One Month Home!

(Sarah here.) Today marks one month home for our Ukrainian Princess!

Grace is doing well. We are over the "honeymoon" phase if there was one, there are many things we are still working on (you can't erase 8.5 years in an institution with a couple weeks of love), but over all she is doing pretty well.

She eats well, she sleeps well, and for the most part gets along with her siblings, esp Rachel. She is slowly gaining weight and her hair is slowly growing, but both will take some time yet.

Tonight she let me paint her fingers. She is fine with them being clipped (unlike her brothers!), and I knew she would want them painted if she watched Rachel's being painted. Sure enough, after Rachel's first finger, she had her hand in there wanting hers done too.

(Side note about her tongue here: Grace has very good oral motor control.. her tongue doesn't hang out unless she is stimming or very focused, in this picture, she's focused!)

She wasn't sure about holding her hands still but decided it was okay. (If she decided not too... there was no way we could keep them open!)

 And now our girly girl is rocking PINK nails for the first time in her life!!

Happy 1 Month Home Miss Grace! We love you and can't wait for many more months and years with you!

We are home!

Elijah ate some GF soft bread (w/o crusts) and a bit of soft fruit late afternoon. All of his vitals were good. The ENT cleared him to come home!!!  We arrived home just after 6pm. Woohoo!!!

He is definitely still not himself though. That's to be expected.  But I'm just so proud of him! He did great and tolerated everything so well (except the wristband which ended up on his ankle in the OR and his hand wrapped for the IV). Great job, Elijah!!!

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers!  A big thank you as well to PD who came to the hospital to pray with us before surgery!

Elijah is doing great!

Medically, Elijah is doing wonderfully.  Surgery went well.  His tonsils were huge, but his adenoids were not too bad. Most likely, the tonsils were the cause of his sleep apnea.  He only has a tube in his right ear as the left one had a small perforation in it under a whole mess of wax.

So, it looks like we may go home tonight. The nurse sees no reason to keep him as he has drank 48 oz  + of water, eaten jello, applesauce, and the sweetest "yogurt" he's ever had (pudding). We are going to try some noodles here in a bit and see how that goes.

The only issue now is his inability to decide which DVD to watch, and once he does, then to stick with that decision for more than one minute. Patience, Mama, he just had surgery. :-)

I'm so thankful for all of those that prayed. The Lord is SO faithful!  Praise Him! (I'd appreciate continued prayers for his healing and pain management. Thanks!). And good news, he just watched a whole episode of MacLarry. Yay! Love Veggie Tales!

Surgery Tomorrow for Elijah!

Well, I never got around to posting the results of the boys' sleep studies. Jonathan's was relatively fine, Elijah's not so much. He has mild-moderate sleep apnea.  So, tomorrow morning he is getting his tonsils and adenoids removed to help make sure he is getting enough oxygen at night. In addition, he will most likely have ear tubes placed (3rd set). The ENT wants to examine his ears more closely while he's sedated. And finally, he is having a frenectomy. Don't know what that is? :-)  I didn't either until a few days ago. The labial frenum is the little tag of tissue in the center of the upper (and lower) lip that attaches the lip to the gum. So, a frenectomy is the clipping of the labial frenum. His top one will be done. His awesome speech/feeding therapist recommended it to help him with speech. I had forgotten about until I was thumbing through my new book from Talk Tools about feeding.

The ENT wants to keep him overnight for observation due to his Down syndrome. I believe it is usually an out-patient procedure.

We would really appreciate your prayers for a smooth and uncomplicated surgery and quick healing for Elijah.  I'm praying he will be able and willing to take fluids will over the next week.

This will be our first overnight at a hospital besides childbirth.  I know this isn't heart surgery like the Warrior Princess Lyla just had, but its still something new for us. Lyla helps me keep things in perspective. :-) Hopefully Elijah will recover as quickly as she did!!! She's a walking miracle!

On a side note, I sat next to Grace last night and listened to her breathing...I believe a sleep study is definitely in her future too. :-( Oh boy...the thought of that makes me shudder. Yes, I know I thought Jonathan's would be awful getting all those things stuck to his head, but wow...Grace can be a lot feistier than him, and she is very strong too. Maybe she'll surprise me like he did.

Speaking of Jonathan's sleep study, I never posted these pictures of him the next morning as they were taking all of the wires off him as proof of the miracle of him not fussing at all.  Sorry, they are so incredibly blurry. The iPad camera and I don't get along, plus he wouldn't stop moving!

For Tonight - You Can Help!

I have a ton of things I want to blog about, but my time at the computer is pretty short these days. Can't imagine why...adjusting to any new child in the home is a challenge, especially one that was been institutionalized for almost 9 years. But really, Grace is doing well for the most part and I'll try to update more later.

