Saturday, June 30, 2012

One Month Post Adoption

It has been a little over one month now since Laikyn Hope was placed in our arms. She is settling in so nicely (except for her waking during the night). We have now finished all of our dr. visits which took up a lot of the last two weeks, and all of her blood work was negative. She was retested for HIV, hepatitis, parasites, lead levels, etc. Our biggest scare was the nurse told us that her TB test was positive and sent us for a chest xray, which was negative. Then they called and said she had to do the 9 months of treatment anyway since it could have been positive due to either an exposure or the fact she was vaccinated. I was very torn about that since I knew she was tested before vaccination, so I hung up and did some research on the CDC website. Meanwhile the office called and asked me to bring her back and let the dr. look at the bump since it was the nurse who determined it was positive. After a whole day of dealing this, the dr. decided that the test was negative to begin with and the nurse had measured incorrectly. What a day! Just glad it is over.

This week we had our first post placement meeting with Jeannie from Mary Kendall. We will have these periodically for the next 5 years due to changes in Hague regulations. China wants to get reports for 5 years, to see that the adopted children do well over time. Everything went well with our meeting and we will see her again in November. She brought Laikyn a handmade quilt that was created by a ladies group from a methodist church. Beautiful!! Laikyn and Jillian played so sweetly together as we met with Jeannie.

Also this week, I had to leave Laikyn for one full day and two half days to do my school professional development and another school related meeting. My stress levels were through the roof by the end of the week, but she did great! Granny stayed with her and the other kids here at the house and she didnt miss a beat. Even though I wasn't ready, maybe it did help prepare me for the fall when school starts. Now with the appointments behind us, I am hoping for a little time with nothing to do but enjoy my girl. That's a difficult request in a family of 6 I know!!

Dedication day: June 18th





Today was a double celebration with Fathers Day and baby dedication. Laikyn Hope wore one of her Chinese dresses that we bought her in Guangzhou. I was thinking of the meaning of dedication and how we are pledging to teach her to know the Lord as we raise her. Truthfully,that is something we pledged before we met her, but I look forward to watching her grow up in a church that has loved and prayed for he right along with us. Her Granny and Grandad as well as aunts and uncles were able to be there. Afterwards we enjoyed a family dinner at The Patio and then visited for a while at our house.

Laikyns adoption video

My Animoto Video

The link above will take you to a video I created for Laikyn using pictures from our China trip. I hope when she watches this in a few years, she will know how much she was loved and cherished!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Pediatrician Visit

This second week home has felt like one very long dr visit with trying to catch up on all my appointments that I put off during the adoption and then getting Laikyns complete in time for our first post placement visit with our social worker. Dr. Martin was very surprised by her size and said she looked very healthy and solid. She was 32 pounds and 35 inches which was again more than she was two weeks ago in China at her medical exam. Someones scales are off, but after carrying her around, I would bet that today's was correct. She is 60th percentile in height and 88th in weight. Thankfully, her heart sounded good and she is on target for all of her motor skills. Language will of course lag behind, but she should eventually catch up. We were able to get her seizure meds dosed the same as in China and we discussed her seeing a pediatric neurologist from Louisville at a later date. Dr Martin said that the usual protocol is to stay on meds until remaining seizure free until age three and then see if we can reduce it down. She is required to redo all of the bloodwork and vaccines that she had in China so we started on that today. She cried as soon as she saw the needle tray. Poor thing has been through this too many times. A sucker made it all better though! Next week, we start the bloodwork and TB test.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

One week home: Changes

Laikyn has now been home for a week now and is settling in very well. When we first arrived home, she was scared to leave the living room. I think a
3000 sq ft home would be overwhelming after living in an orphanage and cramped hotel room. Now she is running room to room so fast that we have to watch her constantly. She was also very leery of new people at first and now she is much less hesitant and waves at most everyone. She is even letting some people pick her up. The first couple of days, were spent recovering from jet lag, unpacking and grocery shopping. We found that shopping with three is much more challenging, but I guess being so tired you can't see straight doesn't help. About the third day home, we went shoe shopping for her first pair of tennis shoes. She spotted some baby twinkle toes Sketchers and grabbed them. She cried hysterically when I took them off to try some others. They ended up being the best fit, so we let her have her way. I guess I should have listened to her this time. She was very funny trying to high step through the grass in them... I'm sure she has never experienced grass in the concrete jungle of China. We also made our first trip to the church. Daddy and Jilli took her to the nursery while I went to choir. She loved it. I think we will stay with her the first couple of Sundays and then I believe she will be fine. L also had her first Vastwood Park experience. She loved it until I was brave enough to take her and the dog together one night. She was happy until we got halfway around and then she screamed like I was torturing her. Way worse than our gotcha day. LOL!! The biggest change she has made is her reaction to Halli...She is starting to pet her and want to hold her leash when we walk. Tonight she learned to love frozen yogurt. We had to go shop for a new dishwasher today and made an Orange Leaf stop afterward. I didnt expect her to like it since she didn't in China, but she gobbled up Robs banana cheesecake. Another thing she is doing is beginning to accept laying in her crib and getting herself to sleep. She's only been doing it at nap time, but tonight she did it at bedtime. I love watching her grow and change each day! It's amazing that I already know her so well in just a few weeks.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Home sweet Home Sunday, June 3, 12

