It has been really hard to find the time to write the last few weeks. I'm just trying to keep up with the kids and our life every day. I start back to school this week and it's only going to get infinitely more difficult. I seriously do NOT know how I'm going to manage, but I am trusting that God has this figured out just like everything else.
So how are we doing? Here's an update on all of us at the end of our amazing summer:
In the last 10 weeks, Solomon learned how to swim. When he came home he was terrified to not be touching the bottom of the lake or pool, he didn't trust a life jacket, he wouldn't even let one of us hold him in the water. This weekend, he was doing cannonballs off a diving board and swimming to the ladder to do it again. He also learned how to ride a bike, discovered the joys of video games, and has eaten more pizza than any child I've ever known. He's gained 4.5 pounds, now tipping the scales at a massive 49 lb! A recheck at the ophthalmologist showed that the pressures in his eyes are not coming down, in spite of a month's worth of eye drops. We're now trying new drops for another month, if that doesn't work, surgery to implant a drain and relieve the pressures. Not panicking, just taking it one step at a time. Solomon is the world's worst backseat driver. He watches everything I do behind the wheel, asking questions incessantly, telling me when to turn left (he loves that he knows where everything is now), verifying that my turn signal is on, reminding me that the red lights on the back of the car ahead of me means it's braking, and often saying, "Mom, sign is speed 45, you is speed 48, you is ticket". He got light up Spiderman shoes for school and literally had tears of joy in his eyes.
Tinsaye also learned how to swim (much faster than Solomon), but her real challenge was learning to ride a bike. She spent many evenings falling off and laying in the street crying while her heartless parents ignored her drama before she just forced herself to keep practicing and learn it. Now she's a pro! She is still a major league drama queen, but we have reduced the number of tear soaked kleenex dramatically. Her ophthalmology recheck showed that her eye pressures are down to healthy levels, no doubt because she spends so much time crying! She has gained 6 pounds, primarily due to her obsession with ice cream, cookies, cake, candy, and those gigantic muffins from Costco. There is rarely a day without some tears shed due to being denied her desire for limitless amounts of sugary garbage. Besides all things Hostess, she mostly still eats just bananas, avocados, bread, peanut butter, eggs, and yogurt. She loves American TV and music, singing along with my iPod and watching as much mindless Nickelodeon drivel as I let her. Tinsaye is the emotional barometer in our family. If any of us is even a little bit sad, she is there immediately seeking to help, comfort, or solve the problem. Every night she wraps her arms around me and whispers in my ear, "I love you so much, Mommy."
Thomas and Meredith pretty much continue on as always. Meredith is patient, dreamy, funny. Thomas is impatient, bossy, funny. They've had some sad times and have struggled with adjusting, but they seem to be leveling out. They really seem happiest when all six of us are doing something together: riding bikes, going to get ice cream, traveling. They both say that our family is more fun now, which makes me really happy.
I am tired. I have spent countless hours dealing with medical issues (making appointments, going to appointments, getting prescriptions, getting shots), making kids read, write, turn off the TV, stop fighting, and eat something other than hot dogs for lunch. I have taken the kids to the library, the pool, the hairdresser, their friends houses, the lake, the ice cream shop, the farmers market, church, school, and, of course, the doctors office. I have cleaned up kool-aid faces, bloody knees, popsicles off the porch, muffin crumbs off the chairs, and pee off the bathroom floor. I have made enough peanut butter sandwiches to feed every child in Michigan. My roots are gray, I've gained five pounds, my normally beautiful gardens are an atrocity of weeds. I am really tired. But I think I've gotten our family off to a really good start.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Story of our Trip Part 4- Thursday
Thursday, June 17, 2010-
Another beautiful morning in Ethiopia. We were all excited and nervous this morning because we were going to visit Solomon and Tinsaye's birth mom. We ate breakfast with the other families at the guest house and got dressed in nicer clothes. The other moms at the guest house with us could really understand our nervousness because some of them had met birth families too and had varying experiences. One family asked the American family to buy them a car! It's a really complicated experience because most orphaned children in Ethiopia have living family members, they are just unable to care for them due to poverty and/or poor health. Ethiopian children are treasured by their families and it is a difficult decision for a family to relinquish their children, but they know that the life they are giving their children by giving them up holds infinitely more possibility than anything they could provide them in Ethiopia.
