I was heading with Catherine to go do child-care for the leaders meeting at BSF (Bible Study Fellowship...go look it up online...this is our 2nd study and they are awesome) yesterday morning. Anyway, just as I was about to get to the road that the church is located on, I got a phone call from the school. Christopher had gotten hurt and had a pretty good sized knot on the back of his head and she felt like he needed to come home and be watched at home. I had my father-in-law come to the house to stay with Catherine while I went and picked up Christopher at school. The knot was pretty large and he said that he felt dazed and like he was going to pass out. The school nurse felt like I'd be ok just watching it at home, but he's my child that never acts sick until something happens and so I just felt safer taking him to get checked out.
We headed to the hospital and the nurse practitioner checked him out. She said that they don't do CT scans anymore on children unless it's absolutely necessary and since he appeared to be doing ok, she just wanted me to have him rest and stay low-key for the next 7-10 days so he avoided another injury and we'd just treat him as if he had a concussion to be on the safe side. He is my active child and so I knew that was going to be the challenge. She didn't want him running or jumping or in any sort of P.E. or recess. That's laughable as he has sensory processing disorder and is desperately seeking input, but I realize that they don't know him either. All we can do is our best to keep him occupied and somewhat sedentary. She left to get his discharge insructions together and he figured out that he was getting attention for acting crazy from the nurses and so he decided to do it all the more. Nevermind, we had someone next to us in a pretty good amount of pain. The more I asked him to calm down, the more amped up he'd get. I was so embarrassed and ready to get out of there.
He came home and we iced his head as much as possible and tried to redirect him when he was getting too active to things that he could do that were somewhat more low key. I finally decided to give him a massage with essential oils to try and get him to calm down somewhat and it was semi-successful. I used some Deep Blue essential oil with his massage as that one goes after inflammation. I was hoping it would reduce the size of his goose egg. This morning, it had gone down quite significantly and he said that it was feeling a little better. I'm going to reapply it tonight I think before he goes to bed. We have to follow-up with the pediatrician on Friday for him to determine when he can go back to P.E. and recess.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Monday, April 28, 2014
Schooling
School has brought many challenges to my littles. Since it's hard to get respite with everyone needing background checks and having to have the space and all that fun stuff, we had our littles start attending Mother's Day Out. The first year they just went one day a week. Grace struggled big time with separation anxiety. Christopher was constantly running down the hall and asking the other kids for their food. Even though we made sure to pack him a big enough lunch. The second year, they went twice a week. That went a little bit better, but they also learned to pull their behaviors in during the day when they were at MDO and it would all come flying out the minute they got in the van for me. The break was nice, but I paid for it so to speak.
Since they had their history with being in foster care, they were able to go to our public school pre-k program. Joy struggled with some learning in there and I let the teacher know that we had been working on this stuff in occupational therapy for quite some time. She just required a lot of repetition to learn things. We got her on her ADHD medicine and her behaviors got a little better although she continued to get in trouble on a regular basis. Once their adoption happened as well, she really seemed to calm down. Her teacher said to me one day "it's almost like she just really needed to know that you were telling her the truth and once she saw that she was indeed getting her forever family, she just seemed to calm down." She still had the occasional blip with behavior, but it wasn't anything like it had been. Christopher was very smart, but he developed a lot of behavioral issues and the teacher was concerned about the level of agression that he exhibited and his lack of boundaries. I continued to let her know that we were working on things, he went to counseling, we went to behavior therapy, we worked on behaviors in occupational therapy, and we were trying. Almost every day, she'd meet me at the car and tell me something that he did that day. Our counselor told us to just be glad that the school was seeing what I was talking about and that he wasn't hiding it from the school. We also wound up having to make him his own space at his own table and he needed constant redirection to stay in his own space. Grace did very well in school and was a people pleaser. Her teacher loved her.
