Christy's First Month Home!

Two Feet on US soil - a new US citizen!

Oh my, time flies!  I can not believe that as of this week, Christ has been in our home for a month!  Her first day in our home was May 18.  She has done so very very well in adjusting to our home!  She even acclimated to our time zone within days - faster than I did, that is for sure!

 We have been very busy settling in, finding a new routine that works for now, and getting her the medical diagnosis that we felt were important - here's a list of appointments she's had and what we found out from them:

Carese - the binky caretaker

May 20 - Pediatrician - basically got her height weight, updated our Dr with her new medical information and got her file started and a general look/see for her doctor and her.

May 22 - University of Washington Adoption Medical Clinic (3 hour drive each way!) - Dr Davies got her weight height and looked over both Christy and her latest medical documents and got referrals in place for things like cardiology, neurology, speech and physical therapy evaluations being top priority, Ear/Nose/Throat  evaluation, eye sight and hearing are all on the list too, only not critical.   She also had a myriad of blood work drawn and tested as well as stool cultures done.  So far everything has been great, with the one exception of a Vit D deficiency (we are giving her 1000 IU/day now).

She wasn't too sure about grass, but she warmed up to it!

May 27 - Pediatrician - checking Christy for cold symptoms, but mostly discussing the findings from Dr Davies and discussing referrals needed. She also got to watch Christy drink from a tippy cup and put in the feeding referral right away...told me to only feed her foods from a spoon until then (thickening everything to pudding consistency to be on the safe side).

It was hat day, or something!  Carese wanted to do whatever
Christy was doing that day!

Starting the next day, a virus passed through our family - Rachel, Elizabeth and Carese with high fevers, and I got tonsillitis, the worst case that I can remember (it really took me over a week to finally have no pain)!  Esther and Christy did not get sick at all which was totally weird!

Too stinking cute!

June 3 - Seattle Children's Hospital Cardiology/Echocardiogram -   I finally got all the answers - Christy did no only have an ASD correction like her earlier documents had said, but a very complete open heart surgery - they repaired an ASD, a VSD and an AV Canal defect.  They basically reconstructed the middle of her heart.  The echo was not as clear as they would like, but she feels that the surgery was very successful that she will not need any further repair work.  We are to bring her back in one year from now.  That was a very good sign!

Playing at her Neurology
Appointment

June 5 - Neurology - after reviewing her medical files, and observing her clinically, the pediatric neurologist has determined that Christy has brain damage.  This could have happened either when she was born (traumatic, fetal distress induced emergency C-section) or during her open heart surgery.  If it happened at or around the time of birth, then it is called "Cerebral Palsy" but if it happens later in life they refer to it as a "stroke."  Either way, it is a stable diagnosis (that means it is not getting progressively worse) but it is permanent.  At the same time she did agree that it was very promising that we were already seeing her use her right hand and arm more and more since we brought her home, and with therapy and the blessing of a home and many siblings to play with, she has great potential to gain more use of her right side and she believes that she will be able to walk someday too!  So that was great news, but I did shed a few tears as in my heart I had really hoped that it was just some pinched nerve that adjustment/surgery would correct.

All 4 in matching PJs!

June 8 - First time we were able to bring Christy to church!  She did great and we had a wonderful time introducing her to our church family.  She would not make eye contact with strangers and got a little stressed if people wanted to touch her, but she had no panic attacks and we were even able to stay after the service for the potluck!

Favorite toy - her own foot!

Jun 10 - On the 5th, I finally got a good look at Christy's teeth and immediately made an appt to see our pediatric dentist.  On this day my suspicions were confirmed.  Every molar had as least two cavities (one above each root) and she needed work done right away.  She has been referred to Seattle Children's for this and has a consultation scheduled for the middle of July, but she is on a cancellation list, so hopefully we can get her in sooner. So far no abscesses, but I am to keep and eye out for that and brush regularly.  She does allow me to brush her teeth, but I can tell that sometimes it hurts (she winces).

First Sunday going to church - all in
Matching dresses (all of which came
from a consignment store!)

That was the  last appointment so far, but in the next month we have the following:

(I have two appts for a new crown as a tooth broke last summer and last weekend it broke further...)
June 24 - ENT
July 1 - Esther's pre-surgery consultation for her dental general anesthesia procedure
July 3 - Christy - Physical Therapy Evaluation (hoping to get a referral for braces and her knees bend backwards to an alarming degree)
July 11 - Christy - Feeding Therapy Evaluation
July 15 - Christy - Seattle Children's Hospital - dental consultation
July 17 - Esther - Seattle Children's Hospital - dental surgery

Good night mommy!

