8 years old

This little brown-eyed beauty with a pretzel mustache turned 8 yesterday. Her daddy took flowers and cupcakes up to school and ate lunch with her. And her birthday dinner of choice? Sushi. I found myself wondering how many 8 yr. olds choose sushi for their birthday dinner. She enjoyed telling the waitress last night that she was the first in her family to celebrate her "golden birthday" (If you don't know what a golden birthday is, it's the birthday that you turn the same number as the date you were born...8 years old on April 8. My cousin taught me that, but I get the feeling she made it up). We'll have a party this weekend.

I'll never forget that night 8 years ago that my sweet little baby girl was born at home. Her grandpa called her his little mermaid since she was born in the water. That was a beautiful night and we've had so many great moments with this little girl. I know there are many more to come.

It was a beautiful day on Sunday so we decided to spend it fishing at the lake.

Note to self: Get a babysitter for Hope next time we go fishing. She was far more preoccupied with freeing the captive"meadows" (minnows) than she was concerned whether any of us would catch any fish.

Does Ava love fishing or does she love riding on her daddy's back and patting his neck?

I caught Hope again....sneaking some of the "meadows" out and dropping them in the lake.

The only one who caught a fish was the one who didn't care....ME! Of course nobody grabbed the camera to snap my photo with the tiny little perch at the end of my pole.

A few of us got tired of fishing and went over to play on the "beach" (Oklahoma style...a couple of truckloads of sand dumped by the lakeshore)....

Ava's tiny little feet touching sand for the first time. Aren't her little toes cute?

Nobody heeded my instructions of "only get in to the knees" (Didn't think to pack swimsuits). Notice the water line at upper chest level?

Awwww....Isn't she cute? She surprised me, she really loved the feel of sand on her feet and even on her hands! That brush therapy must be doing wonders (Thanks Rachel!)

You haven't lived until you've had sand in your eyes, right? What a cute sight, a little Ukrainian orphan girl that was just bundled up in layers and layers two months ago, now barefoot on the 'beach'.

Everyone is wet, sandy, and extremely silly for our trip back home.

And...staying true to Urban family tradition, we stopped by Long John Silver's for a bite to eat on our way home from yet another unsuccessful fishing endeavor.

Toys

Remember the floppy little girl who couldn't sit up, and didn't know what to do with a toy when you set it in front of her? Well, here she is sitting up strong and pushing buttons to hear the music play!

Decisions, decisions

Well I had a meeting today. I guess it's called an IEP meeting. My first IEP meeting. It was at the local elementary school, and present were the special education teacher, vice principal, a representative of the Special Education department, and myself (with Ava of course). She has been evaluated for services, and she placed on about a 7 month level (it would have been lower except she placed at 28 months for her attention span! Wow!) Not sure how they figure these things out...but they are the experts I guess.

So we met today to discuss the services they offer at the school. I got a tour of her classes and I was so impressed with the special rooms, equipment, student/teacher ratio, etc. What I especially loved is how all three teachers just LOVED Ava, and can't wait to have her in their class. The main teacher said she is afraid she'll neglect her teaching because she'll want to hold and play with Ava all day (there is a rocking chair in the classroom for special kids just like Ava). Ava will be their 6th student. And there are 3 teachers. They will provide OT, PT, and ST. They will help her with some of the feeding issues and sensory issues she is having. And the best part is it's free!!! What more could I ask for?

But then I got so sad as I left there today. If I was to be honest, I don't know that she knows I'm her mother. I think she understands that she belongs here with us, but what does a family really mean to a child with fairly severe mental delays who has had her basic survival needs met but not much else? I remember feeling like I was committing perjury when the judge in Ukraine looked straight into my eyes and asked the unexpected question, "Does the child Alina recognize you as her mother?" Knowing I wouldn't lie, yet not wanting to risk losing the right to become her mother, I responded, "I would like to think that she recognizes me as her mother." The judge smiled, I guess that was good enough for the judge. 

So we have the weekend to pray and discuss and weigh the benefits of putting her in school vs. keeping her at home to bond and such. Granted it is only 2 1/2 hours 4 days a week. And the kids aren't here anyway during the day. I really feel like she needs all the interaction and services she can get (Not to mention that I'd like to go to the store by myself once in a while). But I also really feel like she needs me. We do have the option of sending her one time a week up to four times a week. So I may just try it out and see how things are working.

I will say that she loved the dark room with the strobe lights and the green beads and glow-in-the-dark stars hanging from the ceiling....a LOT. And there is a really cool swing too.

Playing dress up with the boys

I heard Jude dressing Ava up like a "cowboy" last night.

That's OK. She still has her toenails painted! Very feminine!