Kindergarten brought some more behavior issues for Joy. I talked to her teacher and we were able to get her on the 504 status due to her ADHD. They worked with her and she got a seat by the teacher's desk and she needed a lot of redirection, but she did pretty well. I think some of it was dealing with a new school, new teacher, and just seeing what she could get away with. I continued to have concerns about her reading and writing, but they said that she was doing well. Finally before the end of the year, her teacher said that she was starting to see what my concerns were but that she was pushing through. Christopher continued to struggle with behaviors and agression in kindergarten and starting getting a lot of in school suspensions due to hurting other students. He was also throwing his lunches away and charging breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria all of the time. We finally had to tell the school that unless he had a note from home that he couldn't eat in the cafeteria. Little turkey, didn't do his morning work one day because he was too busy trying to forge a note from home in as nice handwriting as possible. He had our names all spelled phonetically and colored the whole thing brown. Obviously the lunch lady knew something was up. He's too smart for his own good. I asked him that day "did you ever think about simply asking us for what you want instead of thinking up all these ways to go around about way to get what you want?" UGH! At Christmas, I went up for their Christmas party not knowing anything was going on and the principal came and pulled me out and said that she had to take him to in school suspension for the day due to something that had happened, but that if he was going to continue going to school there that he couldn't go on acting like this. I went to the guidance counselor as we had a couple of talks about his behavior before and all that we were trying to do to help him succeed and I broke down crying in the hallway. After that point, it was all down hill from there. He was in ISS 2-4 times a week after that point. I also had him on 504 status as well so we could try to make accomodations. Having his own defined space was absolutely necessary in the classroom and on the playground or someone would get hurt. Grace did really well in kindergarten and she only got monitored 504 status due to her ADHD, but her work is all As and Bs and she continues to be a people-pleaser and her teacher loved her as well. The girls save a lot of their behavior up and it all comes out once they get home.
1st grade brought more of the same challenges that kindergarten brought. Christopher continued to struggle with behavior and spent lots of time in ISS, he was kicked off the bus due to lots of safety concerns and we had to bring him back and forth to school which made it hard on all of us at times. Towards the end of the school year, we actually had him start attending after-school care as we were having to pull over on the side of the road frequently to stop his meltdowns and the girls were getting kicked and their hair pulled all over him being upset by things that were going on at school but he was taking it out on them. These things didnt happen all of the time, but it was enough that I couldn't let it happen anymore. We thought that he needed a buffer zone between school and home and our counselor was recommending residential treatment and I wasnt' ready for that yet. So, we thought we'd try after school care. That way he was getting a buffer zone and the girls were getting a break and some time with me to themselves as well. We had him tested for special ed and he was diagnosed with an emotional disturbance and placed under the special ed umbrella. Joy continued to struggle with phonics and math and reading and did some reading recovery, tutoring, and some extra help. Grace is doing great in 1st grade this year and is frequently an all A student.
Joy struggled in 2nd grade as well and I pushed to have her tested for dyslexia. She met 2/3 of the characteristics, but they said that she didn't have it. Lots of extra help for her to succeed in 2nd grade. Christopher continues to struggle with behavior and flat out refusal to go to some classes or to listen to the staff and homework has become an even bigger struggle. He's been suspended from school 4 times this year and kicked off the regular bus. He now rides the special ed bus with success. He's in mainstream classes, but we just had an ARD to discuss a placement change. He is going to start attending a behavioral unit within the district in the next couple of weeks. He's doing social skills groups with the counselor to work on expressing his emotions properly, still going to counseling, going to occupational therapy and going to see the pscyhiatrist as well. He also had an incident at school and at home last week where he is now having delusions and hallucinations and now has a psychoses diagnoses as well.