So we have a busy month ahead.  We still have some things to schedule yet, but they are not urgent (like vision).

Matching PJs that were given as gifts from
Two different people in two different states!

As far as Christy's integration into our family - it has gone so very much better than I even hoped!  She really had no problems with our busy home, except occasionally if played with too long she would get grumpy, but would recover if she got some time by herself.  She loves to scoot all around the house exploring her new environment.  She continues to love reflective surfaces like our kitchen appliances. We have definitely had to do some "baby proofing" in the home, especially since she loves to put things into her mouth - she loves to chew on paper, plastic and other things....but yet she spews out things like Cheerios and Kix - go figure!



Here are some videos that I think you'll enjoy!

Christy at the UW appointment, having a great time waiting.  She LOVES mirrors, can you tell?

This was just two days ago - this is her right hand/arm that has pretty much been useless.  When we visited her last fall, she could only move it occasionally and it was usually to get you to stop messing with it.  This is purposefully using it to experiment with the toy!  This is miraculous!

This last video was taken that same day, only at bedtime.  Esther has pretty much ignored Christy until very recently.  We noticed that she showed jealousy for the first time just last week, and it was when she saw that Reuben was spending time with Christy and Reuben is Esther's favorite person.  Then, on this evening, she was actually playing with Christy on the floor and they were laughing together.  I thought it would stop when I took them to bed, but I was wrong and I was able to take this amazing, sweet video of them playing together!

Christy is Home!

I have been waiting to start blogging about our trip to bring Christy home until she was home as I was trying to protect my family - it's not a good idea to let the world know that your children (even adult children) are home without their parents.

She is totally a Daddy's Girl!

She is such a beauty!!!

To sum it all up, our gotcha trip was amazing.  Everything went quite smoothly.  We had some excitement (like lightening hitting very close to the hotel, and small explosion from a fuse box in the restaurant and 20 rugby players in their underwear in the hotel lobby as we left) and a few minor difficulties, but God carried us through and over all I feel so very, very spoiled by my Father.  Christy has been a little miracle.  She has adjusted to everything very quickly and we are watching her adjust to being loved on by her family and relaxing and gaining more use of her right side even!

Christy sure has a great personality!  This is her "I don't like this" look.
She never liked the stroller - we'll be working on that!

Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to go back and blog about each day and what happened and the difficulties we overcame and the blessings we had showered upon us.  I have TONS of photos and videos to share with you.

For now, I've put a few of my favorite from our trip here to whet your appetite for more!

I will be posting the details of the trip both here and on my adoption blog, A Seventh Sister.

She is officially a Seventh Sister now!

In a courtroom in Bulgaria at 10:55 am their time, Preslava was pronounced to be our child!

She is now legally Christiana Preslava Einfeld

She is an orphan no more!

For the first time in her life, Priscilla has a family, parents, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and cousins!!!  She doesn't know it yet, but her life will changes forever soon!

We started the process 13 months ago, officially committed to her on Jan 28.  We hope to be taking her our of her group home by the end of March, or the first part of April!  Pray for speedy processing in getting her birth certificate, as that is what is needed before we can get travel dates!

We will be going to bring her home in the next month or so - I'll keep you posted on the progress of course!

Here's the announcement and her new name!

FBI Background Checks....Check! Updated Photos...Check!

We got updated photos of Christy!  These were taken the day after Christmas.  She looks so great!  These were sent to a mutual friend by the orphanage director, who knew that we knew each other!  What a blessed surprise!

This is the toy we sent to her through another Washington State adoptive family,
whose little girl lived with Christy.  They were able to drop off some toys for us
when they went to take their daughter home forever!

We had to have our FBI background checks done again, just in case (see my blog post a few back about details).  This time we are using National Background Checks.  This is an FBI Channeler and one of the few that provides physical copies on FBI letter heads that can be notarized.

Usually it takes 6 or more weeks to get the background checks back, but with the handler we got it back in 3 weeks.  It would usually be even faster, but we were dealing with both the holidays and the severe weather that effected mail as well.

So now I'm sending those off to be apostilled by Caring Hands in Washington D.C.  I am glad I decided to blog about this, as I totally forgot that I can have it sent directly to our agency contact from Caring Hands, saving time and money over having them send them to us, and then forwarding them to the agency contact!

This should be the last thing I have to do as far as paperwork is concerned!  Hurray!  Hoping to hear good news about our dossier going to court by the end of this month...please pray for that to happen!

Surprise Blessings!

Photos taken 12/14!

