nursery and to fill it with everything baby!  I had a chance to fill the dressers and closet with an excessive amount of clothing.  I had a chance to rearrange it and reorganized it a plethora of times.  I had a chance to go to the remainder of the doctors appointments with J.  I had the chance to be in the delivery room when Gus took his first breath!  I had a chance to be ready!

I had no idea that I would never be ready enough!  How do you get ready for a pair of beautiful eyes to stare back at you with all of the trust in the world?  How do you get ready to discover that this beautiful little one has a nose just like yours and their is no scientific reason as to why?  How do you get ready for your heartstrings to be yanked so hard that you can barely breathe?  How do you possibly get ready for the best adventure in the world?  I thought I was ready.  Ready or not....this little man captured my heart instantly and continues to do so over and over again every day of his little life!

I had no idea on that snowy day in January of 2009, that my whole world would be changed with a simple phone call....but I am so happy that it did!

One Week Old

5 months old

20 months old

2 years old

3 years old

SIMPLIFY

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Clearly I am spending my NYE in the comfort of my own home.  Nice and cozy on the couch with my hubby.  My little man is exhausted and passed out in his bed after an evening of fun with friends.  My little lady is fast asleep in her swing next to me.  2013 is starting out great!!

I have decided that I am not declaring a new year's resolution that will be broken before school is back in session.  Nope.  Instead, I have chosen a word to drive what I do this year.

SIMPLIFY.

(Please stop laughing, mom!)  Anybody who knows me, knows that I tend to over-do things a little bit.  I have an office and a basement and a closet and a computer hard drive that all boarder on hoarding.  I simply can't make one hair piece for Penny...I have to make 15.  I have a lot of stuff in my house for the "what if's" and the "just in cases".  I save multiple drafts of documents I create on my computer.  I have enough linens to outfit a large bed and breakfast. (I really love sheets and pillows and towels!)

In an effort to regain some sanity and to focus on what is really important in life, I have decided that I need to simplify some things in my day to day life.  This will start on the morning of January 1st!  As I do every year, I will watch the Rose Parade (...if the kids allow it.  I am hoping to start instilling the love of this parade in Gus this year) and then during the Rose Bowl, while the kiddos nap, I will pull EVERYTHING out of every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen.  I will purge items that we no longer need and I will re-organize the kitchen to see if we find a better configuration.  I have done this every year since I moved to the east side of Michigan.  I look forward to it!  And even more so not this year because I plan to SIMPLIFY what we have going on in the kitchen this year.

I have heard this before..."Keep It Simple, Stupid" or "K.I.S.S".  I have my own version of that to help keep me focused this year since we don't say "stupid" in this household.  I printed it out to post on my mirror so I see it every day.  Hopefully at some point in 2013 I will be able to report back on how the simplified life is going!

An Unexpected Tuesday

Earlier this week I saw a post on our social workers Facebook page. "Looking to find a new home for an artificial Christmas tree." I noticed "J" had commented in the post that she knew of a house that needed one. Unfortunately, the tree in the post had already been spoken for. We had purchased a new tree on Black Friday and had an old tree that we could donate so I texted "J" and offered her the tree. (I am the crazy one has 3 trees up in her house. One real, two artificial. We certainly did not need a fourth!).

Yesterday I got a text back from "J" that said, "Thanks for the offer but I can't find a way to get the tree from you." I had already taken the day off work to go to Gus' preschool party and was going to spend the afternoon as Santa's helper and get caught up for Christmas. So I responded and told her that I could drop it off on Tuesday afternoon....just needed to know where to take it. She gave me an address and told me that she would meet me there.

That got me thinking. Was she expecting Gus to be with me? Did she want to see him? Would she prefer not to? She hadn't seen him since the day she left the hospital. We send pictures and texts and Gus had a FB page just for her to see but she has never asked to see him. So did she even want to? Would she be disappointed if I showed up without him?

I quick called up Joel and asked what he thought. Should we offer? Or should I go alone like I originally planned? We decided that we would offer. We let her know that it was okay either way but that the choice was hers. She quickly responded, "that would be great to see him!" So there you have it....Gus was going to meet his birthmom the next day!

Joel and I talked to Gus about it and told him that we were going to go see "J". When we explain adoption to Gus we tell him that he grew in "J's" belly and then she gave him to us to keep forever and ever. So when we talked with Gus about what was going to happen he asked, "is she gonna take me back?" As I struggled to breathe and answer him, I quickly questioned whether or not I should take him the next day. I panicked for a moment before taking a deep breath and explaining to him. "No. In fact, he was gonna stay with me and Dadoh and Penny forever and ever." He seemed very content with that answer and bounded off to play. But what a huge question from a 3 year old! I was a little nervous about how he would react the next day but decided that we were gonna go anyway.

Gus and I spent the morning at his preschool for the Christmas party. I love that I am able to take time from school for things like that. I think it is really important to share the love of learning with your kids! Afterwards we headed north to "J".