We walked to Layla House and the social worker, Elsa, met us there. Elsa came with us to facilitate the visit by translating for us and making sure the kids understood that it was a final visit. Solomon, Tinsaye, Brian, Elsa, and I got in the car with the driver, Sahid, and we left. I knew the kids had grown up in Addis, but for some reason I thought it would be a long drive. It was only about 10 minutes away from the orphanage. We started out on paved main roads with sidewalks and medians, then turned onto a paved narrow road, then onto a dirt road, and finally onto a deeply rutted track full of people and animals and other cars and surrounded on all sides by tiny houses and stores constructed of mud, dung, tin, wood, plastic... pretty much any building material you can imagine. As soon as we turned down this street, every person was staring at us and children started yelling, "Solomon! Solomon!", waving to him and Tinsaye in the car and running ahead of us (which wasn't hard to do since the road was so horrible we were only going about 3 miles per hour). Tinsaye started giving Sahid directions and told him where to stop. We got out of the car and I felt like I was in the middle of a PBS documentary on African poverty. I also felt huge and shockingly white and really REALLY wished I had had my last hepatitis vaccine as we walked past open cookfires, through a rusted tin gate, over dirt and rocks, into a small courtyard for several tiny huts. Two women came out (alerted by the band of children shrieking "Solomon") and the kids ran to them in a huge embrace. It was their birth mom, Worke, and her sister. Then birth mom turned to us and we all had an awkward minute of shaking hands, introductions, bowing, and then Brian just bent down and hugged her. Immediately all three of us started crying and Worke kept saying "thank you, thank you, thank you" as tears streamed down all of our faces. Elsa moved things along by saying, "let's all go in the house and we can sit and talk".
So we all crammed into this tiny hut. It was about 12x12 ft square, one door, one window, a big bed along the back wall, a cupboard on another wall, a tiny cookstove in a corner. I was TERRIFIED that she was going to offer us coffee that we NO WAY could drink without getting sick and I was hoping Elsa would intervene on behalf of our wimpy American digestive systems, but she didn't offer us anything. Whew! She had several small gifts for the kids: a Bible, a cross neckace, some candy, a CD of religious music, and some bootleg DVDs of Ethiopian movies! They spent a few minutes talking and looking at the goodies, and then birth mom pulled out her photo album and we all looked at pictures of the children and their family members. We took photos of all the photos for the kids to have in the future. Then Elsa told the children to go outside and play so the adults could talk.
What we learned from our conversation, in addition to more info from the court files and the children, was this: the kids' father was named Yeneneh. He was blind. However, his family had enough money to get him the accommodations he needed to finish college. He had a degree and was a social worker for the Ethiopian government. Worke was a high school graduate. They married and had Tinsaye and Solomon and then Worke developed a heart condition. Although her health was poor, they felt okay because they were a middle class family and Yeneneh could take care of them all. Tinsaye was in public school and Solomon was in a private boys school. They were Christians and went every week to the local Ethiopian Orthodox church. In February 2009 Yeneneh was working in a rural area when he had either a seizure or a stroke. He fell, hit his head, and died a couple days later. In shock and grief, Worke knew that she was not going to be able to care for the kids on her own. There are no social safety nets in Ethiopia: no life insurance, no Social Security. They were immediately evicted from their home and had to move into the hut we were visiting with her sister. Yeneneh's sister and brother told her that they would take Tinsaye because she could help them in their homes cooking and cleaning, but they didn't want Solomon because he wasn't helpful. Her own brother and sister encouraged her to get the kids into Layla House because they could stay together, they could get an education, and they could find an American family to care for them, especially since she could no longer afford the medication the kids needed to keep from developing glaucoma and going blind. She had to make the agonizing decision for the good of her children to relinquish them to an orphanage. They came to Layla House on November 6, 2009. On that very day, halfway across the world, Brian decided, "I don't think this calling is going to go away... let's sign the application to adopt." and we began our journey to them. When we put our stories together and discovered how God pulled us all together in this miraculous way, Worke said, "It is all in His hands and always has been."