We had something amazing happen last week!  While I was reading a blog from a family who was on their "meet ya" trip this week in Christy's country, I recognized Christy's city!  This family was able to bring their son to stay with them for 3 days instead of visits twice a day like we had!  Then she commented that now they have to find things to do.  I contacted her, as I had seen that she had the same translator/driver that we did (Yavor), to see if it would be possible to check in to see if the thickener I was able to have brought to Christy was working and how the supply was lasting.

Not only were they able to do that, but Yavor was allowed to visit Christy and take photos!  He said she was quite tired (probably just laying down for a nap).  He also found out that the thickener is working well, and that the supply I sent should last a long time.  The nurse also requested that we send her some orthotic hose to help with her legs as she is super flexible and they think it would help to limit her movement.  It would take yet another miracle, actually a series of miracles, but we might just be able to pull it off and get her some "hip huggers."  I will work to get the hip huggers to our adoption agency attorney over there through a family who is going over there for their first trip in early January, and then she'll need to give it to Yavor and he would have to be going to her city with another family and have time to go to Christy's group home in order for us to get them to her, but it is possible...Please pray that we will be able to do this for her.

Her email was so fun to read, I'll quote it here:

"Dear Ruth!

We were able to go to Christy's group home today twice. The first time we went and Yavor went in and the nurse wasn't there until 12:00. This was in the morning. Yavor got to see Christy, and the care giver told him that Christy was doing really well, but she didn't know about the thickener, or anything about the supply of it needed. She said he should ask the nurse. Yavor said Christy was doing really well, though, and the caregiver told him that she'd had a medical appointment the week before and that went great!

So we went and had Jerry's visa picture taken and then we went to the mall and had lunch and then came back to the group home after noon. I said to Yavor, "see if you can get some photos of Christy and tell them her American Mama would be soooo happy!"...so Yavor took my camera and went in to check with the nurse. On his way in he said.."Now you realize that I probably won't be able to take any pictures, but I"ll try anyway!"...and then when he came out he brought me these on my camera!

Oh Ruth! She's so beautiful! I'm so thankful that we got to encourage you in this way! I said to Yavor..."Bravo!" "Bravo!"..he was beaming that he got to do that!

So..the report from the nurse:

Christy is doing great. She's off of her heart medicine now and only on her brain medicine. She's growing and actually outgrowing all of her clothes! She doesn't need any more thickener at this time. It's working well, but she has enough for a long time to come she said. Also, she mentioned wanting some stretchy ortho type socks or tights that would help to keep her legs straighter. Not sure what that meant, but she thought you might know, and if you could send those, that would be great. When you come for picking up, you'll need to bring her bigger clothes, the nurse said!

Okay..love to you!! Praying this blesses your day greatly!

 Mary!!!

Um, yeah!  That totally blessed my socks off!  And she's a woman after my own heart with all those exclamation points!  LOVE IT!!!!!!

As far as our adoption stuff goes, we were able to get our fingerprints done last Thursday, and I will be mailing them in through an FBI Channeler.  This way we should get our background checks back in about 2 weeks instead of 6 - 8 weeks!  Then I will have to send them to Caring Hands (a service that hand delivers documents to the US Secretary of State in Washington DC to get apostilled) and we will have them send the apostilled background checks directly to our adoption agency!

I am still hoping to hear any day now that our second stage dossier has been submitted.  These fingerprints/background checks will not be needed until we are assigned a judge/court date (and they might not be needed at all, as it depends on which judge we get), so this is not slowing anything down.

So here are the steps we still have left to go through:

-Article 5 translated/authenticated and  added to complete dossier submitted to Big Wig (approx 12/18)

-Complete dossier goes through 1 month of passing through lots of hands (finish approx 1/20)

-Gets signature from big wig (approx 1/27)

-is taken to the courts. (approx 1/31)

-assigned to a judge (approx 2/14)

-assigned a court date (approx 2/20)

-court date/adoption granted (approx 3/1)

-adoption gets signed court decree from the judge (approx 3/10)

-new birth certificate is applied for (approx 3/11)

-travel dates given once new birth certificate is done (approx 3/18)

Then we get to go bring her home (end of March?)

We also were blessed to have one of our photos of our visits with Christy put in a video that was just released today!  Please share this video, and consider participating in the 2013 



And please read about the Winslow family and there visits with their precious children last week.  This is the family who worked with Yavor in order to get updates on Christy! They still stand in need of funds to complete their adoption, so please consider donating to their grant!

Thank you Mary Winslow!

Thank You Yavor!!

Thank You God!!!