Japanese Fast Food

We went to this restaurant the other night as a family. It was so fun! It's called The Sushi Train, and there is literally a train that runs around the bar area. Each "car" contains a sushi dish, and you just grab whatever looks good to you as it passes by. The sushi is priced by the color of the plate, so we were able to tell the kids they could pick a red, blue or yellow plate (the cheapest ones, aren't we terrible?). There were even little gummy bear sushi's for dessert. So fun! I loved it, the kids loved it, and John wasn't so crazy about it, but he enjoyed watching the train and the rest of us loving the train AND the sushi!

     Thank you all for your meaningful comments, prayers, and encouraging words. Thank you particularly to those who call themselves "lurkers" who introduced themselves. :) What a special feeling to know prayers were going up from Indiana, Kansas, and even England and Australia for our family (and don't forget the grandparents in Mexico). Wow.

     Well as you may have guessed we found out this week that we lost our baby (Ava is fine!). I was 12 weeks along, and having some spotting we were concerned enough to go in and get checked out. My midwife was not able to hear the heartbeat, and my doctor's office was overbooked, so we ended up going to the ER for an ultrasound on Monday. We did not receive good news. While he said he didn't see any signs of life, I just felt like I needed to hang on the the tiny bit of hope that I had, that perhaps they rushed through the ultrasound too quickly, that my dates were off, or maybe even that the doctor was just plain wrong. I wasn't quite ready to believe that we had lost the baby, not just yet, and that is why I asked for your prayers without coming right out and saying why.

   After having a second ultrasound today and confirming an "imminent miscarriage" (this time with my doctor present to answer questions) we feel a peace that only God can give. I will be honest.... I have a hundred questions. WHY? Why, when we didn't "plan" it in the first place? Why do we have to get so attached to and excited about this little person that we do not know yet but still love with all of our hearts, only to lose them? There are many, many things in life that I do not understand, losing babies being one of them. Our kids asked some of the same questions, and then some others that I would never have said aloud. But kids....you know, they say what they think. I am making my list to ask the Lord someday. I'm sure He will give me some brilliant answer but I can't think of what that would be right now.  For now, we all agree, God is good, and we will praise Him even when times are hard and through things we can't quite grasp.

   Meanwhile we are grieving. I have learned from this experience that a baby is a baby whether newly conceived or well into its 3rd trimester. The fact that a million and one women have been through it or the fact that I already have 5 other children to enjoy doesn't make THIS child any less special, and it doesn't necessarily make the grieving any easier. 

     When we told the kids Monday after school, there were some tears shed. Simeon asked if we could name the baby. We all thought it was a good idea. We couldn't give the baby a name without a gender, and so we took a vote. It was unanimously a boy. Jude suggested John, and we all loved it. "Baby John", meaning God is gracious. The kids all kissed my tummy and we had our good-bye's. I wish I would have thought to email all their teachers though, because when they went to school the next day to tell their sad news to their classmates....Apparently some thought it was a sick April Fools' joke. :(

     A friend shared this prayer with me: 

Dear God, I've dreampt of holding my child on my knee and telling them about you... but I cannot. Instead, will you hold my child on your knee and tell them about me?

Another shared this:
And God Said

I said, "God, I hurt." And God said, "I know."
I said, "God, I cry a lot." And God said, "That is why I gave you tears."
I said, "God, I am so depressed." And God said, "That is why I gave you Sunshine."
I said, "God, life is so hard." And God said, "That is why I gave you loved ones."
I said, "God, my son died." And God said, "So did mine."
I said, "God, it is such a loss." And God said, "I saw my son nailed to a cross."
I said, "God, but your son lives." And God said, "So does yours."
I said, "God, where are they now?" And God said, "Mine is on My right and Yours is in the Light."
I said, "God, it hurts." And God said, "I know."

~Authors K. C. and Myke Kuzmic~

"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy."- Psalm 126:5

Please keep our family in your prayers today. We are going through a difficult time. I don't know how to blog about it just yet, but I will in a few days. We know God is good, and we continue to praise Him even in hard times.

Elephant Paints Self Portrait

I don't think this was meant to be funny, but I must just be in one of those moods where everything is funny.....This just cracked me up. I kept trying to figure out if it is an arm disguised as an elephant truck, but....I think it's the real thing! Absolutely amazing.....and hilarious. (Grab your kids!) P.S. Liesel says, "It doesn't really look like an elephant, but it's still pretty good."

John took Ava and Simeon to Bass Pro Shop. He just sent me this photo from his phone. For some reason it was really funny to me. She looks SO uninterested, but it sure makes a cute picture!

Ava's surgery....

Well she did great! No tonsils, no adenoids, and now she has some handy dandy ear tubes to help drain the accumulation of fluid behind her ear drums. She'll be able to hear so much better now! One cute story....When Ava was first being admitted and the nurse was trying to get her vital signs....She asked John to hold her arm steady so she could get a blood pressure. The nurse said something like, "We don't want her to wiggle". The minute Ava heard "wiggle", she grinned real big and showed off her latest wiggle dance! Of course the nurse did not appreciate the wiggle dance even a FRACTION of how we appreciated it!

