Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Today was Adoption Day! The day started out well, Chris and I woke up at 4:30AM both surprised and relieved that Shepherd had slept all night. Neither of us had slept the night through, we both woke up several times to check on Shepherd, but evidently, he didn't wake up to check on us ;) When he started fussing at 4:30, I put him on my chest and we all slept until 6:00. After we got up, we had our morning chat with our kids at home and it was so wonderful to hear their sweet voices. It makes me miss then so much! Thankfully, Aunt Angie and G.G. are keeping them highly entertained and no one seems to be missing mama and baba yet, which is a good thing! Next we headed to breakfast where Chris polished off close to a half dozen eggs and no less than 10 pieces of toast. It was impressive. We met our guide at 9:30 to head to the Civil Affairs and by this time, we had realized that our little guy was quite sick. The nanny had told us that he had been running a fever and that they had given him some medicine for fever and cough. So we gave him some Motrin and tried not to get too concerned until this morning, when his breathing became noticeably louder and more shallow. The poor dude is having to endure so many changes right now! Our guide made a 2:00 appointment for us with the clinic at the White Swan so we decided to continue on with our very important task of completing our paperwork at Civil Affairs. Everything went off easily, we were both thrilled when we were told the adoption was complete! The funniest part was the reaction we received from the notary and the registrar when we were asked how many children we had. Chris and I both had to laugh at their uncontained shock when we said 8 :) After finishing up at Civil Affairs we made a quick trip to the CarreFour (the local Wal-Mart type store) for some supplies. We hadn't realized that we were doing any shopping and we only had about $50 in cash, so we kept our purchases to a minimum. This was probably a good thing because it's easy to get carried away in a store like that. We left with the basics for Shepherd (formula, diapers, snacks) and a few fun things for the kids (yeah! Chinese toothbrushes!)

We are trying to decipher Shepherd's personality. He is so sweet and quiet, I think he's going to be more on the shy side like Jude. He has yet to verbalize in any way, other than crying, and I don't suspect he'll be chatting us up anytime soon.

We had been told that the babies from Shepherd's orphanage are rarely spoken to, and therefore are quite delayed verbally. But I'm fairly confident that once we get this little guy home, the constant chatter that is the norm at our house will help his language come along quickly! In the gross motor department he seems quite delayed also. My guess is that he just have very few opportunities to play. He is very happy to hold a toy that you give him, but if you take it away and put it on the floor right in front of him, he can't/won't pick it up. He just cries. Of course, this means that he must have said toy back in his hands, but it makes me sad to think that he had so few opportunities to play during his 19 months. He doesn't have a preference for any of the toys we brought, he's just happy with whatever you happen to give him. I'm guessing that's going to change soon!

His feet remind me so much of Jude's, which is very encouraging considering how beautiful Jude's feet are now! We are getting those familiar stares when we go out, just like we did when we were here adopting Jude, many local people are curious about Shepherd's feet. We were pleasantly surprised to hear from his nanny that he is able to walk, on his own! She said that he can only take a few steps, but we were thrilled to hear that he had already reached this milestone considering how much more difficult it is to walk on a foot that is clubbed. We have yet to see him even stand on his own, his legs resemble more of a wet noodle than anything else ;) But the good news is that we have all the time in the world to help Shepherd catch up, both emotionally and physically.

So far Shepherd has decided that I am his favorite. We had decided ahead of time that I would be his main caretaker so that he would make his initial bond with me and it seems to have worked out well. The only downside to this is that he simply refuses to be put down. AT ALL. And it's kinda tricky to use the restroom with a baby wrapped around your waist. But we're managing as I know he needs the reassurance that he won't be left again.