Joy is in 3rd grade this year. Still thinking that there's a learning disorder of some sort going on. Her teacher pulled her file and saw that we had her tested for dyslexia. She was surprised as she was going to suggest that to us as an option until she found that we were already ahead of the game. She did say though that she agrees that there's something going on with her learning. She told us to let her fail as that was the only way that school would come in and test her. She held her own the first marking period and then the 2nd marking period, she started to fail. It was hard to watch her struggle so hard. School finally sent paperwork home and agreed to test her. 3rd marking period she did a little better but they were still 70s in most classes and lower in others. She continues to receive a lot of extra help and so forth, but it's still very difficult for her. They sent home a retention letter for her and she didn't do well at all on the mock testing for state testing. They just finished testing her for learning disabilities today, so we should have an ARD soon to find out what they have found out and make the best decision on what is best for her next year. I hate seeing her struggle so much, but with the way that she learns I'm not so sure that even if we retain her that she's going to pass, she may do better and gain a little more knowledge, but I'm not confident that it's just going to click with her to go through another year. We also found out by an occupational screening that she's got some visual perception difficulties and so she's attending OT again once a week to work on those things. I'm interested to see what the school finds out.
Every year brings new challenges and I hate having to retrain the staff every year. This coming year is going to bring new anxieties as well as we get to deal with an all new school since we got rezoned and Christopher will be at a different school than the girls as well, so we get 2 new schools to deal with and educate about our children. We can grandfather in Joy and Christopher, but it won't work with Grace. I'm still praying about what to do. It just makes me nervous with all of their challenges to have to deal with all new staff and schools. The principal and guidance counselor at least is on the same page wtih me every year. Now, I don't even have them to go too. Probably will ask for some documentation for the old staff to talk to the new staff about our children and what they have seen and all the struggles that come with that.
These are our school challenges thus far. Just wanted to give a little history of some of the things that we have dealt with.
Since they had their history with being in foster care, they were able to go to our public school pre-k program. Joy struggled with some learning in there and I let the teacher know that we had been working on this stuff in occupational therapy for quite some time. She just required a lot of repetition to learn things. We got her on her ADHD medicine and her behaviors got a little better although she continued to get in trouble on a regular basis. Once their adoption happened as well, she really seemed to calm down. Her teacher said to me one day "it's almost like she just really needed to know that you were telling her the truth and once she saw that she was indeed getting her forever family, she just seemed to calm down." She still had the occasional blip with behavior, but it wasn't anything like it had been. Christopher was very smart, but he developed a lot of behavioral issues and the teacher was concerned about the level of agression that he exhibited and his lack of boundaries. I continued to let her know that we were working on things, he went to counseling, we went to behavior therapy, we worked on behaviors in occupational therapy, and we were trying. Almost every day, she'd meet me at the car and tell me something that he did that day. Our counselor told us to just be glad that the school was seeing what I was talking about and that he wasn't hiding it from the school. We also wound up having to make him his own space at his own table and he needed constant redirection to stay in his own space. Grace did very well in school and was a people pleaser. Her teacher loved her.
Kindergarten brought some more behavior issues for Joy. I talked to her teacher and we were able to get her on the 504 status due to her ADHD. They worked with her and she got a seat by the teacher's desk and she needed a lot of redirection, but she did pretty well. I think some of it was dealing with a new school, new teacher, and just seeing what she could get away with. I continued to have concerns about her reading and writing, but they said that she was doing well. Finally before the end of the year, her teacher said that she was starting to see what my concerns were but that she was pushing through. Christopher continued to struggle with behaviors and agression in kindergarten and starting getting a lot of in school suspensions due to hurting other students. He was also throwing his lunches away and charging breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria all of the time. We finally had to tell the school that unless he had a note from home that he couldn't eat in the cafeteria. Little turkey, didn't do his morning work one day because he was too busy trying to forge a note from home in as nice handwriting as possible. He had our names all spelled phonetically and colored the whole thing brown. Obviously the lunch lady knew something was up. He's too smart for his own good. I asked him that day "did you ever think about simply asking us for what you want instead of thinking up all these ways to go around about way to get what you want?" UGH! At Christmas, I went up for their Christmas party not knowing anything was going on and the principal came and pulled me out and said that she had to take him to in school suspension for the day due to something that had happened, but that if he was going to continue going to school there that he couldn't go on acting like this. I went to the guidance counselor as we had a couple of talks about his behavior before and all that we were trying to do to help him succeed and I broke down crying in the hallway. After that point, it was all down hill from there. He was in ISS 2-4 times a week after that point. I also had him on 504 status as well so we could try to make accomodations. Having his own defined space was absolutely necessary in the classroom and on the playground or someone would get hurt. Grace did really well in kindergarten and she only got monitored 504 status due to her ADHD, but her work is all As and Bs and she continues to be a people-pleaser and her teacher loved her as well. The girls save a lot of their behavior up and it all comes out once they get home.
