Coming Home

We ended up being in CA for 5 weeks. It was a VERY long 5 weeks! The hospital got us plane tickets so we could take Little A home, and then come back for Baby L and fly her home. That was another great blessing!

Little A loved getting lunch at the airport. Going out to eat is one of her favorite things to do. She also loved sitting on the window ledge, watching the planes.

The last time she was on an airplane she was just barely a year old. It didn't go very well. I was a little nervous. I explained to her what would happen and that we would be so high in the sky. That got her really excited because she LOVES to go "high in the sky" on the swings.

I made sure to get a window seat for her so she could have a good view.

The first plane went smoothly. She LOVED it! She looked out the window a lot, we read stories and sang songs.  We were waiting for our next flight when she suddenly threw up! She didn't seem like she was feeling sick, we had literally just been running around. It wasn't very much either. Just enough to get on her shirt and make it stinky. She was very surprised when it happened, lol!

When we got on our next flight I showed her how to use the puke bag just in case. She got a big kick out of that and took some time to practice too, lol!

As soon as the plane was in the air she lay her head down on my lap and went to sleep. She slept for quite a while. When she woke up we did stickers and colors for a while. The man sitting next to us commented on how well behaved she is. That made me feel really good! :)

Allan's mom picked us up at the airport. A nice man loaded our huge suitcase into the car because I couldn't quite get it myself. (An important lesson I learned from this is that we desperately need new luggage!) My sister K5 was headed to our town that day randomly, so she met us at Allan's parents home and drove us home that day. It was such a relief to be home!

We are so blessed to have the friends, neighbors, and community that we do! While we were gone they noticed our lawn was dying and started watering it for us, watered our garden and the trees we'd just planted, picked up our mail, mailed some things to us that we'd forgotten, forwarded a package that we needed, and stocked our fridge with food! We seriously live in the best place! Since we've been home we have received so many gifts and money for Baby L, and everyone remembered Little A too!

It was especially nice for Little A and I to get home and be able to snuggle up for a movie and Oreos! Seriously, I cried tears of joy, lol!

Little A was thrilled to have some one on one time with me. The first thing she said when we got to our house was "Mama! Toys! My Toys!" and then proceeded to run around the house squealing and hugging her toys!

While I was on the phone one day she was playing with her blocks, and she found all the letters in her name, a D for Dad, an M, for Mama, a B for Baby, and an E for the Baby's name. She's a smarty! She was very proud of herself too!

We made it home just in time to celebrate Independence Day. We went to the parade with some of our awesome friends. Then little A was very patient while I bought boxes and boxes of books at the book sale. Some of our awesome friends brought the books home for us since we'd brought the stroller and not the car.

I brought ear muffs for little A so she wouldn't be so terrified of all the loud noises this year, and then I prayed really hard that she would wear them! With some convincing I was able to get her to wear them and with that she LOVED the parade! She loved getting candy and waving to the people on the floats. She also loved sitting in her cute camp chair!

After that we went and swang on the swings while she ate her lunch. We stopped at our friends craft booth on the way home and bought an adorable crocheted fish pond and some cute crocheted sandals for Baby L. 

Then we headed out to the lake to play with our family. A's cousins were in town and it was a blast to play with them! They loved splashing in the water, making sand castles (and smashing them), and riding on the paddle boards.

After we headed to Nana and Pops house for a BBQ. Little A and cousin P love to play with Nana's beads. Cousin B was very obliging and wore some beads for his little cousins! He's such a good kid! He's the oldest by almost 5 years and is always very patient and good to play with his younger cousins.

We also got to go see the Wizard of Oz while we were home. It turned out SO good! Allan sent me a dozen roses! He's such a sweet husband!

The director did a great job! The special effects were fantastic, the actors were fabulous, and the choreography turned out really good! Everyone did such a great job pulling it together while I was gone! The only bad part were the scene changes, they took FOREVER! It's a really long musical anyway and then adding in some extra long scene changes I seriously kept thinking "when is it going to end?!" But, the good far outweighed the bad! Little A loved it except for the wizard and the witch scenes. Thankfully my family was there with us and K6 took Little A outside for me with cousin P during the scary parts. The next day I asked Little A what her favorite part was, and she said it was the Lion. He was fantastic!

Meanwhile back in CA Baby L got her feeding tube out! Yay! 