About this time I was thinking that there was a very real chance I was going to drown in my own tears from this unbelievably emotional conversation. Right on cue, Tinsaye burst back in the room and said, "Let's have Oreos!" We had brought a box of Oreos with us (we brought TONS of Oreos for the kids at Layla) and we all had a couple and then Tinsaye started handing them out to all the other kids lurking in a clump outside the doorway. It was like Christmas and she got to be Santa Claus! Elsa finally said, "Its time to go, they need the car back at Layla" and we began our goodbyes. We started crying again and Her Highness Lady Tinsaye said very sharply to all the adults, "I say goodbye, but you moms no crying! No more crying from you or you or you Dad!" So we did our best to comply and made our way back to the car. Worke talked to each of the kids individually, hugged them and hugged us and then we were driving away. The kids never cried at all, if you can believe it. I think they did all their crying months earlier and now they were focused on coming to America. We knew they would eventually grieve the loss of their first family, but on this day, they were proud to be seen by everyone driving out of their neighborhood in a car, dressed in their bright new clothes, with their rich American parents.
When we got back to Layla it was lunchtime and we left the kids there for the afternoon. Brian and I went to a nice restaurant alone to be quiet together, to talk about what just happened, to process our feelings, and to recover from all that crying. We were completely drained. After we ate, we went back to the guest house and took a nap before we got the kids again from Layla. We just hung out at the guest house and took it easy for the rest of the day. As intense as this day was, I would never trade the opportunity we had to meet Worke for anything. Her example of unselfish love inspires me daily.
Another beautiful morning in Ethiopia. We were all excited and nervous this morning because we were going to visit Solomon and Tinsaye's birth mom. We ate breakfast with the other families at the guest house and got dressed in nicer clothes. The other moms at the guest house with us could really understand our nervousness because some of them had met birth families too and had varying experiences. One family asked the American family to buy them a car! It's a really complicated experience because most orphaned children in Ethiopia have living family members, they are just unable to care for them due to poverty and/or poor health. Ethiopian children are treasured by their families and it is a difficult decision for a family to relinquish their children, but they know that the life they are giving their children by giving them up holds infinitely more possibility than anything they could provide them in Ethiopia.
We walked to Layla House and the social worker, Elsa, met us there. Elsa came with us to facilitate the visit by translating for us and making sure the kids understood that it was a final visit. Solomon, Tinsaye, Brian, Elsa, and I got in the car with the driver, Sahid, and we left. I knew the kids had grown up in Addis, but for some reason I thought it would be a long drive. It was only about 10 minutes away from the orphanage. We started out on paved main roads with sidewalks and medians, then turned onto a paved narrow road, then onto a dirt road, and finally onto a deeply rutted track full of people and animals and other cars and surrounded on all sides by tiny houses and stores constructed of mud, dung, tin, wood, plastic... pretty much any building material you can imagine. As soon as we turned down this street, every person was staring at us and children started yelling, "Solomon! Solomon!", waving to him and Tinsaye in the car and running ahead of us (which wasn't hard to do since the road was so horrible we were only going about 3 miles per hour). Tinsaye started giving Sahid directions and told him where to stop. We got out of the car and I felt like I was in the middle of a PBS documentary on African poverty. I also felt huge and shockingly white and really REALLY wished I had had my last hepatitis vaccine as we walked past open cookfires, through a rusted tin gate, over dirt and rocks, into a small courtyard for several tiny huts. Two women came out (alerted by the band of children shrieking "Solomon") and the kids ran to them in a huge embrace. It was their birth mom, Worke, and her sister. Then birth mom turned to us and we all had an awkward minute of shaking hands, introductions, bowing, and then Brian just bent down and hugged her. Immediately all three of us started crying and Worke kept saying "thank you, thank you, thank you" as tears streamed down all of our faces. Elsa moved things along by saying, "let's all go in the house and we can sit and talk".