I couldn't resist taking this photo. It looks like Ava is thinking, "It's going to be OK Papa, don't worry about me.....I'll be just fine."

The oxygen was history the minute she woke up. She did not want that thing on her face!

All done! She feels great!

I'm not sure if the kids were more excited to see Ava or the helicopter landing pad outside her hospital window. Hmmm......

John stayed the night with her (He was pretty excited that he got to watch basketball too) and I came home to put the rest of the crew to bed. When I laid with Hope tonight she said, "Mommy, I'm so so so so so so so sad." I asked why she was said, and she said, "Because Ava isn't here with me."

You can follow John's blog ........

for Ava's T&A surgery progress today. It will be an overnight stay, and he'll be staying with her tonight.

I totally forgot....Please say a prayer for Ava tomorrow bright and early. She's getting ear tubes and having her tonsils and adenoids removed. I know she'll do fine, but it's always nice to know someone is praying. Thanks!

Something really special happened today. I got a call last week from my husband's cousin's wife's mom....(confused?)....I don't see her very often, in fact it has probably been several years. She called to congratulate us on Ava, and then she said she wanted to come over to bring a "gift" for Ava and our family. About an hour later she was in my living room (along with my husband's cousin's wife...i.e. her daughter.....even more confused?) with a gift bag full of cards and a big check. Turns out, she is in a Beth Moore Bible Study through her church, and the ladies were studying the fruits of the spirit, and it happened that the week they were talking about "love", the article about our family adopting Ava had came out in the newspaper. One of the ladies brought the article to show as an example of the love of God, and this group of ladies so graciously and generously, in turn, took up a "love offering" for our family. When I opened the envelope, I was quite surprised and humbled to see the check, but it wasn't until they left, and I had a chance to read all the cards, that the tears began to flow. There was so much love in the words of these ladies, and heartfelt prayers for Ava and our family, that I really couldn't contain my emotions. I was glad I was by myself. Anyway, they invited Ava and me to come and visit, and that is just what we did this morning. They let me share a little bit about our adoption, then they circled the two of us and sang a beautiful song and prayed for us. It was so touching, and I am so grateful. I love how God brings people into our lives, even maybe ones we don't know, to lift us up in prayer and surround us with encouragement when we need it most. I hope they don't mind me including their picture on my blog, but it was just one of those things I really had to share.

Good news and Bad News....

The bad news is....We had a follow-up eye dr. appointment yesterday. The glasses didn't help a bit. So she needs eye surgery for her strabismus. We decided to go ahead and get it over with, because I know I would procrastinate for years otherwise, so we scheduled it for April 11. Thankfully the surgery is quick and painless, and we should see immediate results.

The good news is.........Guess who sat up for two whole minutes yesterday?!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Another video you'll love

Ava seems to respond to her name now, and I'm not sure if she understand 'mama' or 'papa' or any other words yet, but we did discover one word she understands! "Wiggle". I've been trying to teach her that she CAN move her body, her legs, and we've been doing some modeling for her. When I showed her "wiggle" a few times, she imitated me. And she did it again, and again. Now she will wiggle just to the command without imitating anyone. I couldn't be more ecstatic, to know that she can hear me, and she can understand and follow commands. This was HUGE.

Sensory issues

I have taken my senses for granted. I guess I knew that our senses are very important, but I have never appreciated sensory input like I have since having a little daughter with special needs. The problem we have on our hands, is, we have a little girl with the potential to scoot, crawl, and eventually walk....but not until we can help her learn to tolerate new sensations she has never experienced before. For example: her hands. She has probably never touched with her hands anything but her own skin and maybe the crib railing. So carpet probably feels like sandpaper to her hands. Most of the pictures we had seen of her she had her hands clasped together, like she was praying. The kids liked to think she was praying for a family with lots of brothers and sisters. But in reality,  the feel of her own hands clasped together brings her comfort I think. She still clasps her hands together when there is a lot of activity or stimulation. We have been trying to get her into the crawling position so she can start to bear weight on her hands and knees, and it almost seems excruciating to her when you force her palms down on the carpet or the mat. She cringes and cries and resists that kind of stimulation.

And she won't be able to eat solid foods until she can get used to the feeling in her mouth of new textures and tastes, and learn to want to put things in her mouth. It is all so foreign to her right now. So I am learning now why occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy are all dependent on one another and go hand in hand. One of the experiments we tried the other night was "pudding therapy". Sounds fun huh?.......She HATED it!!! We put the pudding on her high chair tray, and she reluctantly reached for it. The minute it was on her fingers she pulled away and screamed, like she was being tortured. Eventually she rubbed it in her hair, thus the reason for the hair in the next video.....John tried warm water next. She liked water SO much better than pudding!

