Being real

I'm going to be open and real for this post. Not that I'm not usually, but I am good at only writing/sharing/focusing on certain things. Typically, the good things. I don't often share the struggles/fears/concerns that cross my mind. Now, in general, I don't worry. And for the most part, I'm pretty good about putting my concerns at the feet of Jesus. After all, there is not much I can do about them until I turn them over to him. If he's going to resolve them, he has to have them. At any rate, I realized just moments ago that I needed to share this. All of this.

In the last few weeks, I've been experiencing a lot of anxiety. Anxiety surrounding Rachel. How is bringing a 13-yr old going to change our family? How is Megan going to respond? How is it going to change my marriage? How in the WORLD do you PARENT a teenager? And what about a teenager who's emotional age is probably more like 7 or 8? What is she going to be like? Is she going to click with us? Is she going to hate being in our family? How long will it take her to "be real"? And where is the remaining $8,000 going to come from? How am I going to travel to China by myself? What if I "need a break"? There will be only me. No walking away for a breather when I'm the only parent! Who will I talk to about my struggles or what to do? How will Megan handle me being gone for that long? How will Dad handle being full-time parent for that many days? My head spins with it all. Seriously. That's a lot of heavy stuff. I hadn't really shared any of it with anyone...I've just been letting swirl around in my head occasionally, afraid to say anything. I would be lying if I didn't say that I've even considered backing out of this...the demands on me feel like too much sometimes. But, I know this is God's plan, so I keep trudging forward. And trudging is EXACTLY what it feels like.

One day this week when I should have been doing something else more "productive" while Megan was napping, I was strolling around websites. This site is one I found more recently. In fact, I found it because the moderator contacted me to ask if we'd like to be profiled on the site. Seeing it as an opportunity to possibly sell more t-shirts and hairclips, I said YES! I haven't been on the site for a while, for many reasons. First, its not bookmarked on my laptop and most of my website strolling I do on the laptop while Megan is watching her few shows or she's playing with Dad. Second, I haven't been strolling websites much! It's just been so busy, I have not had the time to do it. At any rate, I read this article written by another adoptive mom. One who didn't plan on adopting at that time, but God had other plans. She spoke RIGHT TO ME. I swear. Was she reading my mind? Oh, no. It was a God thing. Hop over and read it, if you a minute or two. But if not, let me just say it opened my eyes to realize that adopting JiJie Rachel is not one bit about me. Not one bit about how I'm going to do it. Or if I can. Or where the money will come from. Its about the big things God is going to do. It's about the the position I get to play. Do I want to sit on the sidelines and watch? Or do I want to get in the game and play? Personally, I chose to play a position on the team and see what God's going to do.

I realize this is not going to be easy, but then there's little about my life that has been. It's about being willing to join the game. And I'm willing. I'm sure there will be days that the struggles will be significant and I will need to be reminded about the goodness that will come out of this. But I will play the game. I wouldn't miss it for the world! And I wouldn't miss giving Megan the opportunity to have a sister for whatever little (or big) inconveniences that lay ahead.

He's Home!

Just a quick post...

Hubby is home....moving slow, but home. He enjoyed a short nap in his own, comfortable bed. Megan's so glad to have him home!!! You should have seen her face when she woke up from her nap and Dad was home! It was precious.

More tomorrow (hopefully).

Hubby's Health

Thank goodness the good Doctor Cole is back today! Hubby remained on the clear liquid diet all weekend. The doctor on call was concerned his white blood cell count was rising which caused them to be concerned about infection. So this morning Hubby had 2 CT scans to see if they could see a pocket of infection in his abdomen. They came back fine, but did show some possible pneumonia in his lungs. He has to walk more (therefore causing him to take deeper breaths) and they changed his antibiotic this afternoon. He was also able to eat a sandwich (which he was pretty darn excited about!) after we gave him a shower. If his white blood cell counts go down tomorrow morning and continue going down on Wednesday, he will come home on Wednesday.

As far as Megan sleeping...I'm happy to report that she essentially slept all night. Literally. She was asleep from a little before 7pm until a little after 4am! She woke up for the first time at midnight, but fell back to sleep about 30 minutes after I gave her tynelol. She then fell back to sleep in my arms in the rocker and slept about an hour more. I felt so good today (even though I was awake at 4am)! I pray tonight is a repeat!