She also passed her car seat test and was released from the hospital!

Our cousins put the word out that Baby L had been discharged, and their friends let us borrow a Moses basket for her to sleep in.

Daddy didn't let her rest long before he started tummy time with her. She wasn't a fan.

He got her all dressed up for Independence Day.

3 or 4 days after Baby L was discharged our cousins had to leave for a week, so Allan and L were there by themselves. Our cousins left us a key and their car so we could have a place to stay and get what we needed while they were gone.

To cross state lines with a child in adoption you have to go through ICPC (Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children). Basically, it helps to ensure that there is no child trafficking/kidnapping going on. Usually they don't let you start this paperwork until the child is discharged from the hospital. It takes two weeks on average, but can take a lot longer. Often if there are special needs involved they will allow the paperwork to be started before the child is discharged to ensure the child can get their medical needs met, and that they aren't sitting in a hotel for weeks or months on end.

Our paperwork started good. They said we could start before she was discharged so we were hopeful that we would be able to go home soon after. However, our agency discovered that CA hadn't been following the ICPC laws correctly. When this came to light CA started scrambling to know what to do. After a few days they gave our ICPC packet to someone in their office to handle. This person had never done one before and didn't know how to handle it so she set it on her desk. For a week. Without asking for help or telling her boss that she didn't know what to do with it!!!!!!

After the week (which did include Independence day so we can cut a little slack there, but still) our agency called them. They refused to give them the contact information of who had it or the persons boss. After making phone calls all day they finally got the right information and tracked down our packet, which is when they learned that it had just sat on the desk all week! After a lot more phone calls between this person and her boss and our agency, our agency told them they had until a certain time the next day to get the packet to them or they would be getting the federal government involved by reporting them for endangering a child.

The packet continued to sit, so our agency reported them for endangering a child! Sheesh.  The federal government got involved, we were pretty nervous about that, but it actually went really smoothly. They told CA to have an agency handle the packet this time until they could straighten their laws out. However, it is against federal law to do this so then our agency had to hunt down an agency in CA that was willing to do it. After a couple of days they finally found one that agreed to do it as long as they had a written statement from the federal government that it was okay.

That agency took a day to get the packet done and then submitted it to OH where our agency is. Our agency said over and over again that OH always submits in less than a day. Unfortunately the person who handles these packets was out of town! Seriously the worst luck! Two days later they got the packet submitted to ID. Our agency had contacted the ICPC people in ID to explain the situation and ask them to keep an eye out for our packet. I also called our lawyer and had him do the same thing. ID got the packet submitted in less than a day!

It took so long though that Allan had to go back to work, and I had to fly back to CA and leave Little A with Grandma. Little A was sure happy to see her Daddy though.

I'd been back in CA for three days. That Saturday I took our cousins car to the grocery store with Baby L to get some food and more formula. After I finished my shopping I got back to the car and it wouldn't start! I wandered around the parking lot for a while carrying Baby L asking everyone I could find if they had any jumper cables. The first nice man I asked didn't have any, but he stuck around until I found someone who did. The man who did lectured me on keeping my battery clean, lol! I'm just really grateful for all the nice people that I met that day. Everyone was very kind, and very concerned.

Our agency had called me Monday morning to tell me that they didn't think it would happen that day because our packet had just barely been sent to ID. I was SO bummed! I started some laundry and cleaned up a little. I was just about to call Baby L's birth family to see if they wanted to meet up when our agency called again and said we were clear to go! Such a blessing!

I began throwing everything into the suitcases and looking for flights. There weren't any non-stop flights available, so I had to do a layover which would get us there with just enough time to get home to feed Baby L. Our cousins' awesome friend drove us to the airport. She had about 2 hours notice and her husband had to come home from work so he could watch their son while she took us. The Lord gave us so many great blessings, and put so many very generous people in our path!

Baby L did great on the airplane. She just slept the whole time. The doctors were very insistent that she be in her car seat for the plane ride, and since they bought the plane tickets I obliged.

Our planes were both very late, which got us home with no time to get home before we had to feed her. Thankfully she slept a little longer than usual, and then I just gave her the pacifier for the drive. She's a patient girl. My father-in-law picked us up and then went to the store (after midnight) to get more formula so we'd have some for the night feedings. I had wanted to get more before the plane ride, but I couldn't fit it in our luggage.

