Life (so far) With Our Girl

Finally, both kids are down for naps at the same time ... I don't know how long this will last so I am jumping at the chance to update the blog! It is very hard to update this regularly when I am either exhausted or am holding baby girl in my arms.

We have had quite an adjustment these last three weeks (yes, we've only had Lia Kate for 3 weeks now!), but things seem to be going very well. I say this on the heels of a very rough night, though. Despite the bad night, today has been fabulous. And this is the first time, in fact, I've been able to get Lia Kate asleep at the same time Britton is napping. Things are looking up and up and we are making progress every day.

Our biggest struggle has been sleeping. Lia Kate is a good sleeper, once she gets there, that is. However, she really fights going to sleep. We knew that sleep problems were very common among former Chinese orphans, so we were at least prepared (kind of). It is understandable that she would feel most insecure at night as nighttime at the orphanage was probably very destabilizing with different caretakers coming and going. As long as she is in my arms, she feels comfortable falling asleep, but we have not been able to get her to sleep in her crib. It doesn't matter how asleep she is, she will wake up as soon as I lay her down in the crib. So, we have decided that, for now, it is best for her if she sleeps in our bed with us. We are her security, and at a time in her life when she is extremely insecure, it is the least we can do.

So in our bed she is ... and we are getting better and better at sleeping with her ... it has not been easy, but I have been sleeping better and better each night (Danny usually makes his way to the guest bed sometime in the middle of the night). Once Lia Kate is asleep, she will usually sleep 10 to 12 hours, so we are grateful for that. It has been a learning process for me to figure out how to get her and Britton down at the same time. Today has been our first successful day at getting simultaneous naptimes. Of course, as I sat down in the den to start this post, Lia Kate started coughing, which woke her up and then she started crying, and then her crying woke Britton up. So, now I am back in our bedroom, lying down with Lia Kate, who is asleep again. But, I can hear Britton talking to himself through the monitor. Ahh well ... this is our life!

We have gotten some excellent advice from the counselors at the International Adoption Clinic and they have given us advice on how to help Lia Kate feel secure enough to one day move into her own room. Hoping to have Lia Kate sleeping in her crib in her own room six months from now, but we'll see.

We had our first appointment at the International Adoption Clinic on Monday and it went well. We met with the counselors for about an hour and they told us it looked like the attachment process was going well. Lia Kate has definitely attached to me, and even though it is not a true attachment yet, she is learning that we are safe and that, most importantly, we aren't going anywhere. All her life, she has dealt with change and abandonment ... even if most of that "abandonment" was simply a staff of nannies that changed and/or was inconsistent. It will take a long, long time of "always being there" for Lia Kate for her to know we truly aren't going anywhere. This is another reason we believe that co-sleeping with her is important. It is not what we wanted to do, but something we realize is important to do now so that we don't deal with significant attachment issues down the road.

We also saw the pediatrician at the Int'l Adoption Clinic and she told us that Lia Kate looked good except for the fact that she was malnourished. I knew she was small but she looks healthy to me so I wasn't expecting to hear "malnourished." She is only 17 pounds, 4 oz. at 17 months and is no where near being on the U.S. growth charts! She falls in the 5th percentile for height and head circumference, so her weight definitely needs to catch up at least to there. She is the size of an average 9-month-old in the U.S. I am working on feeding her lots of high fat/good fat foods. Lia Kate would eat anything in China, but has already started to get a little picky here. I am feeding her often and doing three bottles of whole milk a day. Hoping we see some significant weight gain when we go back to the Int'l Adoption Clinic in a month. Here's a pic showing how tiny she is (the top she is wearing is a 6-12 month) ...


Lia Kate also had a lot of blood drawn so that they can run tests and determine what immunizations she has received and what she needs from this point further. She also had an abdominal ultrasound. All children coming from China have one to check for kidney damage from the melamine that was found in some Chinese formulas back in 2008. Lia Kate was just born when word of the melamine scandal hit the news, so chances were she was not affected, but the Adoption Clinic checked to make sure and was in the all clear.

They also set up two specialists for us to go see. One is for the cardiologist and we have that appointment tomorrow. She will have an Echo and and an EKG in the morning, so we will finally know what is going on with her heart. All we know at this point is that all the docs who have listened to her heart via stethoscope can hear the murmur, but it is hard to tell anything about it from listening. Hopefully tomorrow we will know what is going on and have a plan for here on out.

We also are being referred to a surgeon ... appointment in February ... for them to look/remove a skin growth on Lia Kate's neck. (Yes, we've known about it since we first got her file.) By all accounts it is just skin (examinations and ultrasound), but since it is on her neck, we have to have an MRI of it before they remove it. To have an MRI, she has to be cleared by cardiology so that they can sedate her for it. Yes, a lot of hoops to jump through for her to have a minor surgery, but after all this, she will have an outpatient surgery and that will be the end of it.

Anyway, I talked earlier about what a great day we had ... we got up this morning, got Britton to Mother's Day Out and met up with some friends of ours who leave soon for China to adopt their son! (This will be the third Chinese orphan brought home by people in our church in just the last few months.) After that, my friend Sarah Beth joined us for lunch. Lia Kate does so well when we're out and about ... to be honest, we were sitting in the same place for about 3 1/2 hours and she is so happy to just sit in my lap. Then, we went and picked Britton up and introduced Lia Kate to a lot of our friends up there. It was fun and a nice change of pace to us mostly staying at home all day.

I will write more after Lia Kate's cardiology appointment tomorrow. Hoping and praying for good news. As I close out this post, both children are sound asleep. It is definitely sleep, glorious sleep for this mama!