Mommy has been sick

I’m sure many of you are wondering why it has taken me so long to post an update and pictures.  The problem has been that I have been sick since arriving home. The day after we arrived home, I woke up with an earache and sore throat.  I didn’t think much about it and went to the grocery store and bought some over the counter medicine.  By 9 pm, I was having chills and could hardly swallow and made my first trip to the emergency room.  I was very concerned I had caught something that I could pass onto Allison and my parents.  They ran tests to determine if I had the flu virus A or B as well as strep throat.  All the tests came back negative and they said I had picked up a virus and sent me home with some pain medicine.  Over the next three days I continued to have a fever, chills and no energy.  Wednesday evening I started having problems breathing and went to the emergency room for the second time.

This time they ran more tests and determined I had fluid in and around my lungs.  Given I was having problems breathing and maintaining my oxygen level, they admitted me to the hospital.  The final diagnosis was Viral Atypical Pneumonia and I was released Friday night.

I am feeling much, but I still don’t have much energy and think it will take a few more days before I’m feeling good again.

I’m very thankful my parents were here and they were able to take care of Allison the first week we were home.  My friend Laura helped us on Saturday and my sister Canessa came and stayed with us from Saturday evening until Tuesday morning.  Grandma and Grandpa came back Tuesday afternoon and are going to stay until I am able to take care of Allison on my own. 

Allison is doing great

Allison is doing great and seems to be adjusting well.  She loves spending time with Grandma and Grandpa.  Grandma cuddles and plays with her and feeds her.  Grandpa sings her songs and makes noises that she mimics.  She is very curious and is constantly exploring everything around her.  She likes exploring and checking things out better than playing with her toys.    She likes the musical walker Grandma and Grandpa gave her.  She is able to push and walk behind it.  I don’t think it will be very long before she is walking.

My prediction that I would need to buy lots of Resolve and a carpet cleaner seems to be coming true!  While Allison is not spitting up as much, she still spits up quite a bit.  I’ve also determine my daughter will probably not be a little girl who stays clean and pristine.  Between eating and playing, she does not keep any outfit clean for very long.  

She is also making progress with her verbal development.  She has started saying “da-da”, which is the first verbal communication a baby makes. 

Allison will have her first checkup with a pediatrician this afternoon.  

That’s all for now.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

Arrived Home Safely

Allison and I arrived at Dulles around 4:30 p.m. and were welcomed home by Grandma and Grandpa Lockhart.   It felt great to finally be home with Allison.

The trip from Almaty to Dulles is very long and tiring, but Allison was a great little traveler.  We arrived at the Almaty airport at 1am and proceeded to stand in lines to check our baggage, clear immigration and board for the next 2.5 hours.  Securely snuggled in her Baby Bjorn carrier, Allison didn’t mind the lines and enjoyed watching all the people.  The worst part was boarding the plane.  There is no such thing as discrete, orderly lines in Kazakhstan unless imposed by the authorities.  When it comes to boarding a plane, everyone just converges and folks begin pushing, shoving and cutting in line. 

Including Allison, there were 5 adopted babies on our flight.  I’m sure our fellow passengers were happy that all the babies were fairly good the entire flight.  Allison fell asleep right before take-off and slept until we were about an hour from Frankfort.

We had about a 7 hour layover in Frankfurt.  We had breakfast with two of the other adopted families who were on our flight.  One family was a couple from Charlotte who had adopted an infant boy.  The other family was Pam Thomas and her son Max who was adopted from the same orphanage as Allison in Ust.  It was nice being able to chat and share experiences.  Sitting next to us in the restaurant were some folks, including a priest, from Texas who had been visiting Italy.  Before they left the restaurant, the priest gave Allison and the other two babies a blessing.  This was the first blessing Allison received during our trip.

Allison and I spent most of our Frankfort layover in a quiet area close to the gate for our flight.  There were not very many people in the area and I was able to spread out Allison’s quilt and let her play on the floor with her toys.  That is when we met Alex and her two daughters Jana who is 18 months old and Aliea who is 3 years old and their nanny.   Alex is a U.S. citizen who now lives in Cairo with her husband and children.  They were traveling to Michigan to visit family for the next two months.  Allison played with Jana and Aliea for a couple of hours.