Update

Hubby is making progress. Our prayers are working! He's moving around more (and better) and completed "the list" yesterday, but unfortunately, they kept him on clear liquids yesterday anyways. So, that means today will be full liquids. Hopefully tomorrow will be solids then Tuesday home. That's a guess at this point, but I'm thinking that's likely what will happen. So, that means at least 2 more nights. ugh. Megan is missing Dad terribly, too.

I am absolutely exhausted at this point. Last night was okay. Megan woke up quite a bit, like probably every 90 minutes or so. I did sleep when she did, but I'm still really tired. This morning Megan is crabby--I think her teeth are bothering her. She's got swollen gums on both sides of the top as well as seems to be working on at least one tooth on the bottom. At midnight, I could hear her chewing on her paci, so I got up and gave her some tynelol which seemed to help her sleep better.

So, that's the update.

Quick Update

A new favorite game!

Dad is still in the hospital. We had hoped he would be coming home tomorrow, but there's a list of things he has to do before he can even eat solid foods. He hasn't completed the list yet (who knew farting was so important!!!). The doctor said this morning that he'll be in the hospital through Sunday at least. That is so crappy. When I got the news this morning, I tried not to have a meltdown...and at this point, I'm just trying to not think about it. He's tired of being in the hospital bed and really ready for a real shower! If you are the praying kind, we could use it. Pray that his body "wakes up" so he's able to eat solid food. He hasn't eaten since last Friday night. That's a long time. He's had clear liquids, but that's it. Pray that I have strength to be with Megan 24/7. There's many hard parts, but I think the hardest is not having an adult to talk to all day. One year olds have a pretty limited vocabulary and understanding and regular temper tantrums get tiresome! I am very grateful that Grandma V has come over the past few days to take care of Megan so I can run to the hospital for a few hours without her.

On a good news front...Megan slept from 11pm to 4am last night! I could not believe it! It's the first time she's slept 5 consecutive hours! Can you say progress?? Of course from 10-11pm she was pretty much up the entire hour. But, I was so grateful...I desperately needed that much sleep! Pray that tonight and subsequent nights will be as good!

I'll keep you posted...as time (and energy) permits!

Hair

Back, Photo 1

Back, Photo 2

Front...with a silly face

Megan's hair in the back is simply unbelievable. These curls show up AFTER it dries, even though I comb it so that it's straight. As you can see from the 2nd picture, she's got spots that look bald--it's almost as though she as a colic right there. She's going to have so much trouble with these curls when she's gets older (assuming they stay). The 3rd picture shows how one side sticks out while the other side sort of lays down more flat and stays behind her ear, but still wavy. I'm constantly trying to tuck it behind her ear because it just sticks right out! Poor thing.

Trauma

I have not gone into any discussion on why Megan could be having the bad nights that she does up to this point. I guess I have said that she is a "night processor", but otherwise, I have remained quiet. I feel like now is an excellent time to share what I believe is likely impacting Megan's sleep issues: trauma. No, she likely wasn't abused or neglected. She wasn't in a car accident. Here is an excellent website that discusses trauma in adopted children for those of you interested. Essentially, trauma is experiencing loss. And Megan has experienced loss: loss of her birth parents, loss of the familiar at the orphanage (to name just a few). While many people want to simply overlook the fact that she has experienced these losses, it doesn't change the fact that she has experienced these losses. (In fact, she's experienced more losses more than some people ever experience in their adult life and she experienced it all by 11 months.)