Back in the 3rd week of December, two very happy travelers (they had just finished the LAST piece of paperwork to leave the country) went shopping on Kyiv's famous sovenuir street. The elder traveler strapped a tiny 30# 8 year old girl on in an Ergo and the other (much younger traveler) felt a little silly pulling an empty suitcase over the cobblestone streets and sidewalks.  But they were shopping for a purpose.  The purpose was to help bring home FOUR precious little boys to a very special family they have known and loved for years. Their mission was to purchase souvenirs that would bring high bids in a Facebook auction and fill that suitcase up!  :-)

(By the way, the tiny 8 yo girl did amazingly well in the Ergo for a couple of hours.  Her mama's legs...not so much. Her mama is WAY out of shape!)

If you are interested in bidding on some fun Ukrainian souvenirs, or some MILKA chocolate, or some yummy ROSHEN candies, hop on over to the Freedom Auction on Facebook. Please help support the Burman family bring home their precious children!  (If that link doesn't work, please search for "Freedom Auction" on facebook and look for the Ukrainian flag. Thanks for your help!  (I'm sure Shelly would appreciate prayers too. She's been there a long time and has quite a ways to go yet.)

THE AUCTION ENDS TONIGHT (FRIDAY) AT MIDNIGHT!

***************************

Sarah did a much more eloquent post today about our participation in the auction. She even has pictures (because we all know she is a much better blogger than me!). :-)  Our family and the Burmans have ties that go back to before we even knew the other existed. Pretty amazing when you think about it that 6 1/2 years later we were able to meet in Kyiv! Go read Sarah's post!  Thanks so much!

Settling in.

Well... we kinda disappeared for updates since we came home. Don't worry if you aren't friends on Facebook, there was next to nothing there either. Reasons being jet lag, the sickies, and getting used to a new little one around. But here's a long update with lots of pictures to make up for it.

Today is one week home for out sweet girl!

On the way home.. both of us looked pretty drugged from lack of sleep. ;)

So how has Grace been doing? Amazing, and better than we hoped for!

Ball with her siblings the night we got home

Grace fits right in and acts like she's always been here. She is adjusting so well, better than we expected! Rachel seems to be her favorite sibling, and they can often be found hugging. :)

Jonathan could care less, and Elijah isn't too thrilled but tolerating her. Anna, Isaac, and Rebekah are smitten, and I'm just glad she still prefers me slightly over the other kids and doesn't hate me after our trip home. :)

She is still working on the jet lag, but otherwise sleeping well. She doesn't get out of bed, or let us know when she wakes up (orphanage thing, Elijah was the same way), but goes back to sleep when told "spee" at 6am. :) Little Miss has trouble chewing from her teeth being flat from her grinding, but is eating well with more mashed up foods, and is drinking well.

Opening Christmas presents the night after we got home!

Still not liking the hairbows! lol

Grace does have some stimming and institutional behaviors, but nothing like we expected. She grinds her teeth, and rocks and jerks her neck back and forth sometimes. When she's tired or going to sleep, she puts her left arm over her face... that's it, no rocking, no nothing. She pockets food in her lower lip and certainly doesn't refuse food, but she doesn't stuff like Elijah did, nor go scavenging in the garbage like Elijah did. When we were in our apartment in Kiev, I have the garbage out because I was peeling pomelo. I gave her a bite or two of it, and she wanted more so got close and was looking in the garbage. I told her no, don't touch, and she backed off right away and didn't touch it. And that's not the only time she has shown how good her self control is. We had no problems having her tray of food in front of her on the airplane, as long as she was being fed. This is HUGE considering where she was, and how long she was there. God is so good!

She quickly figured out how to open presents and was very neat about it, getting up and bringing every little scrap to mom after she ripped it off. ;)

Many have asked about Grace's language. She understood/understands Russian very well. Unfortunately, our Russian is limited, but we do know the essentials like yes, no, good job, pretty girl, don't touch, chew, sit down, sleep, sister, brother, grandma, grandpa, etc. And I think she is starting to understand some English. She is non-verbal, in Russian and English, but gets her point across when she wants or doesn't want something. She has spoken a couple words though, like "Vika", referring to one of the girls in her grouppa during a visit. The other one I can think of right now is "go" in English, which I'm not sure she completely understands, but says sometimes after we say something like "let's go upstairs" or "let's go eat".

Of course learning some Dora Spanish doesn't hurt!

As for signing... not going as well as we hoped. Mom worked on signing more with her every visit when she would give her her snack, with no success. Elijah was signing mama and papa on Day 3 after meeting them. We have decided that it's not inability, or not understanding, she's just choosing not to. She signed more, or something close to it once or twice, but that's it. She just refuses to do anything when encouraged. She is watching her brothers sign, and then get what they want, a lot, so maybe she'll change her mind soon. :)

That's all I can think of for the moment. Happy New Year Everyone!