Having A Moment.....

I took the bigs to the dentist yesterday for a regular cleaning. Eldest child needs to brush better (shocker) but nothing terrible to report. While, I realize that none of that sounds interesting in the least, I took the chance to do something that after I did it hit me like a bat up side the head. I was making return appointments for the boys next cleaning in December when it occurred to me that it might be a good time to make an appointment for Mr. Marek to get seen by our dentist after his arrival. So, we guessimated when to make it for and set it up. It was that simple, bam, all done. BAM is right because thats when it hit me to see his name written thier in the appointment book.... this just got VERY REAL! Smack there it goes that bat once again. Mind you, this was not a negative reaction in the least, just a reality check that this little human who has just been a concept in my mind for months well, year really is going to get all to real very soon. I'm looking forward to it and the adventure it brings but to say I'm not nervous about the major changes coming our way would be a big ole lie. Having been there done that with adoption stress before I fully understand just how big of an undertaking this truly is...... WHACK, THERE GOES THAT BAT AGAIN......

Happy Birthday, boy errr, young man.

This is what I see when I think about my oldest son:

A dirty faced little boy with a thick Ukrainian accent with a knack for finding trouble and when he can't find some well then creating some. Like breaking open a glow stick and rubbing the fluid in it all over yourself when your supposed to be sleeping. So, that when Mom and Papa hear you and go upstair to check what's up, they turn on the light to find him standing naked in the middle to the room with a "caught" look of his face. Seeing nothing amiss he's told to put undies on and settle down for bed. As we leave the room and flip the light switch we're faced with a room and boy that look like a murder scene that has been sprayed with Luminol. Glowing brightly in the corner are the underwear he wasn't wearing as he had used them to clean up the fluid that had sprayed out of the glow stick. Light switch on: No Problem, light off: problem! OR another classic Logan; 4th birthday first birthday with a forever family. Well, we had done cake and ice cream with him the day before he did this with extended family. Not having the chance to share in any of his milestones before age 4 we thought in our new parent infinite wisdom, that we'd get some cake on his face and snap a couple of cute pictures. Well, he loved this idea and giggled like crazy when Papa put cake on his face. The next day when Nanny and Papa D come for a birthday visit. We did cake yet again, I mean why not really, its your "first" birthday. Well, apparently our boy learned well from the day before, as soon as he got his cake he grabbed a handful and lobbed it in Nanny's face, in a big BIG WAY. It did NOT go over well with Nanny.

11 (at times trying) years later, that dirty faced boy is making his way out the door and leaving a young man  who, ironically doesn't like cake :) and now mows the lawn instead of wearing it on his head. A young man who is looks forward to his future and finding his place in the world. I love this new young man I have before me but my heart at times miss that little mischievous boy with the accent. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOGAN!!!

LID May 8, 2012

We received our log in date of May 8! So, we are in the pipeline and we can start counting the days! We are looking at around a 2-3 months wait. Arghhh, I hate waiting.

Marek in Graphic!

Michael, my DH who is a print and web graphics guy took a picture of Marek and made this design with it and had it printed on a t-shirt for Marek to wear after Gotcha Day. I love it. Marek will be the coolest kid in GZ, well at least to me!

WE ARE DTC! 4/19/2012

DTC means dossier to China. It means our packet of paperwork explaining who we are, a small slice of our life and officially asking permission for us to adopt Chen Hui Jun is on its way to the CCCWA in China. The next thing we should be hearing is that we have a LID or Log In Date, the date Chinese officials put our paperwork into the pipeline to approval. Now we have a hopefully not to long to wait, for that and then we can start counting the days to approval.

Blog Rewind: Feb. 7, 2012

In February, with the help of Ladybugs and Love, we received an update. We learned that lots of things had changed for Master Hui Jun. First, we discovered that at that time he had been moved to a foster home in Beijing from the orphanage in Baoji. We were thrilled to learn that he was now in a foster care in hopes that there he is able to form a good bond with the foster parents. I think its safe to say that our biggest worry is that he will have attachment issues. He having been down that road with Logan, we understand what a tough road that is but at least as we have said we a that dark hole and are making our way out so we get the attachment drill. (Do we ever!)  We also learned most important and most unexpectedly that he had the surgery that we discussed in the last post.  Anyway, the little guy gets cuter by the day and we get more anxious by the day to get him to where he belongs, right here amid this wacky clan!

Blog Rewind 2/2012 Marek's Special Need

Marek's adoption is a Special Needs Adoption from China. So, I thought take the time to tell you a little about what he's got going on.  Marek has deformities of both of his hands and one of his feet. From what the doctors who have looked at his file for us have said from the information we have is that it appears that he is affected by something called ABS or Amniotic Band Syndrome. Here a definition of ABS from amnioticbandsyndrome.com:

What is Amniotic Band Syndrome? ABS occurs when the fetus becomes entangled in fibrous string-like amniotic bands in the womb, restricting blood flow and affecting the baby’s development. If a band wraps tightly around a limb, the limb can actually be completely amputated. If the band is across the baby’s face it can cause cleft palate. In a large number of cases the baby is also born with clubfeet. ABS is also the cause of numerous miscarriages, such as when a band becomes wrapped around the umbilical cord. ABS occurs randomly. It’s not genetic, nor is it caused by anything a pregnant Mom did or didn’t do during pregnancy. Just because a person already has one child with ABS, that doesn’t make it any more likely that it’s going to affect a future pregnancy.

We have learned that he recently had reconstructive surgery on his fused hand. I am amazed by what they had done. His hand looks so well, USEFUL! His "need" in quickly turning into a non issue. We understand that he was have to learn to do certain things differently but certainly with these improvements nothing is going to get in his way! We have the name of a great hand surgeon that we got from a awesome source whose father was a world known hand surgeon before he retired. His foot is really a very minor deformity so we will leave with before and after pictures of his hands.

Blog Rewind to 12/11/2011

Here are some other early pictures we have gotten of our soon to be new, young son Hui Jun. He appears to be about 8 months old or so and well, just pretty darn cute!

                                     

Blog Rewind!

So, this was the announcement we did to tell our family and friends that we were adopting again:

 We invite you to join us on our journey to adopt again. This time to Baoji City in the Shaanxi province of China.  Thats in central China for the curious. We received pre-approval from China to adopt this little guy on 11/1/11. His name currently is Chen but we are planning to call him Marek Pierce Desjadon. Marek is pronounced like Derek but with an M. Pierce is of course, a president (go figure, right?).  He was born on September 18, 2009. We are currently in the midst of our homestudy which is just the beginning step of this adventure.  We have more information to share about him so please bookmark the site and check in with us here.  We will keep you posted on where we are at in the process and feel free to leave comments here. Just hit the button to the right of the Post title, “Anyone for Chinese Take out?”. It looks like a gray box with chinese characters. Push it then a comment box appears at the very bottom of the post under Marek’s pictures.  We are hoping to hear  you are as excited as we are.

NEW BLOG

So, as I'm sure you've noticed I decided to move the blog. Why? Well, I found WordPress on the other blog very hard to use for the techno not savvy...i.e. me! Blogger seems to be much easier so I'm going to play around for a bit and see what I think.