Trip to Mobile

For Gene and Norma's (Greg's parents) 50th anniversary they took the family to Mobile and we had a really good time!

We appreciate so much their example of love and faithfulness!

Five months since coming home...

...and Joy is doing so good!  I am so impressed with how much she is understanding and communicating with us!  Joy said her first word, "mama" on August 15th!  So far that is her only audible word, but she is trying so hard to say something else.  She is starting to babble and move her mouth and tongue around experiencing with different sounds.  She is saying many words using signs.  She is so close to picking up "water" and "thank you" in signs.  She is pointing to communicate!  Up until now when we didn't go or do what she wanted she would arch her back and through her head back.  She has conked her head on the wall more than once!  Now she points and she gets a kick out of it when we are able to accomodate and she knows she just communicated with us! 

 Joy is walking!!  What a huge world has opened up to her now that she can go on her own!  Her personality seems to have changed just since she started walking.  She is much more content and happy and she wanders off to explore and play by herself now, giving mom a few minutes to do things here and there!  I was just noticing that she seems to find more pleasure in the little things now.  I often find her smiling and laughing at the little things.  When we first brought Joy home, she would laugh if we tickled her and then her facial expression would immediatly go back to serious.  Now, is something makes her laugh, she wants to do it again and again! 

Her constant drooling has slowed way down.  When we brought Joy home, she was drinking from a bottle with a hole cut into the nipple so that the formula and cereal could flow out without her sucking on it at all.  She never learned to suck, so we have been trying to teach her how to suck since her surgery.  For the first four months since coming home, Joy would soak through about five bibs and five shirts daily.  We also would always have a towel in hand drying drool off her chin and drying the floor and toys she was playing with.  Over the past four weeks, with the help of our speech therapist, Joy has become aware of the need to suck and swallow.  When she is drooling, we tell her to wipe her chin and she does!  We tell her to suck the spit back in and swallow and she wipes her chin!  She is now drinking from a bottle with no alterations to the nipple!!!  A miracle! 

This sweet baby is working so hard and learning so much.   



For a couple of months since Joy's surgery, she would cry and cry when Greg tried to put her to bed.  She is finally bonding with Greg and feeling more comfortable with her daddy putting her to bed!



Beautiful!

Brian and Noah have started school!

They were excited the first day!  Now the homework is overwelming and tiring!  We were all thankful for Labor Day break!

Brian and Noah are both playing football at school.  This is Noah at practice.

Brian and Joy taking turns rolling each other up in my excercise mat!  Fun!!  She adores her brothers and they adore her!  They can make her laugh like no one else!

Four months since coming home!

I can't believe it has been four months since we arrived home with our Joy!  Wow!  It is hard to believe that Joy has only been with us for four months now!  In some ways it seems like she's been with our family longer.  We seem to be reaching a point where we are getting past "survival mode" and we are adjusting to our new normal!  In the past couple of months we have seen great signs of Joy attaching and bonding to us and us to her.  She is eating much better and seems to be all around better feeling since her surgery. At our first visit at the UAB International Adoption Clinic, which was about a month after we came home from China, Joy was at a 6 month level in her thinking and communication skills and fine motor skills.  Last week we went for a checkup and found out that she is now at a 12-18 month level!  She seems to be learning and picking up new skills faster now also.  She now knows signs for --bottle, more, please, up, wash hands, yes, and cold.  We are just beginning to teach her the signs for --thank you, eat, and I'm sorry.  She has just begun to wave good bye and she is trying blow kisses.  She puts her hand up to her mouth, but hasn't begun actually throwing the kiss yet.
 Life here has been so frustrating for Joy because she has had a hard time communicating with us and us with her.  So, she has many, many tantrums and meltdowns.  For a couple of months we have been working on teaching her different emotions and how to handle them.  We use the song, "If you're happy and you know it" to teach her how your facial expression looks different and how you act different when your sad, mad and happy.  She just began participating when we sing the song by stomping her feet when we sing, "when you're mad and you know it, stomp your feet" and she claps when we sing, "when you're happy and you know it, clap your hands".  She is now pointing with one finger and it is so exciting when we ask her to point to the banana or the cat in the book and she does!!!  Finally, she is understanding what we are saying! 
Yesterday, when Joy woke up from nap, her hair was sticking straight out on one side.  Talk about a bad hair day!

So, we decided to play with her hair to see if it is long enough to put in some pigtails.

Last weekend, some very precious friends hosted a Welcome Home Joy shower and we had a great time as you can see in Joy's expression below!  Everything was beautiful and perfect!

The beautiful and yummy cake was made by Kristie, Cyan, Kai and Mya Carroll.



Picture painted for Joy by Cyan Carroll for the shower.



Pure Joy!