1st grade brought more of the same challenges that kindergarten brought. Christopher continued to struggle with behavior and spent lots of time in ISS, he was kicked off the bus due to lots of safety concerns and we had to bring him back and forth to school which made it hard on all of us at times. Towards the end of the school year, we actually had him start attending after-school care as we were having to pull over on the side of the road frequently to stop his meltdowns and the girls were getting kicked and their hair pulled all over him being upset by things that were going on at school but he was taking it out on them. These things didnt happen all of the time, but it was enough that I couldn't let it happen anymore. We thought that he needed a buffer zone between school and home and our counselor was recommending residential treatment and I wasnt' ready for that yet. So, we thought we'd try after school care. That way he was getting a buffer zone and the girls were getting a break and some time with me to themselves as well. We had him tested for special ed and he was diagnosed with an emotional disturbance and placed under the special ed umbrella. Joy continued to struggle with phonics and math and reading and did some reading recovery, tutoring, and some extra help. Grace is doing great in 1st grade this year and is frequently an all A student.
Joy struggled in 2nd grade as well and I pushed to have her tested for dyslexia. She met 2/3 of the characteristics, but they said that she didn't have it. Lots of extra help for her to succeed in 2nd grade. Christopher continues to struggle with behavior and flat out refusal to go to some classes or to listen to the staff and homework has become an even bigger struggle. He's been suspended from school 4 times this year and kicked off the regular bus. He now rides the special ed bus with success. He's in mainstream classes, but we just had an ARD to discuss a placement change. He is going to start attending a behavioral unit within the district in the next couple of weeks. He's doing social skills groups with the counselor to work on expressing his emotions properly, still going to counseling, going to occupational therapy and going to see the pscyhiatrist as well. He also had an incident at school and at home last week where he is now having delusions and hallucinations and now has a psychoses diagnoses as well.
Joy is in 3rd grade this year. Still thinking that there's a learning disorder of some sort going on. Her teacher pulled her file and saw that we had her tested for dyslexia. She was surprised as she was going to suggest that to us as an option until she found that we were already ahead of the game. She did say though that she agrees that there's something going on with her learning. She told us to let her fail as that was the only way that school would come in and test her. She held her own the first marking period and then the 2nd marking period, she started to fail. It was hard to watch her struggle so hard. School finally sent paperwork home and agreed to test her. 3rd marking period she did a little better but they were still 70s in most classes and lower in others. She continues to receive a lot of extra help and so forth, but it's still very difficult for her. They sent home a retention letter for her and she didn't do well at all on the mock testing for state testing. They just finished testing her for learning disabilities today, so we should have an ARD soon to find out what they have found out and make the best decision on what is best for her next year. I hate seeing her struggle so much, but with the way that she learns I'm not so sure that even if we retain her that she's going to pass, she may do better and gain a little more knowledge, but I'm not confident that it's just going to click with her to go through another year. We also found out by an occupational screening that she's got some visual perception difficulties and so she's attending OT again once a week to work on those things. I'm interested to see what the school finds out.
Every year brings new challenges and I hate having to retrain the staff every year. This coming year is going to bring new anxieties as well as we get to deal with an all new school since we got rezoned and Christopher will be at a different school than the girls as well, so we get 2 new schools to deal with and educate about our children. We can grandfather in Joy and Christopher, but it won't work with Grace. I'm still praying about what to do. It just makes me nervous with all of their challenges to have to deal with all new staff and schools. The principal and guidance counselor at least is on the same page wtih me every year. Now, I don't even have them to go too. Probably will ask for some documentation for the old staff to talk to the new staff about our children and what they have seen and all the struggles that come with that.