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| Solomon and Worke |
So we all crammed into this tiny hut. It was about 12x12 ft square, one door, one window, a big bed along the back wall, a cupboard on another wall, a tiny cookstove in a corner. I was TERRIFIED that she was going to offer us coffee that we NO WAY could drink without getting sick and I was hoping Elsa would intervene on behalf of our wimpy American digestive systems, but she didn't offer us anything. Whew! She had several small gifts for the kids: a Bible, a cross neckace, some candy, a CD of religious music, and some bootleg DVDs of Ethiopian movies! They spent a few minutes talking and looking at the goodies, and then birth mom pulled out her photo album and we all looked at pictures of the children and their family members. We took photos of all the photos for the kids to have in the future. Then Elsa told the children to go outside and play so the adults could talk.
What we learned from our conversation, in addition to more info from the court files and the children, was this: the kids' father was named Yeneneh. He was blind. However, his family had enough money to get him the accommodations he needed to finish college. He had a degree and was a social worker for the Ethiopian government. Worke was a high school graduate. They married and had Tinsaye and Solomon and then Worke developed a heart condition. Although her health was poor, they felt okay because they were a middle class family and Yeneneh could take care of them all. Tinsaye was in public school and Solomon was in a private boys school. They were Christians and went every week to the local Ethiopian Orthodox church. In February 2009 Yeneneh was working in a rural area when he had either a seizure or a stroke. He fell, hit his head, and died a couple days later. In shock and grief, Worke knew that she was not going to be able to care for the kids on her own. There are no social safety nets in Ethiopia: no life insurance, no Social Security. They were immediately evicted from their home and had to move into the hut we were visiting with her sister. Yeneneh's sister and brother told her that they would take Tinsaye because she could help them in their homes cooking and cleaning, but they didn't want Solomon because he wasn't helpful. Her own brother and sister encouraged her to get the kids into Layla House because they could stay together, they could get an education, and they could find an American family to care for them, especially since she could no longer afford the medication the kids needed to keep from developing glaucoma and going blind. She had to make the agonizing decision for the good of her children to relinquish them to an orphanage. They came to Layla House on November 6, 2009. On that very day, halfway across the world, Brian decided, "I don't think this calling is going to go away... let's sign the application to adopt." and we began our journey to them. When we put our stories together and discovered how God pulled us all together in this miraculous way, Worke said, "It is all in His hands and always has been."
 |
| Tinsaye and Worke |
When we got back to Layla it was lunchtime and we left the kids there for the afternoon. Brian and I went to a nice restaurant alone to be quiet together, to talk about what just happened, to process our feelings, and to recover from all that crying. We were completely drained. After we ate, we went back to the guest house and took a nap before we got the kids again from Layla. We just hung out at the guest house and took it easy for the rest of the day. As intense as this day was, I would never trade the opportunity we had to meet Worke for anything. Her example of unselfish love inspires me daily.
Monday, August 9, 2010
The Story of our Trip Part 3- Tuesday/Wednesday
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| At Layla finding swimsuits |
The kids were in the same class at Layla and we were able to sponsor a field trip for their group to the pool at the Hilton. In addition to us and the 10 or so kids in their class, we were joined by their teacher, the American coordinator Jessica, an American volunteer named Kelsey, and the three other families staying with us at the guest house (three sainted moms traveling alone and six more kids!). All of us staying at the guest house walked to Layla around 9am and the kids were getting ready to go. They have a big tub of swimsuits that they break out for field trips and everyone just finds a suit to wear. We all piled into 2 ancient, filthy, hideous diesel vans and off we went! At the Hilton the kids were really well behaved and absolutely loved swimming. None of them can really swim, so they all just played in the water and had tons of fun.
