Eye appt.

So you can see that I've been instructed to patch her eye. The doctor said to patch for 4 hours a day, every day. Basically she's not using her left eye much at all, so we need to patch her right eye to train her brain to start using the left eye. It is only her left eye that is lazy. She will have to have surgery as well to straightened the eye, but she needs be able to use it first or else I'm told that the eye will basically go "lazy" again even after surgery. The surgery will be in about 2 months. We go back in 1 month to see how everything is looking. Day 1 of patching actually went pretty good. She's not really picking at it and we were able to get 2 really good 2 hours stretches. Now, its new, so I'm sure the novelty will wear off quickly and we will have days that are challenging. The doctor actually made sure she told me that if she wears the patch while sleeping, that doesn't count towards the 4 hours......really?? These few pics (with her not looking into the camera of course) have crazy red-eye because of her huge pupils from having her eyes dilated.

Appts and what-not

Wednesday we will have our first appt with the opthamologist. I was told it could be about 4 hrs long. I know it takes about an hour to dilate her eyes, but another 3 hrs? Wow. I really can't wait to see what they recommend. I'm glad I got a referral and an appt so quickly.

Last week Anna was a trooper getting her blood drawn. I thought it went really well, the guy did a great job (I'll try to use him again next month when we finish up the testing). She had stopped crying before she was even finished and never seemed to give it another thought. Pretty sure she did better than me collecting the stool sample....yucko. I don't have any of the results yet, which reminds me that I should the doctor's office and see if they have them yet.

Also, my agency DID end up finding me her vaccination records!!! I was shocked. I was emailed the copy from Moscow, so its not completely clear, but hopefully good enough for them to be translated. They have not yet gotten back to me about getting the records translated, but hopefully I won't need to pay them to do this as my dad's friend who is from Russia has given them to a professional translator here for me, and can also have a doctor who is fluent in Russian help if needed. I am still having her titers done, but now they can be compared to her records, just as you all seem to have done. I feel better about this.

She continues to sleep wonderfully, Attachment does seem to have back-tracked some. Did this happen with anyone? The last few weeks it just seems like she would rather go to others than me.....other family members, other parents, even strangers. I mean, its still pretty good, its just that it seemed so great at first. Eating and drinking are still about the same. I'm sure I get more frustrated than I should at her eating, or lack of. Our county regional center finally called to set up Anna's evaluation for the Early Start program to hopefully help with speech and her eating. Its not until Oct 18th, and I'm sure they wouldn't get her started with therapy sessions for weeks after that if she qualifies (which I don't see how she wouldn't). These service are only available until she is 3 yrs old and shes 26 months now so I hope she can get in many good months.

I feel like we haven't done anything too exciting, but we have taken her to the county fair, 3 birthday parties (she loves the bouncies!), to the park (shes a pretty stable climber and will go down any big slide and loves the sand), she played in the sprinkler this weekend (I haven't taken her in the pool yet) and likes the trampoline. I think I will sign her up for a kid's music class soon. I hope the weather cools off....the summer clothes I got her are mostly too small and there are only fall clothes out now! The sale racks seem to be picked over pretty darn good.

Picture post

More pictures from trip 1

Since I haven't been very successful at getting pictures lately (she looks away every time I put a camera up to my face I swear, little stinker!!) here are some more pictures of our first meeting, the second visit precisely. It still just kills me that we missed out on so much of her life after that.

Vaccinations

OK, the pediatrician was pretty much useless and I'm so glad I saw the IA doctor. They basically just went straight off of what the IA doctor recommended as far as tests (they're ordering half of the tests now as they said it would be too much blood to draw to do them all), gave her a flu shot and tested for TB, and are getting me a referral to the pediatric opthamologist. As far as vaccinations, a do not have her record from Russia. It was in my hands at one point on trip 3 but from what I understand it was given to the US Embassy and put into that sealed envelope you hand them when you enter the US. I realize now I should have had a copy made somehow while I was in Russia, but I guess things were just too hectoc and I wasn't thinking clearly. I told the doctor to just do titers and she what she is immune to, but he said that will NOT tell them exactly which shots she has had (like how "many" measles shot for example) and he just wants to do them ALL again. I don't like that plan at all. So, did everyone else get a copy of their vaccination records and I just messed up already? I guess there is a way to try and get that copy back from USCIS....don't know how long that will take, but I'd rather spin my wheels doing that for a few months than ave them give her 2 yrs of shots all over again, which just doesn't sound healthy to me. Then, I guess I'll need to have them translated if I do actually get them back. Ugh, I made sure I got the vaccination records from the baby home, I just didn't make sure I actually ended up with a copy!!