These are our school challenges thus far. Just wanted to give a little history of some of the things that we have dealt with.
Behaviors
We were taught in foster care training that every behavior meets a need. Some children had mild behaviors, some motherate, and some children you just learn to keep in constant line-of-sight supervision. They struggle so much with their feelings that it comes out in different ways. Sometimes they just don't know any better or they are just acting out things that had been done to them or that they had seen before. Of our 3 adopted children, I have one basic child (Grace) and 2 moderate (Joy and Christopher). Christopher requires line-of-sight supervision at all times though. Things are never boring around here.
We went to behavior therapy for maybe a year or slightly longer. I needed some extra help. 2 of my children (Joy and Christopher) had ADHD with ODD (oppositional defiance disorder). The psychologist there told us that they normally worked with parents who lacked parenting skills and that we could be teaching that class. They worked with our own individual family for a few months afterwards, but we didn't see much improvement so we quit going.
The more books that I read and other adoptive parents that I talked to, I really started to wonder if we were weren't dealing with RAD (reactive attachment disorder). I began to look for an attachment therapist. I e-mailed one in Austin, but he wanted to see us every other Friday for an hour for each child. I didn't know how that was going to work with it being a 3-hour drive one way. I've come to realize that therapists that treat this disorder are not easy to find and you kind of have to be willing to travel a bit. I prayed about it and stumbled upon a blog of another adoptive parent here in TX. She was parenting kids with RAD and was saying how much finding a good therapist would really help. I e-mailed her and she helped me to find a couple more local therapists in my area. I did some research and decided who I thought would be better for our family.
Christopher was really ramping up his agression and was lying more and more. He would refuse to comply with even the simple things, he wouldn't leave his seatbelt on and he would unbuckle the girls. He would throw fit and fit and hit, kick, and tip over furniture. He would sneak things that he wasn't supposed to be into and break them. He woudln't sleep at night and he heard everything even if you stepped on the carpet outside his door. He blamed us when he got consequences. He didn't connect his behavior to the consequence. He could tell you what he should have done, but he'd never apply it. He had no fear, no sense of danger, and was constantly moving and talking. We had him in occupational therapy working on sensory needs, motor skills, and other delays that he had as well as behaviors. Our therapist even told me at one point that if he was her only child, she wouldn't have any more and that whenever she had a bad day she thought of me and figured that if I could do it, she could do it. I asked her if my house was really that bad and she said that she knew that we were doing all that we could to try and work on behaviors, but she knew that we had our hands full.
Joy was lying, stealing, and breaking things all of the time and getting in trouble at school with not wanting to do her work, but wanting to crawl around on the floor making animal noises and putting her hands on the other kids and she was always into everything. That did settle down once we met with the teacher and she thought that she had ADHD although she wasn't allowed to say that. I had my hands so full with Christopher, that I knew something was going on with Joy, but it wasn't to the extent that it was with Christopher. We had her tested and started on meds and once her adoption also happened and she realized that we were telling her the truth, alot of the behaviors settled down. She still struggled with being impulsive and fidgety and had a hard time focusing, but her behavior was definitely settling down. The main thing that I was concerned about at that point was I noticed it took her a LOT of repetition to learn things. It took her almost 3 years to learn colors, shapes, the alphabet and numbers and phonics and reading was a struggle.
Grace came to us at 23 months and majorly struggled with temper tantrums. She wouldn't explore her environment. She would scream if I put her down or had to go to the bathroom. She either had to be in my arms or she played at my feet. She cried and screamed all of the time. Finally, a respite worker that we had at the time told me that she thought Grace needed to go in Mother's Day Out to work on knowing that I would come back as she screamed and cried so badly. It took her almost a year to learn that. However, she still struggles with crying and throwing temper tantrums over a lot of things. I think it's anxiety related myself. She also struggles with memory and not knowing certain words for things and so when she doesn't know the proper word for what she wants or what she's trying to express, she gets frustrated and starts to cry. She also has been diagnosed with ADHD.