We all piled back in the vans and were back at Layla in time for lunch. Our family went back to the guest house and had spaghetti- mega yum! We were starving and it tasted so good. Tinsaye and Brian ate about a gallon combined! Brian took the kids back to Layla to play after lunch while I took a nap. It rained in the afternoon as it did every day we were there. When they got back, the kids were thrilled to see me, like they'd been gone for weeks. Dinner was injera and wat at the guest house for the kids and leftover pizza for Brian and I. Kids crashed again around 8:30pm and we did too. That night we woke up in the middle of the night to dogs barking and we heard some horrifying scream/yowl. Probably a hyena. I only slept a few hours. Jet lag caught up to me and my body thought I should be awake.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Woke up (as we did every morning) to the call to prayer from the local mosque and a random rooster. Morning in Addis Ababa is simply gorgeous and we were very excited this morning- it was Embassy Day! We had a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, bread, and ferfer (last night's injera soaked in last night's wat and heated up). The best thing I packed on this trip was three boxes of those new instant Starbucks coffee packets. I poured my bottled water in the little electric hot pot they had in the kitchen and in less than 2 minutes I had perfect American coffee. Everyone in the guest house was going to the U. S. Embassy and Gail (the director of Layla) told us she'd be there to get us at 8am. We were all scrambling around like mad trying to get everyone fed and clean and get all our paperwork in order. Gail showed up at 8, but told us that they notified her that we were rescheduled to 10:30. So we had to just sit around and not let the kids get dirty. Brian found a baseball and bat and taught all the older kids to play. When we were finally able to go, we crammed back into vans and took off. Between anxiety, crazy traffic, and diesel fumes, I was getting motion sickness and felt pretty nauseous by the time we got to the embassy. Then we had to drag the kids across a busy street, through tons of security and metal detectors, show our passports and documents, and I was so stressed out that when we made it through and I saw the photos of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton on the wall inside, I started crying! Then I was so embarrassed I quit, but that just shows you how overwhelmed I was.
Little did I know, the good times were just beginning. There was nowhere for us to wait so we just had to stand around with the kids in this little walkway near the door and, remember, we weren't alone: there were 5 families from our agency there with us in addition to Gail and Jessica. That was eleven adults and eleven kids (ages 10 months to 13 years) standing in a tiny space, all stressed, bored, hungry, whining. It was pretty desperate. Plus most all the Americans had been sick and I was still feeling queasy and we were all wondering if we could make it out to the bushes to puke. Our 10:30 appointment time was apparently just a suggestion because we waited nearly an hour. They finally called for the Baert family and we walked up to a man behind a bullet-proof window. He made us all swear that we were who we said we were and asked us a couple random questions and gave us a lecture about how they can't know for sure how old the kids are and we were lucky that our homestudy approved us for kids up to age 10 because they might be older. We were properly grateful and we signed a couple more documents in his presence, got a big red envelope from the Ethiopian government full of court documents, and we were done. After all the families finished, it was back through the metal detectors, security, traffic, diesel fumes to the guest house. Whew! The kids went back to Layla for lunch and Brian and I went out to a really nice Chinese restaurant. It was just terrific to sit in a quiet, air conditioned place and relax. I took another nap that afternoon during the rain and Brian and the kids played at Layla and then we all just hung out at the guest house. Again, we crashed by 8:30.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Getting ready for school
Solomon and Tinsaye started a "Jump Start" program at school this week. They go every morning from 9-noon to work with a group of kids and teachers on literacy. They could not wait to start "small school" as they call it, in contrast to "big school" which involves Thomas, Meredith, and the school bus (Solomon asked me hopefully the other day, "school bus have food, like airplane?" Unfortunately, he learned there are no flight attendants serving food on the 2 mile drive to school). Small School was a huge hit for everyone... the kids love the teachers, the school, meeting new kids, and reading and writing every day,Thomas and Meredith love having mom all to themselves for three hours a day, and mom loves the slightly diminished chaos level.