Our First Week Home

Since getting back from our trip to meet Christy, I was very sick with a virus.  I was having much difficulty thinking clearly.  But starting on Tuesday I began to tackle the paperwork needed for the second stage dossier.

I was able to fill out the I800 (application to immigrate
 a particular child) and gather the required documentation.  I was also able to print out the three documents that needed to be notarized and apostilled and had Jessica drive me so I could meet up with Daryl and get the signatures notarized.  The went out to the Washington Secretary of State on Thursday, and I expect those to come back late this week.

This week our assignment is to get to the local City Police and have them run a background check, and on Monday Daryl and I go see our family doctor for an updated medical report.  Then those two document will be notarized and sent in to get apostilled.

We also authorized a payment from our Reece's Rainbow grant for the last payment to our adoption agency.

That's it!  So much easier than the first stage dossier!

So the waiting is once again upon us!

We hope to bring her home sometime in February and are already making plans for that trip.  I plan to go through all our girl's clothes that are in storage (and elsewhere since Esther just grew out of the sizes that Christy will be wearing) to find all the 3T clothing we have around here.

We are in need of a LARGE suitcase to bring the necessary equipment and clothing for our time with her on our second trip (the second trip has now increased to 10 days instead of 5 due to a change in policy by the US Embassy, as they now require a TB test and positive result before we can bring her home) .

We have gotten the words "Fully Funded" removed from our FSP on Reece's Rainbow, as this extended trip, plus expenses on our first trip being higher than we expected, will cause our adoption to accrue more costs that we originally projected.  At this point, it looks like we are running somewhere between $1500 and $3000 short.  If you feel led to help with this shortfall, we greatly appreciate your generosity!  I know that God will provide, so do not feel pressured to help us out - there are so many other families with greater needs that we have!

I think the most amazing thing that I've experienced since coming home is two things - I've accidentally called Carese "Christy" twice officially making her a part of our family, and when I watch videos and look at photos I can almost feel what it felt like to hold her in my arms, and it's nearly a physical ache.  I thought other adoptive parents were just overly sentimental about missing their babies between trips, but I can verify that it's all true.  They get into your hearts and make an indelible impression on your arms so very, very quickly!

Our Trip to Meet Christy!

Nearly two weeks ago, Daryl and I headed out to fly to the other side of the world, to meet our daughter, Christy.  What an adventure!  Our travel to go see her was uneventful, except that I was struggling with a cold.  We left on Thursday, had a short layover in Paris, had a long layover in London (got to see the British Museum), and then flew to the capitol of her country (south east Europe).  After one night's sleep (well, we kind of slept), we were driven to the city where where she lives in a group home.  After sleeping there, and a morning walk along the river and seeing some of the town, we were driven to see here. We were allowed to visit with her three times for three days.  On our last visit (Thursday) I had come down with a new cold (the first cold had been conquered by Monday), so only Daryl went (no photos of that visit).  He found that Christy was also coming down with that cold, as well as several other children there and some of the workers - even the director!

 Here's some highlights of our visits with her....

Day 1, First Visit

Our first ever hug!  She just melted in my arms!

                                  

I was able to feed her lunch and dinner every day!

Day 2 Second Visit - 

This visit was incredible.  She was a little sleepy when we got there as she had just woken up and had a snack.  We played with her for a while and then we were able to take her out into the backyard.  I held and hugged her for a while - she really loves snuggling.  Then Daryl took her and a miracle happened before my eye - I can't describe it, but I can show you the videos!

Right before our eyes her character and personality just blossomed.  She began cooing and babbling and that turned into laughter!  What a thrill to experience all that on our first day.  She also cuddled with her daddy too - here are my favorite photos from the day, plus a few more too!

Christy meeting her family through a photo album I created
that my sister had gifted to us!

She gives hugs just like Esther does, with her hand turned out!

Day Two - 

She loves be bounced, and love playing on the play mat with the ping pong ball we brought.  With some experimenting we found that the she enjoyed rough housing.  She loved it when Daryl would roll her over from her tummy to her back, and also if he slid her across the mat.  But her favorite was being spun around.  She would laugh and laugh and laugh!  We were delighted.

She loves to talk and has a great time expressing herself!

But she also loves her cuddle time too!

She is most definitely a Daddy's Girl!

Third Day - Amazing Bonding~

Butterfly Kisses!

We were able to go with her to watch her receive her bi-weekly physical therapy!

One Very Happy Girl - She Loves to Play!

If you want to read all the things I wrote about the details of our trip, including our travel, visit my blog about this trip - Connecting With Christy!

We will be going back to to bring her home sometime around February if all goes well with the paperwork and legal process.  Please pray for this to go smoothly!