We're Home

Sunday, October 5, 2008 What an amazing month since we arrived home on August 29th! For all of you who requested more photos and an "end" to the travel blog, here it is. Life with three children, two starting first grade, one new to everything, returning to life with a toddler, work obligations, etc. have made it hard to write or even take photos. But overall we have been very happy. Not that the month has not had its challenges because there have been plenty but in many ways the transition has been more smooth than rough and our joy of having all three of our children home is so great. There is a wonderful feeling when everyone is sleeping by around 8 or 8:30 pm when we realize that there are really three precious children in our home and Dan and I look at each other and wonder how this all happened! Now for an update on Eva. She is doing very well! She is such a little charmer, absolutely in love with her brothers, fascinated with the cat Lucy, and very easygoing and adaptable (may be orphanage life or may be personality -- hard to know yet). She is extremely communicative and seems to be picking up on our language very easily as well as being very imitative. As a result, she happily claps her hands when you say "clap hands" or when you start to sing "patty cake" -- she blows kisses and huge raspberries -- she plays peek a boo endlessly -- she knows how to climb in our lap to play a series of bouncy games, finger rhymes and other acrobatics -- she loves toys and has quickly advanced from banging cups together to doing endless attempts at emptying and filling -- including emptying her play pen in the very limited time she occupies it -- and throwing endless toys and socks and paper through the gates at the bottom of the stairs (an emptying and filling exercise of a sort) -- she is also walking very very well now and has even dropped her hands down to her side now that she feels comfortable with her balance -- she did have one unfortunate spill involving a cut on the head and an ER visit for skin glue but other than that she is quite masterly at walking (as well as climbing) and we have no doubt she will be running soon. She has also become much less averse to solid foods mostly after witnessing Colette eat lunch standing up in front of the stove with Eva balanced on one hip and she has now advanced from feeding mostly Colette and her toy duck to now starting to feed herself some too. She still largely resists being fed by us but she will gladly sit in the highchair now for a few minutes at least and play with food and eat some and let us offer her some. So she is a far cry from the little baby who almost jumped away in fear when she saw us eating in China. Her favorite items are Chinese noodles. Not kidding. She will nod her head vigorously up and down if she gets some noodles in her mouth in an excited yes. She is very so-so about baby food -- perhaps because she perceives that is not what we are eating. She does seem to like mashed sweet potato and also sampled a very healthy serving of spinach in olive oil the other night which I cannot argue with. So far we have not risked anything that might be an allergen so everything stays pretty safe -- rice, noodles, a few fruits, a little cottage cheese -- oh and one night she grabbed bacon and chewed on it for a while nodding her head yes -- she definitely likes more savory and less sweet foods. The one sweet and caloric thing she does enjoy though is her big bottles of Enfamil. After getting her off of rice cereal in her bottle and then off of the likely- melamine-tainted Sanlu formula she has been drinking for a full year before, she has continued to gain weight and looks like a much healthier version of the petite girl we met in China. So when we met her I think she weighed in the mid 14 pound range. By the time she got home we had her at 15 pounds a week after we arrived. And one month later she now weighs 17 pounds! Still not on the American charts for 14 months but we are pleased as is our doctor. We intend to keep her on bottles and formula for quite some time and let her take solids very slowly. I don't have any timetable in mind really ... On the tainted formula, yes, she was on Sanlu for almost 13 months. And Sanlu is at the center of the tainted milk in China. And as we come to know more it becomes clear that many children could be affected but not yet sickened. So the protocol is to have urine and blood workup of her kidneys and to perform a renal ultrasound. We have had urine done and that was all clear. She had blood drawn last week and we will get the results back from that soon and then I have a Rx for a renal ultrasound to be performed at Children's Hospital and we will likely be following up with a urologist there. I had a really nice long visit with our ped and Eva last week (second time he saw her) and he said it took him a little while to accept what had happened to these kids with the melamine, as the potential consequences of it could be so dire. But once he started doing research and talking to the pediatricians at the University of Minnesota's International Adoption Clinic it became clear that she should have the ultrasound as well to look for any melamine stones. Big question is what further monitoring all these children should have to check the health of their kidneys and bladders over time. There is not good data on long term risks from melamine ingestion. What more? Well, there is attachment. On the surface and certainly during the day, everything looks like it is going really well. Eva is very playful with us and happy, she responds to her name, she shows us things she finds on the ground, and she is even starting to show us some frustration or anger (though this is pretty limited). But there do remain a number of adoption/ post orphanage issues that continue to take (and will take) a lot of time and effort and we are consulting with some of the social workers with good experience with the post orphanage experience for toddler adoptees. For one, she shows a lot of indiscriminate affection for women who appear to be potential caregivers (not men which is likely good). Most people interpret it as she is just friendly, but there is a different quality to it than you would see with most 14 month olds raised with a family since birth. And it is a classic sign that attachment is not yet in place. She does some what is called "mommy shopping" where she will be very flirtatious and see if she can get the woman she is reaching to to pick her up. We have explained to all non-family that we are not letting her be held yet by anyone else. And we have seen that when we do allow this she will change her behavior to Colette almost immediately where she will refuse bottles and most of all refuse eye contact with Colette. But if you burrow back in and do more holding and give her more time in the carrier and carefully swing her back in to eye contact position within days she is back to beginning attachment again with Colette (or picking up where she was). But it has been challenging and we now understand better why every book on adoption of a baby from an orphanage after a year advises that the parents hold exclusively for the first 6-8 weeks at least. Of course, that can be very tiring and Colette has certainly felt ready for a spa day but we are committed to working through these issues as best we can as early as we can. We know a number of other families have worked through the same issues in the early months with their adoptees and we now have a better sense of the role of the indiscriminate affection -- Eva is just so resilient and she (and many of the other babies) learned early on the charming and adaptive behaviors to get attention from a variety of caregivers -- but working on knowing there is really one or two main touchstones for security and that we won't be going away is a different issue altogether. So challenging but the more time we spend with her the more we understand. The other thing I am puzzling over is how to get her to ask for help. Eva has wonderful persistence and will spend long periods working to get something she has dropped out of reach (with her feet, etc.) but never does it occur to her to express frustration or call you to assist. At first you think -- wow, what an admirable quality -- what perseverance -- and then you realize she is not factoring you in as someone who will come if called or come to help. So I have been trying to make an exaggerated show of coming to help at times -- not sure what else to do. There are other issues around attachment but things are going well and, as hard as a lot of the work can be, it is so 100% worth every minute. And, then there are our wonderful sons Louis and Nathaniel. Both of them are absolutely spectacular big brothers for Eva and so spectacular in their own rights as well. First grade seems to suit both of them very well and they are both busy reading, writing, doing math, science, Spanish, art, music, and more everyday. They are both important players on the Lowell Lions, their soccer team as well as valued players on the Lookouts for their "coach pitch" baseball team. They will both be swimming soon and Nathaniel is also dancing. And they are doing private chess lessons and attending Sunday school. Such wonderful sons and brothers -- we love them both more than anything. And, Daniel and I are hanging in there -- busy, very busy -- with the three of them and plenty of excitement from work as well. Colette is home on leave but really the excitement never ends. And most of all hoping that by the time we post next month Obama and Biden will be elected (!) and our long national nightmare will soon be over. We know we have a few Republican friends reading this blog - but hey, Obama is a pretty conservative guy and even you have to admit that no matter what we need competence and we need it soon! Even Eva will be canvassing for Obama this next month .... Much love to all and deep gratitude for everyone's love, support and understanding as we go through this exciting -- but also very challenging -- transition. Colette and Daniel

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