Everyone finished their summer reading club program at the Wixom library this week. You would have thought they won the lottery when Miss Jane, the children's librarian, gave the kids stickers, a fake tattoo, a bookmark, and a crappy inflatable ball from China for reading 8 books. The only problem was that Tinsaye had read like 20 books and got all her junk two weeks ago, Meredith and Solomon both read like 15 books but could never remember to bring their reading logs but skated in this week before the deadline, but Thomas has found excuses to NOT read all summer and had only read about two books, couldn't find his reading log, and suddenly realized that his siblings were getting all this priceless booty and he had nothing. He threw himself on the mercy of Miss Jane (who has known him since he was a chubby little two year old and his dad brought him for story time) and she gave him everything except the inflatable ball and made him promise to come back by Saturday with his log and having finished 8 books. So this week he has raced through 6 more books so he won't break his promise to Miss Jane. If I'd known that sibling rivalry and Miss Jane were so persuasive I wouldn't have wasted my time nagging him all summer to read.
We needed to get Tinsaye's glasses right away, so the kids and I headed to LensCrafters in the mall one afternoon this week. Just when I think we've been everywhere new and we're past the "shock and awe" phase for Tinsaye and Solomon, we end up someplace unfamiliar... like the mall! And not just any mall, Twelve Oaks Mall, shopping mecca. I realized this as I was pulling into the parking lot and thought, "This is not going to be the quick and easy trip that I planned." We went in the closest entrance to LensCrafters, I could see it from the door, but between the door and the store was an astonishing world of American consumerism. The pet store! "You can buy ANIMALS here????? Can we have dog? Maybe just cat? I love she so much!" and I wish I had a photo of Tinsaye's face when she learned that those weren't baby clothes in the pet store, in America some people put clothes on their DOGS! When I managed to drag them all out of there, we passed a nail salon ("why big chairs?") a hair salon (Tinsaye- "me hair need working, we go here too?"), the escalator ("lift! lift! like airport! we go on lift?!?!??"), the children's play area ("play inside? where swings?"), before we finally made it to Lenscrafters. Then I suddenly realized I had four kids who find it impossible to not touch everything they see in a store full of thousands of pairs of breakable glasses. I would have given anything for a roll of duct tape right about then. So after about 5 minutes of trying on glasses wherein a poor frazzled employee tried to help Tinsaye while Solomon put on every pair of women's glasses he could find, Meredith tried to convince me that she REALLY couldn't see well AT ALL and also needed glasses especially these sparkly purple ones, and Thomas The Enforcer kept ripping the frames out of Solomon and Mere's hands and replacing them in the wrong spots, I sent The Enforcer and his minions out to ride the escalator. We managed to find some cute frames for Tinsaye, fill out the paperwork, and pay before they came back in arguing that Mere and Solomon don't listen/Thomas is mean. Getting back to the car was faster, but still required several trips up and down the escalator and another stop at the pet store "to say goodbye my small dog, I love she so much".
Can you see why I'm so exhausted all the time? We do need to go back to the mall and really go through the whole place, or better yet, next time I'll send them with Brian.
Everyone finished their summer reading club program at the Wixom library this week. You would have thought they won the lottery when Miss Jane, the children's librarian, gave the kids stickers, a fake tattoo, a bookmark, and a crappy inflatable ball from China for reading 8 books. The only problem was that Tinsaye had read like 20 books and got all her junk two weeks ago, Meredith and Solomon both read like 15 books but could never remember to bring their reading logs but skated in this week before the deadline, but Thomas has found excuses to NOT read all summer and had only read about two books, couldn't find his reading log, and suddenly realized that his siblings were getting all this priceless booty and he had nothing. He threw himself on the mercy of Miss Jane (who has known him since he was a chubby little two year old and his dad brought him for story time) and she gave him everything except the inflatable ball and made him promise to come back by Saturday with his log and having finished 8 books. So this week he has raced through 6 more books so he won't break his promise to Miss Jane. If I'd known that sibling rivalry and Miss Jane were so persuasive I wouldn't have wasted my time nagging him all summer to read.