All of my adopted littles struggle with ADHD. Christopher has RAD. My girls have attachment issues, but nothing severe like Christopher. Christopher also has PTSD, is on the autism scale with PDD (pervasive development disorder) and just last week we added another diagnoses due to him having hallucinations and delusions of psychoses nos and due to all the behavioral problems at school, he will be starting to go to the behavioral unit in a couple of weeks. Time will tell what the psychoses diagnoses will turn into.
I continue to pray for God's healing and we continue to go to therapy and different doctors appts to address various needs. Each day brings blessings and trials and I will talk about them here. One day God will show me what His plan is and how He is going to turn it all around for good. I firmly believe that.
We went to behavior therapy for maybe a year or slightly longer. I needed some extra help. 2 of my children (Joy and Christopher) had ADHD with ODD (oppositional defiance disorder). The psychologist there told us that they normally worked with parents who lacked parenting skills and that we could be teaching that class. They worked with our own individual family for a few months afterwards, but we didn't see much improvement so we quit going.
The more books that I read and other adoptive parents that I talked to, I really started to wonder if we were weren't dealing with RAD (reactive attachment disorder). I began to look for an attachment therapist. I e-mailed one in Austin, but he wanted to see us every other Friday for an hour for each child. I didn't know how that was going to work with it being a 3-hour drive one way. I've come to realize that therapists that treat this disorder are not easy to find and you kind of have to be willing to travel a bit. I prayed about it and stumbled upon a blog of another adoptive parent here in TX. She was parenting kids with RAD and was saying how much finding a good therapist would really help. I e-mailed her and she helped me to find a couple more local therapists in my area. I did some research and decided who I thought would be better for our family.
Christopher was really ramping up his agression and was lying more and more. He would refuse to comply with even the simple things, he wouldn't leave his seatbelt on and he would unbuckle the girls. He would throw fit and fit and hit, kick, and tip over furniture. He would sneak things that he wasn't supposed to be into and break them. He woudln't sleep at night and he heard everything even if you stepped on the carpet outside his door. He blamed us when he got consequences. He didn't connect his behavior to the consequence. He could tell you what he should have done, but he'd never apply it. He had no fear, no sense of danger, and was constantly moving and talking. We had him in occupational therapy working on sensory needs, motor skills, and other delays that he had as well as behaviors. Our therapist even told me at one point that if he was her only child, she wouldn't have any more and that whenever she had a bad day she thought of me and figured that if I could do it, she could do it. I asked her if my house was really that bad and she said that she knew that we were doing all that we could to try and work on behaviors, but she knew that we had our hands full.
Joy was lying, stealing, and breaking things all of the time and getting in trouble at school with not wanting to do her work, but wanting to crawl around on the floor making animal noises and putting her hands on the other kids and she was always into everything. That did settle down once we met with the teacher and she thought that she had ADHD although she wasn't allowed to say that. I had my hands so full with Christopher, that I knew something was going on with Joy, but it wasn't to the extent that it was with Christopher. We had her tested and started on meds and once her adoption also happened and she realized that we were telling her the truth, alot of the behaviors settled down. She still struggled with being impulsive and fidgety and had a hard time focusing, but her behavior was definitely settling down. The main thing that I was concerned about at that point was I noticed it took her a LOT of repetition to learn things. It took her almost 3 years to learn colors, shapes, the alphabet and numbers and phonics and reading was a struggle.