We put together a Welcome Home Joy video using our favorite photos of Joy from the first three months and below is a link to the Youtube video.  It is just under four minutes.  If you have the time, enjoy!  She is so special and a joy to us!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxAIa-9Eec4



Three weeks since surgery

Joy had her checkup with the palate surgeon this week.  Dr. Ray said her palate has healed good and he says that this surgery was definately a "win".  After the surgery we noticed open crevices in Joy's palate along the tooth line.  When she ate solid food, parts of the food would get pushed up into those crevices and get stuck.  But now those crevices have filled in; the tissue grew together in just three weeks.  Dr. Ray said now we will wait for her to start talking.  When she starts talking, we may find that some adjustments need to be made in the palate if her speech is abnormal in any way.  We also saw an audiologist and did another hearing test.  Her hearing is within normal range! :)  This is a huge praise!!  We were prepared for the possibility of her having some hearing loss since she has had fluid on her ears most of her two years.  The audi. said she is not sure the tubes are doing their job though.  There is still fluid on her ears.  We are giving another round of eardrops and will check up with the ENT in two months.



Daddy and Joy swingin' to pass the time waiting on doc.





Feeding baby bird.



 Joy LOVES puffs!  We hide them, but she found them!  This month, Joy has learned the sign for "more" and yesterday she started attempting the sign for "please".  We have taught her both signs using her love for food!  We have been working on both signs for a month.  We have also been working on the word "up" for a month and she hasn't said "up" yet, but I think she is trying.  When she wants me to pick her up, I usually ask her several times to say "up" and she usually just moans with her mouth closed.  I probably say "up" a hundred times a day.  Yesterday when Joy wanted me to pick her up, she opened her mouth and uttered a very frustrated, "uuuuhhhhhh!!!!"  I was so excited to hear that and see her mouth opened in the correct way.  


Joy is captivated by the cover of Dr. Suess' book, There's A Wocket in my Pocket!  I can't figure out what it is, but she just stares at it!  Interesting!

I hope it will be one of her favorites.  It is one of my favorite children's books.

Also, in the last couple of weeks, we took Joy for her first haircut!  Well, it wasn't much of a cut, more of a trim.  Myra trimmed the few long strands that were in Joy's eyes, over her ears and in the back. 

Plan A: Joy sit on a booster seat for the trim.

What a big girl!

Just as Myra got the scissors in place for the first cut, Joy threw her head back in complaint.  Thankfully, no one was harmed!

Plan B: Joy sit on Mama's lap for the trim.

Still unhappy, but manageable!

Yeah!!!  All done!

And Joy's hair looks great!

Wow!  It takes a lot of practice to be able to work with a moving target, and do this good of a job, AND not hurt the sqirming child with the scissors in the process!





Day 5 of recovery

The following pictures are of Joy sleeping that last morning in the hospital.  She adjusted to the arm bands very quickly.  She has learned early in life to adjust and adapt!

Things have been tough, as expected, since we've arrived home.  Sunday Joy wouldn't eat or drink anything and she was so lifeless.  I was preparing myself to take her back to the hospital to get some fluids in her.  I think the poor girl has lost all the weight she has gained since coming home.  But today has been so much better!!  She has drank a couple of bottles and eaten watermelon and banana!  She is getting her little personality back and it is so good to see!  It is such a relief to see even her fussiness rather than the lifeless and lethargic child she was yesterday!  So far she has only fussed once about putting on the dreaded arm bands!  I am amazed that when we try to put them back on she holds out her arm without a fight like she is putting on beautiful and priceless bracelets!  She is a trooper and has adapted very well!

Okay, because I know you are all praying, I'm gonna lay out all her business.  She hasn't had a bowel movement since surgery, so we are praying for a bowel movement!! :)

We also found out from the genetics team that Joy has a missing segment of her X chromosome, called Opitz GBBB syndrome, which caused her cleft palate/lip, and wide set eyes, flat nasal bridge, etc.  It can cause heart problems of which it didn't in Joy, Praise God.  It can also cause developmental delays.  We will not know exactly what type of developmental delays.  So, we will work with Joy as much as she needs and be ever patient with her and we are confident that the sky is the limit for her.  She may have trouble in some areas, but she will soar in others!  She is so strong and so smart!

Thank you, as always, for your much needed prayers!

We are headed home!!!

After three nights at the hospital, we are headed home!  So excited.  Joy is doing so good.  She slept through the night last night and is still snoozing at 7:45!  The nurses didn't have her hooked up to any machines and what a big help that was for us all to sleep without the constant beeping!  Her last dose of pain meds was at 8:00PM.  She ate a banana yesterday!!  She doesn't want to drink much, but the Dr. said that is completely normal and that right now she will be getting enough liquid from the soft foods she can eat.  We will still try to offer water/juice and bottle often.
Thank you all so much for your prayers!  Greg and I feel like we have been carried the past few days.  Please continue to pray for us the next two weeks as Joy continues to recover and will have some tough and painful days.  We appreciate your prayers so much!

Day two of recovery coming to an end

We were able to come back in to the SCU to be with Joy at 8:30 this morning.  When we walked in, she was sleeping.  We captured a quit photo (below) before scooping her up and holding her.

Joy has slept much of the day.  But we have enjoyed interacting a little the past couple of hours while she has been awake.  She is acting somewhat more like herself, as much as possible after major surgery and while being on a regular Morphine dose and being hooked up to a machine.  Poor girl has wires hanging off each limb!  (See pic below)

We are still in SCU, but we do have a room being made ready for us.  YEAH!!!  An answer to prayer.  I was getting so worried about leaving Joy for another night in the hospital.

This is our spot in the Special Care Unit.

Drinking a bottle of water/juice.  Yeah!!!