We got to her house and unloaded the Christmas tree and then went in to chat. We got to meet her roommates and Gus ran around like crazy checking out all of their Christmas decorations and found a coloring book to play with. He talked to all of them and told them stories. He "read" them a book and was a little show off. "J" and her roommates all chatted for a bit. Got a few pictures of "J" and Gus and got ready to head home. Overall it was very relaxed and I was surprised at how easy it was.

I am happy that it went so smoothly and would be completely fine with meeting up again sometime. I knew that when we chose adoption, days like today would happen. I just didn't know that it would happen so unexpectedly on a random Tuesday.

Our Lucky Penny

Our sweet Penelope!

We know that she is a future Thirty-One consultant or product model...

And because in this house we love Flat Rock football, we have one for Dadoh's sports wall....

Here was her brother at the same age...

(Don't think we ever shared this one with you guys.)

Of course we have about a bajillion and a half other photos of our little sweet pea but we will start with this!  

Whirlwind of Wonderful

So remember how I was just saying how patient I needed to be?  Who knew that my world would change so quickly!!  Keep in mind, I wrote that last blog post on Sunday night.

On Monday afternoon, we had our regular staff meeting after school.  This time we were meeting in departments.  As I sat there meeting with the other school counselor, Kathy, my cell phone rang.  I looked down and saw, "Dawn Baker".  Now for those of you who are "Teen Mom" fans, you know that Dawn works for Bethany Christian Services as a pregnancy counselor.  I immediately got anxious as I went to pick up the phone.  Kathy quickly picked up on what was happening and ran to get Joel.  Thank goodness we work in the same building and he could get down to the office quickly to be with me.

Dawn informed us that there was a baby girl born at 1:50 AM that morning and that her birthparents chose us!!  Holy moly!!  We were told to come to the hospital on Tuesday morning to meet our baby girl!

We spent Monday evening frantically pulling out all of our baby stuff.  Every baby bin from the basement was strewn about our living room and kitchen.  (And if you ask Joel, there are WAY too many bins.)  We pulled out any clothing of Gus' that was gender neutral.  Brought up the pack 'n plays.  (Yes, that is plural.) Brought up the swing and the carseat and the changing pad....

I ran to Target to pick up the essentials like diapers, formula, Dreft, a couple of baby girls outfits (so she didn't come home in blue) and Tums (I knew I would need those to get through the next couple of days.)

I had Gus stay in my bed that night (I wanted to snuggle with him and it was our last night as a family of 3) as I laid awake the whole night worrying about everything that was about to happen and crying for my little boy who had no idea that in 12 hours his world was going to change drastically.  I spent half of my night worrying about our next adoption process, praying for this baby, praying for her birthparents, praying for our family.  I spent the other half watching Gus sleep and praying for him.  Praying for the transition that our family was about to make.  Soaking up the last few hours of his only child life and praying for him as the big brother that he was about to become.  Sad that I didn't have time to do something special with him on the last day as a family of three.  It was a very long night full of anxiety and tears....no sleep.

The next day, Gus went to his sitter's house and Joel and I headed to work for a couple of hours before heading to the hospital.  Once we got to the hospital we met up with Dawn who had some paperwork for us to fill out.  She then went to meet with the birthparents for what seemed to be forever long.  She came back to get us and we began the longest walk in the world.  The hospital we were in was huge and the room we were in was super far away from the room that "S" was in.  The walk seemed to be long, awkward and full of anxiety.  (Remember the movie The Green Mile....for some reason that kept popping in my head as we made this long walk down to meet the birthparents.)

Once in the room, we met the birthparents, his mom, her mom and her grandparents.  Nine of us in a tiny hospital room.  It sure was cozy!  We had a chance to talk and get to know one another a little bit.  I was jumping out of my skin!  Pretty sure that my nails were digging into Joel's knee as I held his hand.  We were then led back to the waiting room to wait....and wait...and wait....

While we were waiting, Dawn was taking care of some stuff with the birthparents and also introduced the baby girl to her birth family.  (They had not yet seen her.)  After what seemed to be a long time, Dawn came back to get us.  We went back to the room that "S" was in.  Once we were there, "S" made a point to hand this beautiful little girl over to me.  We held her and loved her and took some pictures with her, with the birthparents, with the whole family.  We gave "S" and "C", the birthfather, a few minutes alone with the baby before we got to take her back down to the room that we were assigned.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out in that room waiting to be discharged.  The baby was born at 36 weeks so she had to pass a carseat test before we could take her home.  We had to wait a long time before the NICU had time to do the test.  We FINALLY left for home around 8 PM.  We pulled in the driveway at 9 PM to meet up with Gus and introduce him to his baby sister!

We are beyond thrilled to welcome

PENELOPE LIN ELIZABETH

to our family!  She is absolutely beautiful and the sweetest little thing!  Penny weighed in at 6 lbs 8 oz and was 18" long.  We are cautiously approaching the next few weeks as we wait for legal placement, but we are over the moon and head over heels in love with this beautiful little girl!!

More info and pictures to follow in the upcoming weeks.  In the mean time, prayers would be much appreciated as we wait out the risk period.