Grandma and Grandpa were thrilled to finally meet Baby L!

Little A was thrilled to see me and Baby L the next morning! About noon we were finally packed up and headed home. We got home just in time to greet Daddy when he came home from work! We were all extremely relieved to be together again in our own home!

Meet Baby L!

We have been blessed to adopt this cute little angel. She is such a sweetie! We are so in love with her!

We found out about her around the beginning of May. We felt good about her so we submitted our application for her birth family to look at. A couple of weeks went by and then we got a call that we had been selected! We were absolutely thrilled!

When we saw her situation her due date was July 5th, the day after Wizard of Oz was finished. I thought that even if she came a couple of weeks early it wouldn't be a big deal because we'd be in tech week, finished with the choreography. Well, after we were chosen for her we found out she could come any day!

Allan and I rushed about for the next two weeks trying to get all of our commitments wrapped up. Me with the play choreography, and Allan with Scout camp and work.

We wanted to tell as few people as possible so that if the adoption fell through we wouldn't have to tell very many people. So we just told most people that we had a family emergency and had to get things wrapped up. Everyone was so good, worked so hard, and made so many sacrifices to make it possible for us to leave when we needed to! We live in a great community!

Two days after I finished the choreography we got the call that Baby L was coming. We packed everything up and were ready to head out the door first thing in the morning when we got another call that it was a false alarm, ha! The next day we got a call saying that Baby L was born earlier that morning!

She was born June 7th, 5lbs 8 oz, 18 1/2 inches long! A day after Allan's birthday! Happy Birthday Daddy!

Baby L was born in CA, so we headed out to get her. Little A was quite the champ on our long car ride! She really did great! She was so excited that we were going to get a baby sister!

She was also very excited that she got to sleep in this big bed all by herself!

We got to the hospital the night after L was born. We went straight to the hospital to meet her and then headed to Allan's cousins home for dinner. Allan's cousin is attending the university that the hospital is affiliated with. We are so grateful for them! The Ronald McDonald house was under construction so we couldn't stay there, and all of the hotels with in an hour were full because there were several tournaments and other things going on in the area. His cousins let us stay in their home, in student housing, even though they'd just had a baby of their own!

Little A loved playing with their kids. We spent a lot of time on the swings on the playground right outside their door. They watched Little A for us a couple of times so we could get some of the paperwork done, and they made us dinner several times.

They even took care of Father's day for me, ha! It was such a huge blessing to be with them in so many ways!

Baby L was about a month early, but doing really well. She had an intestinal blockage that was found in utero, so they had to feed her intravenously until after her surgery. She had her surgery when she was 3 days old. It went really well. They had to bypass her stomach for a while and feed her through a feeding tube. She's a fighter though, and she worked really hard to be ready to eat from a bottle. She practiced sucking by using a pacifier and with a little help learned to poop on her own.

Taking out the pump.

L also has a small heart defect that we are hopeful will heal on it's own, enlarged ventricles in her brain (which seem to be resolving on their own), a problem with her blood called TMD (it looks similar to leukemia, it usually resolves on it's own but 1% of cases do become leukemia), and Down Syndrome.

Since her surgery she has continued to get stronger and heal very quickly. She spent 2 1/2 weeks in the NICU and then was transferred to PICN for a week.

Transferring to the PICN

During that time she healed from her surgery, learned to suck and swallow from a bottle, and the doctors were able to take out her feeding tube! She also had three blood transfusions and received platelets to help her blood out a bit.

Allan and I split up our time between the girls, taking turns sitting in the NICU and PICN with Baby L, and playing with Little A. We made sure to always eat our meals together. Little A found a lot of fun things to do at the hospital. Riding in the little cars,

Rocking in the rocking chair,

Stickers, stories, and coloring in the library,

Smelling (and picking) the flowers in the garden,

Painting at the preschool,

but her favorite thing to do was run around the circle outside the NICU. The hospital waiting areas and hallways were set up in a large circle, the middle was windows to the garden. She loved to run around and around that, giggling the whole time.

One day a nice receptionist gave Little A a balloon to play with. She loved it so much she literally squeezed the life out of it! HA! That didn't bother her though, she continued to play with that deflated balloon until I threw it away right before we left!