Earlier this week, Megan's night started out bad. What's bad? Well, we can tell what kind of night it's going to be simply by how the 10 o'clock hour goes. That night, she would doze off to sleep in my arms, then wake herself up, fuss and we'd start the process over again. It went on for an hour. Finally, at about 11:30pm, she fell asleep and I was pretty certain she was very asleep, but I wasn't sure what do with her. Did I put her in her crib and risk her waking up the minute her legs hit the sheet? Or just bring her to bed with me? As I was standing over her crib praying for an answer, she woke up, looked at me, didn't make a peep but fell back to sleep. I knew my answer and promptly brought her to bed with me. I had just gotten her situated (snuggling close to me) and she began what I can imagine were bad dreams. She whimpered and began gasping like a child who had been crying hard for a long time and they were trying to calm themselves down. It was absolutely heartbreaking. I was almost in tears. It went on for I think was about 15 minutes or so. Then she calmed right down. She did look at me a few times, (and I thought, oh crap, now she's awake again) but she's just roll over and go back to sleep. I'm confident she was processing something. I believe it was some of the trauma she's experienced because it had been a very quiet few days at our house--we'd stuck around the house. She slept with me for about 3 hours, then it took about an hour to get her back to sleep, but then she slept for a couple of hours.

So...if you are wondering...since I posted about our good nights of rest...we've not had good nights at all. The last several nights have not been good. Last night Dad was on "duty" and he said she was very restless, whimpered quite a bit and lost her paci several times. That means a short night for Dad, but he did wake me up a little before 4am to trade off. She never did go back to sleep. I worked on it for 45 minutes, and she slept for only 5 (yes, minutes). Nothing is more frustrating than that! UGH!

I pray she processes her losses soon so that we can have a "normal" sleep life at our house!!!

I Hate Enterprise

We drove on our last trip to South Dakota. Since the drive is so long, we've rented a car the last couple of times we've driven. My sister works for Enterprise, so naturally, we've selected them to rent a car from. Yes, we do get a family member discount, which plays into our decision to select them. However, DH works for a large, national corporation that has partners with various businesses to provide serious discounts to their employees. Consequently, we could utilize that benefit as well. So, to my vent.

Reading Wendy's experience with Advantage, inspired me to write about my most recent frustration (which is yet to be resolved) with Enterprise. Basically, their staff are complete jerks (okay at least in the state of Texas!) and their managers are even worse. This is the first time I've been accused of being unethical when I'm the customer and am telling the truth. My request is simply that they hold themselves to their signed contract/rental agreement. I don't think that's too much to ask. And I certainly don't think it's unethical to hold that expectation.

Anyways...I surely hope this is solved this week. I got the final document I requested from them today to prove what I've been saying "unethically" all along, so if it's not resolved by the Regional Manager, I'll let the credit card company deal with it. I'm truly done. I'm simply tired of dealing with it every few days over the past almost 3 weeks. ugh.

Completely Unreal

There have been so many moments since we received referral that I've thought "wow, this is real". (Like when we were going the paperwork with the agency.) But, then I get caught up in the normal routine and can (on some level) forget all about it. After all, we've been in the holding pattern for so long...it felt like we'd purchased a place there permanently (my sister agrees!). Of course, I'd walk past Megan EXTREMELY cluttered, messy, jam-packed room and be reminded, that we--in fact--have received referral! (Now, if only the translation of all our documents will arrive so we can know a little more about little Miss Megan MeiLin!)

This weekend, though...something about TAs beginning to arrive (and Feb coming to a close) has me overwhelmed that this is real. It's not been a wonderful dream. It's real. We know what Megan looks like...we are going to China in about a month! OH MY GOSH! My church family is having a baby shower this afternoon and I think it will be even more real both at the shower and afterwards. Boy, imagine how real it's going to be when we finally get our travel dates. Oh my! I swear, at that point, the stress level will be out the roof! Getting my students, work and home situated is already beginning to stress me out.

To reduce the stress (and shorten the "before we leave" to-do list), I did spend some time yesterday getting a list of easy-to-prepare meals on the fridge (meals that we have all the ingredients for already...or are already prepared in the freezer). If the list is prepared, it will require very little brain work as we are recovering from jet lag. I've reviewed my many "travel suggestions" I've accumulated over the past several years. I've reassessed my packing list...made changes. Oh, and I've determined this weekend what clothes I'm taking (we still need to work on DH--but I know what kinds of clothes, just need specifics). Having all these things done help reduce the stress...it's the "what are we going to forget" thing that's getting me.

SO MUCH TO DO!!! SO LITTLE TIME!!!! Just repeat: It will all get done....deep breath..it's going to be fine...it's all going to be fine.