Home 2 weeks

Guess I haven't managed to fatten Anna up in 3 weeks. Shes 30.5 inches and 21.5 lbs but her head circumference is actually on the charts.....barely. At the doctors appt she was still the same as at the embassy. Dr. Feldman was great and spent about 2 hrs with us. He was truly amazed at how well she is attaching and how she is not showing any behaviors of a child who has been institutionalized for her whole life. You have to fill out this big questionairre about her development and speech and he looks at it before he ever enters the room, along with her measurements. He said he expected to walk in and see a totally different type of child than the little girl in his office. He said I unscored her....bad mommy. Basically, he said she is showing some incredibly positive signs, but obviously she still has unknown risk-factors that we really can't tell right now and willl just have to wait and see. He wrote letters for us to help her get the free services offered thru our county for speech and ot therapy (that will hopefully help with her eating/swallowing). He sent us on our way with a letter to her pediatrician, lab slips and some stool specimen collection bottles.....fun!! We see the pediatrician tomorrow and I just have a feeling she is going to freak out about her size. I think I may also tackle getting her blood drawn...so not looking forward to that.

Sleeping is back on track and going really well. Its amazing how much easier everything is to deal with when you get a solid 8 hrs of sleep :o) Her eating is about the same. She wants to feed herself so it gets pretty messy since shes not eating finger foods, but baby cereal, mashed potatoes, yogurt, baby food. Since shes eating quite a bit of yogurt so I'm trying not to worry that she really won't drink milk...strawberry, chocolate, or plain. And surprisingly shes not a big fan of drinkable yogurt either. But, shes seems to be drinking enough juice now and will drink out of pretty much any sippy cup.

Lets see, shes added a few words and sings all the time. She terrorizes the cat and loves her stuffed animals. I need to take her with to baseball practice for Dylan which can be hard. She doesn't understand why she can't be on the field where all the fun seems to be.

I'm excited that I got her social card in the mail yesterday and have her officially on our medical insurance.

Home 1 week

Guess its time I checked in! Overall we are doing very well I think. She really seems to be attaching to me and is a mommy's girl. She'll give me hugs and just started giving kisses sometimes. She babbles and sings a lot, but the only words I can tell she is saying are Mama, dada, hi, and cacca (nice). She can follow commands like "give Dylan his shoes" and she'll walk straight to Dylan, she knows Madison and just adores her, you ask her where Daddy is and she'll pat his arm. She likes going in the car, but tires of her stroller quickly and does not do too well in a shopping cart so doing daily errands has been a chore and will take some getting used to by me. I'm also getting used having a 2 yr old that needs a nap in the middle of the day, while also trying to get things done.....just normal stuff like that.

Our easy sleeping patterns seems to be over already. She now cries when I try to lay her in her crib so I'm laying with her until she falls asleep for naps and bedtime. She pretty much is still sleeping thru the night so that is great. She does seem to get easliy aggitated and hyper. Not sure what is normal 2 yr old behavior and what part is her adjusting to her new life. She's definitely come out of her shell and is not the mellow quiet little girl we met in the baby home, which is a good thing, just takes some getting used to. She is still eating and drinking limited things and I can't really find a good snack to give her in between meals, other than puffs or yogurt melts which don't provide much in the way of calories. She'll eat baby cereal with fruit or yogurt for breakfast, sometimes I can add in some scrambled eggs, and pretty much just stage 2 baby food mixed with mashed potatoes for lunch and dinner, along with yogurt. Juice is the only thing she'll drink more than a few sips of.

We have an appt Tues with Dr. Feldman in Long Beach who specializes in internationally adopted children. It sounds like he will basically help give us a plan to take to our regular pediatrician to make sure she is tested for the right things. After that appt I will see her pediatrician, get blood drawn to see what vaccinations she has had (don't know what happened to her vaccination list we were given in Russia?? I gave it to our coordinator at one point for the US Embassy doctor and never saw it again) and get a referral to a pediatric opthamologist for her lazy eye (which already seems a lot better).

We're HOME!!!!

What an amazing feeling it was to touch down in LAX and know that Anna is home for good. All the effort, all the paperwork, all the money, all the time and stress and worry......I can finally say it has all been worth it and I just couldn't be happier. The flight was of course long and tedious and Anna slept for about a grand total of 90 minutes maybe, the last 20 minutes was when the pilot annouced we would be landing, but it didn't go horrible and she was a trooper. I wouldn't have thought you could play so long with 2 barf bags and a few misc items.....put in one bag, take out of the other, repeat repeat repeat.

Steve surprised us with a limo to take us home. Wow did it feel good to stretch out and Anna was just taking it all in. She was really loving Madison. Of course I couldn't get enough of Dylan either.....boy did I MISS him!!!

So far Anna seems to be loving her new house, new room, new toys, and of course her new family. I'm trying not to overwhelm her, but I'm not sure how exactly you do that with other kids and their busy schedules waiting for you when you get home.

For the moment, we will just settle in, rest, try to keep her to some routine, and just get caught up with all the stuff that piled up while I was away, although Steve did amazingly well with everything while we were gone. I know it was hard for him too. I'll post some more pictures again in the next few days of our little strawberry cutie pie when I can.