Allison was a little fussy for the first 3 hours of our flight to Dulles, but then fell asleep and slept the rest of the trip.  She didn’t wake up until we had landed and I was putting her in her Baby Bjorn carrier.  Before leaving the plane, a very nice lady we had met at the boarding gate in Frankfurt stopped by and asked if she could give Allison a blessing.  This was Allison’s second blessing.

It took us about 45 minutes to clear customs and immigration.  We were so happy to see Grandma and Grandpa waiting to take us home! 

Allison had a good time getting to know Grandma and Grandpa that evening and was fascinated with their dog Candy as well as our own two cats.  She went to bed about 8 pm and slept until about 6 am and only woke up once.

We went to the U.S. Consular’s office today and obtained Allison’s visa to enter the U.S.  We will be leaving Almaty at 3:30 am and arriving at Dulles at 3:45 pm.   It has been a long journey, but we are almost home.  Allison is sleeping while I write this last posting from Almaty.   Our bags are packed and I only have to fix her bottles.  I have four bottles, but I don’t know if that will be enough until we get home.  If not, I’ll have to figure out how to wash one of her bottles.  Hopefully a restaurant in the Frankfort airport will help us out.

While we were at the U.S. Consular’s office, there were three other families there obtaining visas for the babies they  had adopted from Kazakhstan.  At least 3 of us will be on the flight from Almaty to Frankfurt!  It could be an interesting flight!

We had a lazy, but good day today.  I think if we stayed in Almaty a few more days, we would be able to establish a schedule.  Allison took a nap at 10am for 3 hours and another nap at 4:30 on for 1.5 hours.  It looks like bed time is about 9:30pm and she wakes up about 7am.  Who knows what’s going to happen during the 24 hours plus we will be traveling.  Hopefully it will not take us long to set a routine once we are home.

That’s it for now.  I’ll do another posting after we arrive home.  See everyone soon.

It has been 40 hours since I picked up Allison from the Baby House.  We have been using this time to get to know each other and restart the attaching process.  One of the things I’ve noticed is that she wants to be held and loved on more than she during the three weeks I was with her in September.  During my first trip, she was ok with some cuddling, but wanted to play with her toys more.  Since we have been in Almaty, she cries whenever I leave her sight while we are in our hotel room.  She also wants to be held and cuddled more than she wants to play with her toys.  I’m not sure if this is a sign that she is attaching to me or that she is a little traumatized from leaving behind everything and everyone she has ever known.

In one of the adoption books I read, there was an article about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and adopted children.   The theory behind the article is that a baby’s abandonment by their Mother, even at birth, is a traumatic experience because a baby is born knowing its Mother and expecting its mother to be there when it is born to take care of her.   Abandoned babies grieve the loss of their Mother especially when they are placed in an orphanage with multiple caregivers.  Depending upon the level of care they receive in the orphanage and to the extent their various needs are met, abandoned children can experience multiple traumatic experiences that actually cause their brains to release different chemicals because they are always in a fight or flight mode.  While being adopted and finding forever parents is a good thing, it can also be stressful and traumatic to the child being adopted.  Adopted children have to learn that parents are different from caregivers and learn to trust that their adopted parents will not abandon them.  

I gave Allison her first bath this morning.  I don’t think she knew quite what to make of it, but she didn’t cry.  She also went through three outfits today not counting the sleeper she slept in last night!  She is still spitting up a lot after she eats.  I don’t know if this is normal, but I’m going to mention it to her pediatrician.  Needless to say, Mommy had to change clothes a few times today as well.  I thought I may have bought too many clothes for her before I left, but if she is going to go through 3 to 4 outfits a day, I probably didn’t buy enough!  Between Allison and my cats, I will need to make sure I have lots of Resolve carpet cleaner on hand!  Maybe a carpet cleaner wouldn’t be a bad investment.

Another thing I will need to ask her doctor is whether she is eating enough.  She is only drinking three 6 oz bottles per day and eating 3 large jars of baby food or about 18 oz of food per day.  I don’t know if she can hold much more than one large jar of baby food at a time.  I’m beginning to realize there are lots of things about raising a child that I will need to learn. 