We needed to get Tinsaye's glasses right away, so the kids and I headed to LensCrafters in the mall one afternoon this week. Just when I think we've been everywhere new and we're past the "shock and awe" phase for Tinsaye and Solomon, we end up someplace unfamiliar... like the mall! And not just any mall, Twelve Oaks Mall, shopping mecca. I realized this as I was pulling into the parking lot and thought, "This is not going to be the quick and easy trip that I planned." We went in the closest entrance to LensCrafters, I could see it from the door, but between the door and the store was an astonishing world of American consumerism. The pet store! "You can buy ANIMALS here????? Can we have dog? Maybe just cat? I love she so much!" and I wish I had a photo of Tinsaye's face when she learned that those weren't baby clothes in the pet store, in America some people put clothes on their DOGS! When I managed to drag them all out of there, we passed a nail salon ("why big chairs?") a hair salon (Tinsaye- "me hair need working, we go here too?"), the escalator ("lift! lift! like airport! we go on lift?!?!??"), the children's play area ("play inside? where swings?"), before we finally made it to Lenscrafters. Then I suddenly realized I had four kids who find it impossible to not touch everything they see in a store full of thousands of pairs of breakable glasses. I would have given anything for a roll of duct tape right about then. So after about 5 minutes of trying on glasses wherein a poor frazzled employee tried to help Tinsaye while Solomon put on every pair of women's glasses he could find, Meredith tried to convince me that she REALLY couldn't see well AT ALL and also needed glasses especially these sparkly purple ones, and Thomas The Enforcer kept ripping the frames out of Solomon and Mere's hands and replacing them in the wrong spots, I sent The Enforcer and his minions out to ride the escalator. We managed to find some cute frames for Tinsaye, fill out the paperwork, and pay before they came back in arguing that Mere and Solomon don't listen/Thomas is mean. Getting back to the car was faster, but still required several trips up and down the escalator and another stop at the pet store "to say goodbye my small dog, I love she so much".
Can you see why I'm so exhausted all the time? We do need to go back to the mall and really go through the whole place, or better yet, next time I'll send them with Brian.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Medical Update
One thing I haven't written about is what is going on with Solomon and Tinsaye medically. We knew they were in general good health but were diagnosed with a genetic condition called Axenfeld-Riegers Syndrome in Ethiopia. Due to this diagnosis, they were classified a "special needs" adoption. The unknowns about their health history and current condition were pretty scary to Brian and I all along, but we decided that we would just deal with things as they came.
We've spent a LOT of time in doctor's offices in the last seven weeks since they've been home and here's what we've learned:
-both kids are healthy, good height and weight and growth patterns appear normal.
-both kids tested negative for all the scary stuff here in America (HIV, Hepatitis, etc), confirming their negative status from the orphanage
-both kids tested negative for all parasites! Yeah! None of us were looking forward to de-worming treatments!
-both kids had some immunizations in Ethiopia, both had chicken pox at the orphanage, and they only needed a couple immunizations here. They both had a couple immunizations last month, Tinsaye needs one more and Solomon needs a booster and then they are caught up with all immunizations as per American standards.
-their genetic condition caused their teeth to be malformed in utero. Solomon's teeth are pretty good now, he hasn't lost any baby teeth yet, but he is missing several adult teeth that never formed. Tinsaye's teeth are more seriously affected, she is missing many adult teeth and the ones she has are in strange places. Both kids will need major dental stuff done... bridges or implants or something. $$$$$! But in the big scheme of things, teeth are pretty fixable and no big deal.
-The Axenfeld-Riegers syndrome also caused their eyes to be malformed in utero. Although they appeared to have normal vision, they are predisposed to glaucoma and we were really worried about existing damage to the optic nerve. We saw a pediatric ophthalmologist last week and learned that although both kids have higher than normal eye pressures, there is NO optic nerve damage present and the pressures are treatable with daily beta-blocker eye drops. We started them on drops immediately and they go back for a recheck in a month, hopefully the pressures will be reduced then.