Dinosaur Valley State Park-Glen Rose, TX

This was so fun!! A perfect example of my earlier post, that sometimes the cheaper things are far more fun! There are dinosaur tracks in this state park. The problem was, the tracks were across the creek, and because of the recent Texas flooding we were in for a little surprise....






We had to cross on these rocks to the other side of the creek to see the tracks. I wasn't too happy about it at first, but we drove an hour to see them so by golly, we were going to see them. I'm glad we did, because crossing the creek made for a really fun memory!

Lunch with friends

We met up with Jill, an online adoption friend, who welcomed us to her house for lunch. They have 7 kids, 4 of whom are adopted from Russia, China and Columbia. Three of their children have Down Syndrome (and they are expecting another little one from China soon). What a great time we had with their family. When it was all said and done, the kids voted that this was their favorite Spring Break activity of all. Of course it was, with 7 other kids to play with....

The Fort Worth Stockyards

We went to the Stockyards in Ft. Worth but didn't stay too long as one of the kids had just barfed all over the backseat during the one-hour drive there. We weren't sure whether it would happen again or not. Fun times.....

Everybody is watching Simeon, who is obviously not the one who got sick in the car, ride the mechanical bull

I took this picture for John because I'm sure he didn't notice these ladies walking in front of us.....hee hee

The Galleria Mall in Dallas

We obviously don't get out much. The kids were fascinated by these half mannequins hanging from the ceiling.

Escalators are one of the best ways to entertain our children for really cheap!

We made the mistake of checking out the American Girl store. That is all Liesel can think about ever since. Have you seen the price tags on one of those things?! Good grief!

Cow Town

The only one brave enough to attempt the mechanical bull ride was Simeon. Good thing, too, considering it was $5 a ride. I will say I was pretty tempted to try it out myself but I quickly realized that a pregnant lady riding a mechanical bull would look pretty bad.

We're back!!

We are back from Ft. Worth and boy was it fun traveling pregnant with 5 kids!!! We had two blowout diapers...in the carseat, two episodes of vomiting: one in the car and one in the bed (no bucket available), an accident in the pants, and two emergency pull-over-to-the-side-of-the-road bathroom stops. It always cracks me up that  the guy who can engineer his way out of almost any situation suddenly finds himself helpless and clueless when it comes to cleaning vomit or other body fluids. HA HA. Sure is fun when fighting morning sickness too.

I'll post some fun pictures tomorrow. We really did have fun despite the above paragraph....At least we didn't lose any kids. Ava is a great traveler, and every time we vacation we realize again that the most fun things in life really are free (or at least real cheap). 

You can see John's blog for a preview.

Ava's first road trip

Come with us to Dallas TX.

Get ready for a photo blitz! Stay tuned.

Easter....An Adoption Story

I probably won't have a chance to update our blog for a few days, because we'll be leaving for Texas in a few hours. But I wanted to wish all my faithful blog readers :) a Happy Easter, and share something real quick that has been on my heart. We have a bumper sticker on the back of our Suburban that says "Adoption Creates Families". I have been passionate about adoption since I was bringing stray cats and dogs home in the first grade. I always thought that adoption was the right thing to do. It wasn't until I heard a series of sermons by our pastor, though, that I realized how much adoption is on God's heart too. Of course it is. How many times in Scripture has he commanded us to care for the orphans, the widows, the foreigners. His heart is for the lonely, the weak, the distraught, and He depends on us, His children to care for them! 

We were all orphans, separated from God by our sin. He made a way for us to be a part of HIS family, his kingdom through ADOPTING us! (Eph 1:5 In love He predestined us to be ADOPTED as His sons through Jesus Christ). We are ALL either orphans or we are adopted into His family. Adoption isn't Plan B, it is Plan A.....I am adopted and if you are a christian, you are too.

Anyway, last year on Easter Sunday our pastor started a series on adoption. It seemed like an odd choice of sermon topics for Easter Sunday until you realize Easter has everything to do with adoption. If you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, a christian, or even if you don't, I would like to challenge you to listen to these 4 sermons. Even just the first one will change your life. 

I was so grieved when I learned there are over 140 million orphans in the world! That number sounded so overwhelming. But then I learned (thanks Google) there are over 2 BILLION christians in the world. Way more of us than there are of them. I'm not a math whiz, but I know 2 billion is a LOT more than 140 million. The numbers don't make sense. If God commanded his followers to care for the orphans, and there are so many of us, why are there still so many of them? I don't believe everybody is called to adopt, but I do believe everyone should do something. I hope you'll listen to at least one, if not all of these 4 sermons on God's heart for the orphan....Click here and see what God would have you do to help the one that is dearest to his heart...the orphan.