Grace came to us at 23 months and majorly struggled with temper tantrums. She wouldn't explore her environment. She would scream if I put her down or had to go to the bathroom. She either had to be in my arms or she played at my feet. She cried and screamed all of the time. Finally, a respite worker that we had at the time told me that she thought Grace needed to go in Mother's Day Out to work on knowing that I would come back as she screamed and cried so badly. It took her almost a year to learn that. However, she still struggles with crying and throwing temper tantrums over a lot of things. I think it's anxiety related myself. She also struggles with memory and not knowing certain words for things and so when she doesn't know the proper word for what she wants or what she's trying to express, she gets frustrated and starts to cry. She also has been diagnosed with ADHD.
All of my adopted littles struggle with ADHD. Christopher has RAD. My girls have attachment issues, but nothing severe like Christopher. Christopher also has PTSD, is on the autism scale with PDD (pervasive development disorder) and just last week we added another diagnoses due to him having hallucinations and delusions of psychoses nos and due to all the behavioral problems at school, he will be starting to go to the behavioral unit in a couple of weeks. Time will tell what the psychoses diagnoses will turn into.
I continue to pray for God's healing and we continue to go to therapy and different doctors appts to address various needs. Each day brings blessings and trials and I will talk about them here. One day God will show me what His plan is and how He is going to turn it all around for good. I firmly believe that.
Closing our home...
We wound up closing our home to foster care shortly after coming home. We were due for quarterly monitoring and without any foster placements anyway, we just wanted to focus on our new baby girl and making sure that things were going well with our kids with all the new changes and adjustments. Our foster care agency called us asking if we wanted a newborn and Hubby told them that we were thinking about closing our home. They said that with bringing a newborn home, they did see that we were busy. We also didn't have anymore van space. I just wanted to be with our kids and be a family without new littles coming and going, caseworker visits and all the birthparent visits and paperwork. I felt that we had enough changes with the girls adoption and then the birth of Catherine that we just needed to be our own little family for awhile. So, we felt good about our decision and felt that we just needed to focus on our current kids and that if God wanted us to have more children, we would leave the possbility open.
That's the story of how our family came to be thus far...
That's the story of how our family came to be thus far...
Catherine
I went in for my 34 week check-up and found out that my blood pressure was back up and I was having pretty regular contractions. I was sent to the hospital for monitoring for an hour. Imagine my surprise when the doctor himself came in and said he wanted to keep me until I delivered. I had 2 sets of steroid shots and an amnio that showed that she was ready. Catherine came into the world at 35 weeks. She spent a week in the special care nursery and we were able to come home. It was a wonderful feeling to come home to all of my children. They all loved their baby sister and she loved to watch them!
Joy and Grace are finally adopted!
Those couple of weeks went by fast and soon adoption day arrived! Joy and Grace became a part of our family forever that day. More happy tears! Hubby and I felt so very blessed. What answered prayers that God gave us and He watched over my health so that our adoption could go on as planned too! I wanted to natural order of things to prevail as Joy and Grace were here before we found out about the baby coming and God allowed their adoption to be completed as planned. Thank you!!
We're having a baby!!
Towards the end of October, I found out that I was pregnant. We were thrilled! We had given up hope after 9 years and had accepted that God just wanted to grow our family through adoption. Just before Christmas we found out that we were going to have another baby girl. Christopher was a little upset that it wasn't a baby boy, but we were all happy to be having another baby. I wound up in the hospital over spring break in March as I was having contractions. I wasn't due until May 30th, so I went in to be monitored. Due to high blood pressure and diabetes, they decided to keep me. There was talk about maybe transferring me to Big Baylor in Dallas and monitoring me until I delivered so if she had to come early, there was a NICU available to handle a baby that early. I was scared and there was a lot going on with the birthmom and visits with the girls. I was just wanting to complete the girls adoptions before we had our baby too as I felt like they were here before we found out that we were expecting and deserved to have their adoption finalized before the baby was born. I was all wound up (great for your blood pressure) with everything going on, but thankfully tests revealed that it wasn't as serious as they first thought. My Dr. also realized that I was needed at home. I just had to agree to more doctor visits so I could be monitored more closesly. I was thankful too because our adoptions for the girls was just a couple of weeks away.
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