Little A also loved going to the cafeteria to eat. It was a highlight of the day for her. She was very quickly known as the vegetable girl because she almost always chose the salad bar over pizza or chicken nuggets! The cafeteria people were floored! In this picture She had chosen the salad bar and a fruit and yogurt parfait. She ate all of the fruit out of the parfait and then proceeded to dip her vegetables in the yogurt! Lol! She's too funny when she eats!

We also went out for ice cream one night to celebrate having a sister! The place we went to did create your own ice cream sandwiches. It was super fun and super yummy! Little A was ecstatic about her cookies. 

She thought the ice cream was okay too. Then she saw a family that brought their dog with them and she went crazy over that dog, ha! She wouldn't pet it but she ran over to it giggling and squealing in excitement. The dog wasn't sure what to think about her, but it was a very sweet dog.

Funny story about little A. Allan was lying next to her one night helping her to fall asleep when she started pushing him off of the bed. He sat up and she promptly put her stuffed kitty in his spot! He asked where he was supposed to sleep and she pointed to the floor, ha! He laughed pretty hard and obliged her! 

Little A went on an elevator for the first time. When we got off she collapsed to the floor in tears! After that every time we went by the elevator she would cry and yell "No"! I think it may have thrown her equilibrium off. She's got pretty sensitive ears. She loved the stairs though.

We also spent one day at the Ronald McDonald house. I'm really grateful that we couldn't stay there because I'm not sure what we would have done with out the park at Allan's cousins house. The Ronald McDonald house didn't have any swings, and Little A was terrified of their slides. They had a couple playhouses, but one was too big for her, and that was about it. They have a toddler play room but it was only open at night when she was sleeping. The family room that had toys in it was right next to another family room where people were sleeping so I had to try to keep her quiet, which didn't work well at all. She did enjoy the sticker the receptionist gave her, and trying the helmet on to a bike that was lying around. 

We were playing house in one of the playhouses, and she told me she needed to go potty. I asked if she needed to go real potty or pretend potty. She said pretend and then went to the corner where we were pretending the bathroom was and started to pull her pants down! I stopped her and explained that if we're going pretend potty we don't pull our pants down. She said okay and then peed her pants! We have some work to do learning the difference between reality and pretend! Also, she peed on the astro-turf instead of the dirt! Ug! And I'd forgotten to pack extra clothes that day so all I had was a pull up!

So, the Ronald McDonald house was a fail for us. I do have to say though that it was really a beautiful place, and if it had not been under construction (they had built a new building and were remodeling the old one along with other activities for the kids) it probably would have been a great place for us.

Little A did really well, but it was a tough time for her too. She ended up in bed with us every night, and she had a major (and I mean MAJOR) potty training regression. She is terrified of automatic toilets, and all of the toilets were automatic. At first she did really good about going pee in the potty as long as we were at our cousins house, but eventually she just stopped altogether. We had a few really nasty poop incidents as well.

Our 4th week in I ended up taking little A home so she could have some normalcy. While we were home we went to see the Wizard of OZ, which turned out really great! More on that later.

Baby L had chronic jaundice. It wasn't really bad, but just lasted and lasted, so she had to be under the lights for a few days. It looked like she was in a space capsule, ha! She hated it. Especially the glasses.

An Occupational Therapist came to give Baby L her first bottle. She had a pretty good suck but struggled to swallow without choking. They decided to continue to use the feeding tube for a while and let her keep sucking on a pacifier. When she got to have the bottle again she really went after it! It took her a while to gain the muscle strength to eat a whole feeding but she got there. We were able to leave the hospital without the feeding tube, which was a huge blessing!!!

We did receive training on how to insert the feeding tube, and we fed her through the tube for all of her feedings, which was really easy. Quite honestly it was easier than bottle feeding and took less time too. But, we're relieved that she could learn to bottle feed!

In the NICU all of the babies would just lie there, quietly for the most part. Baby L was the one wiggling out of her blankets kicking her legs and looking around. She was always very interested in what was going on. She loved to be read to, sung to, snuggled, and have rattles shook for her. She rarely cried.

We had really great nurses and doctors. There was one stressful incident involving IV's, forgotten transfusions, and they wanted to put a PIC line in her head, but otherwise it really was a great experience and couldn't have gone smoother. Baby L was really well taken care of.

We got to visit with her birth family a few times before we left. It was always a joy to have them come and visit Baby L in the hospital. They are such kind people. The name they gave Baby L means peaceful, and it really fits her and them perfectly.