Allison slept through the night.  She went to bed at about 9:30 last night and slept until about 6:30am.  She did cry out a few times, but always went back to sleep within a minute or two.  While Allison slept through the night, Mommy didn’t.  I kept waking up every hour or so and checking on her.  Hopefully, Mommy can sleep through the night tonight as well as Allison.   She also took a two hour nap this afternoon, which meant Mommy took a nap too!

Good news!  It looks like we are coming home on Saturday instead of next Tuesday or Wednesday.  We have an appointment with the U.S. Consular’s office at 2:30 pm tomorrow.  If everything goes as planned and we can get seats on the flight leaving Almaty on Saturday at 3:30 am, we will arrive in Dulles at 2:30 pm the same day.  Keep your fingers crossed!

I’ve uploaded a few new pictures of Allison playing in our hotel room.  We hope to see everyone soon.

November 1^st will be a day I will always cherish and celebrate because today I took physical custody of Allison and officially became a Mom.  I picked Allison up at the Baby House today at 7am and we then proceeded to the airport to catch the 9:30 am flight to Almaty.  She seemed very happy to see me and didn’t cry once before we left.  To manage Allison, her diaper bag and my computer case, I carried her in a Baby Bjorn carrier.  She loved being in the Baby Bjorn carrier in which she can face forward and see everything that is going on around her.

Allison was a great traveler!  She wasn’t scared of riding in either the car going to the airport or the plane.   Since the plane ride was only 1.5 hours long, I did not get her a separate seat and she sat on my lap because the plane was full.  Thank goodness we had a window seat, which gave us a little more room!  She loved looking out the window of the plane and standing on my lap holding onto the seat in front of us.  I was afraid she might pull the hair of the man sitting in front of us, but fortunately her arms couldn’t reach that far!  After 15 minutes into the flight, she fell asleep and slept the rest of the way to Almaty.

Once again, I was impressed with the kindness of strangers.  In Ust, they do not have jetways and you have to climb portable stairs to reach the aircraft.  While I was gathering Allison and all our stuff, a very nice woman suddenly appeared and offered her assistance.  She wouldn’t let me carry anything, but Allison.  I don’t know if I would have been able to carry all my stuff and Allison without her assistance.  After we landed in Almaty, one of the airline stewards helped me gather my stuff and then proceeded to carry it all the way to the baggage claim area!  I was very grateful for the assistance and kindness of these two strangers.

Before leaving the U.S., I made my own hotel reservations because I could never find out whether Galina was making hotel reservations for me and I definitely did not want to stay in an apartment like the one I stayed in the evening before I left Almaty the last time.  It turns out that Galina did make hotel reservations for me at the Hotel Almaty and tried to convince me to cancel my reservations at the Intercontinental Hotel.  She had the driver stop at the Hotel Almaty where she showed me the room I could have.  While I could have saved a lot of money staying there, Allison and I would have been miserable.  The room was small with beat-up dirty looking parquet floors, a hard twin bed and a very outdated bathroom.  I know other people have stayed at the Hotel Almaty and liked it; therefore, I think they have some nice rooms, but I wouldn’t have been staying in one.   I am so glad I made my own reservations.  The Intercontinental Hotel is very nice and our room is fairly large with a king size bed that Allison likes to play on.   I also feel comfortable with letting Allison crawl and play on the floor.   They provided a crib for Allison and room service even brought boiling water for her bottle.  In addition, Allison  loves looking at herself in the full length mirror and giving kisses to the baby she sees!

We went to the SOS clinic in the afternoon where a doctor examined Allison and they drew blood for an HIV test.  The doctor said Allison appeared to be healthy although small.  She now weighs 6.7 kgs or about 15 pounds.  She is about 26 inches tall and her head circumference is a little over 43 cms.  She was very good while the doctor examined her, but she did not like getting her finger pricked and having blood drawn, which means she is just like every other baby! 

After her checkup we went to the Ram Store, which is similar to Target back home.  I was able to buy baby food, diapers and other things we will need while in Almaty.  Once again Allison was a trooper.  She loved being carried in the Baby Bjorn carrier and looking at all the stuff in the store as well as all the people. 

This is it for tonight.  Allison is asleep and I need to go to bed and get some rest as well.  I’m hoping she will sleep through the night.  Keep your fingers crossed!