-Solomon's vision is 20/50 in his right eye and 20/80 in his left eye, but that is as good as it will get. No glasses or lenses can fix it, it is due to malformation and not correctable. He will be just fine, but he's not going to be able to pursue a career as a sharpshooter for the FBI! Additionally, Solomon has strabismus, or "wandering eye" mostly in his left eye, somewhat in his right. This is correctable with surgery after his pressures are reduced, and mostly cosmetic. We haven't told him he has to have eye surgery yet, not sure how that one's going to go over.
-Tinsaye's vision is about 20/30 in her right eye, but she is legally blind in her left eye. With an extremely powerful lens, it will be 20/400. Again, this is due to malformation and nothing could have changed this. She needs to wear glasses all the time with a clear polycarbonate lens on the right eye to protect it from injury since it is all she has. When she's old enough for contacts, we'll get her a lens for the left to wear with the clear glasses, but until then, she just doesn't really use that eye. She was NOT happy about having to have glasses, until we told her she could get pink frames, and now she is completely jazzed about her new fashion accessory!
We are really happy with most all this news. We are super grateful that we have good insurance and we feel blessed to be able to give them what they need.
We've spent a LOT of time in doctor's offices in the last seven weeks since they've been home and here's what we've learned:
-both kids are healthy, good height and weight and growth patterns appear normal.
-both kids tested negative for all the scary stuff here in America (HIV, Hepatitis, etc), confirming their negative status from the orphanage
-both kids tested negative for all parasites! Yeah! None of us were looking forward to de-worming treatments!
-both kids had some immunizations in Ethiopia, both had chicken pox at the orphanage, and they only needed a couple immunizations here. They both had a couple immunizations last month, Tinsaye needs one more and Solomon needs a booster and then they are caught up with all immunizations as per American standards.
-their genetic condition caused their teeth to be malformed in utero. Solomon's teeth are pretty good now, he hasn't lost any baby teeth yet, but he is missing several adult teeth that never formed. Tinsaye's teeth are more seriously affected, she is missing many adult teeth and the ones she has are in strange places. Both kids will need major dental stuff done... bridges or implants or something. $$$$$! But in the big scheme of things, teeth are pretty fixable and no big deal.
-The Axenfeld-Riegers syndrome also caused their eyes to be malformed in utero. Although they appeared to have normal vision, they are predisposed to glaucoma and we were really worried about existing damage to the optic nerve. We saw a pediatric ophthalmologist last week and learned that although both kids have higher than normal eye pressures, there is NO optic nerve damage present and the pressures are treatable with daily beta-blocker eye drops. We started them on drops immediately and they go back for a recheck in a month, hopefully the pressures will be reduced then.
-Solomon's vision is 20/50 in his right eye and 20/80 in his left eye, but that is as good as it will get. No glasses or lenses can fix it, it is due to malformation and not correctable. He will be just fine, but he's not going to be able to pursue a career as a sharpshooter for the FBI! Additionally, Solomon has strabismus, or "wandering eye" mostly in his left eye, somewhat in his right. This is correctable with surgery after his pressures are reduced, and mostly cosmetic. We haven't told him he has to have eye surgery yet, not sure how that one's going to go over.
-Tinsaye's vision is about 20/30 in her right eye, but she is legally blind in her left eye. With an extremely powerful lens, it will be 20/400. Again, this is due to malformation and nothing could have changed this. She needs to wear glasses all the time with a clear polycarbonate lens on the right eye to protect it from injury since it is all she has. When she's old enough for contacts, we'll get her a lens for the left to wear with the clear glasses, but until then, she just doesn't really use that eye. She was NOT happy about having to have glasses, until we told her she could get pink frames, and now she is completely jazzed about her new fashion accessory!
We are really happy with most all this news. We are super grateful that we have good insurance and we feel blessed to be able to give them what they need.
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