We awoke at 3 am and began to get ready to leave at 5. We were tired but the time change of 13 hours had our sleep messed up. We had a good flight and were met at the airport by Uncle Kevin, Aunt Jill, Aunt Gay, Uncle Steve, Vannah, Kyle and both brothers. We were so overjoyed to see them. Thankfully our bags made it the night before, so that was easy. Laikyn took everything in but is still leery of new people. We headed to Bowling Green to visit for a while before coming home. Laikyn really made up witH Kyle most of all. We decided they may be a lot alike!! Lol. On the way home, Laikyn protested the car seat as she had never been in one before, but gave it up quickly and fell asleep all the way home. On arrival, Granny, Grandad and cousin Paula and Roy were waiting Outside. She was a little scared of everyone, but especially Halli who went wild at the sight of us. That caused Laikyn sheer terror, so we had to lock her up for the night. Poor thing was so sad not to be with us. GRandad stayed a little while and she began to warm up a little to him, by running over his feet with her firetruck.
Kathy and Tim stopped by later in the evening. She and Aunt Gert had decorated our porch and mailbox for the homecoming. She did pretty good with them and was starting to get more comfortable in the house, although at first she was scared to even go room to room. She fell asleep at 7:30, so we unpacked a little bit and then went onto bed knowing it would be an early morning since we have to adjust to the time change. Welcome home my baby!!!

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Stranded in Jersey

We had a good van ride into Hong Kong and saw some wonderful views of the countryside and city. Arrived about 8:30.Rested well and then
had an amazingly good flight back to the USA. LAikyn was good and slept quite a bit, and I was able to sleep with her. When awake, she played with headphones , pretzel packages and ate a lot. We must have slept 4 or 5 of the 15 hours.

Our flight to Nashville connected in New Jersey and we had to take Laikyn through immigration ( with our most important brown envelope that we we constantly told not not to open)and then get our bags through customs. We told an attendant we were late for our flight, so they got us through customs quickly. It was all faster than we thought and we had about Twenty minutes to check in at our gate to get to Nashville. We went to the gate written on our boarding pass and found that the gate for our flight had been changed. We now had 15 minutes but it required a bus ride to another terminal. I asked the attendant to call the gate and let them know we were on the way. She replied, " no you'll just have to try to make it." When we got to the bus, the attendant there said they would call ahead. We arrived to find out the plane had just departed and the next available flight was not until 7:20 tomorrow morning. Now we are sitting here waiting for a standby for the 7:00 pm flight tonight. IT is full, but the agent said there is a chance there will be seats available. Praying there are!! Im thankful we made it this far, but very sad that my boys and Dad were already waiting near Nashville and will have to miss us if we have to stay here overnight. We were so close and now it seems so far. The adrenaline that was keeping us going is now draining away and fatigue is setting in...
Update : The flight had 3 open seats and we were told that we could have them and hold Laikyn as a lap child. Yeah, like that wouldn't happen anyway. As we gathered our things, two employees took the seat so now we have to stay her until the morning.

Leaving China: Friday, June 1, 12

It's hard to believe this journey is coming to an end. This morning we gathered in the hotel garden for group pictures. How strange that this group that has been together for three weeks for one of the biggest events in our lives, are now going our separate ways, back to normal life( as if life with a two year old will be normal). It's been a blessing to get to know each family and witness the miracle of adoption in each life. I look forward to hearing wonderful things about each child in the future. As for us, our agency has arranged a van for the three hour ride to Hong Kong this afternoon at 4:30. We stay overnight at an airport hotel and then fly out in the morning at 10:25 am to New Jersey with a connecting flight to Nashville. PRaying for a safe and peaceful flight. I know it will be
much harder with a two year old, but we are keeping the end in sight... our boys wonderful hugs and laughter and seeing Laikyn for the first time through their eyes.