7/17/007

Olivia is so sweet 95% of the time, but she throws some dozy tantrums when she doesn't get her way. Her behavior and maturity reminds me of about a 1-2 year old, not the 6 1/2 year old she is. However she was the oldest child and the orphanage and in a group with babies, many of which were mentally impaired. I can clearly see she mimics their behavior. We just don't respond to her tantrums, she is immediately put in a time out and they have lessoned substantially since we first brought her home. They are now only 10 minutes or so, when they were initially about a hour or more.

She seems to play more with our twin son Bennett then his twin Bailey. But she is a rough and tumble girl, and Bailey is very feminine and likes to stay clean. So Bennett is more her speed.

We had swimming lessons last week and Olivia LOVES swimming, she wants to jump off the high dive and go down the huge slides... She is definitely fearless. I am glad that she loves swimming as I think that it will be such great therapy for her muscles. Though currently with no arm muscles and very limited use of one of her legs I don't think she will be able to swim alone yet... but hopefully with therapy and practice she will be soon.
Olive also loves getting dressed every morning, she is excited to wear ANYTHING. She also loves having her hair and nails done and loves jewelry. She loves baths and having her hair washed.

She does have to go to the bathroom ALL THE TIME... I think this has to do with the potty training at the orphanage, they put them on the toilet every hour, so I think that she is used to peeing every hour... Ughhh Just in case it is a medical issue we will talk to her doctor about that one.

7/16/2007 Bad Dental News - Accepted to Shriners

We went to the dentist today and learned that she has cavities in all her molars, so that is about $3,000 in dental work, plus the hospital surgery room fee, and anesthesiologists fee. We were expecting all the medical bills, but this is another large expense that we weren't planning on. Hopefully our insurance will pick up most the tab, but this is well above our annual dental limit (per person). So I am not sure what we will be responsible for, and what insurance will cover.

Shriners called and we will have our first doctor appointment on August 2nd. We are so excited to finally speak to a doctor that knows something about her condition, and can give us some idea on what treatment plan we will start and what sort of help or results they expect for Olivia. We are also waiting to get in and get her testing done so that she can start school.

On a good note we just learned that we were accepted to Shriners, which is a HUGE relief. With all her medical needs even the co-pays and our % of the bill can really add up. But even more importantly Olivia's condition is rare and very few doctors have any experience with it. Shriners treats children with her condition all the time, so I know she will get the best treatment there. I don't know what all they will do or cover until we have our first appointment.. But it is still a relief.

7/14/2007 Olivia's English

It is amazing how quickly Olivia is learning English, she says new words every day, sometimes several in a day. She knows all her colors and basic foods (she loves pickles and white bread with butter), she also knows allot of the animals. She also keeps saying "be careful" which is so funny to me with her limited English. She also learned "OWIE" on the plane on the way home since she is so sick.

7/13/2007 Sick since coming home

I have been sick since we have been home.. I constantly feel like I am going to throw up... even thought I never do... I have gone to the urgent care, and then the Emergency Room, and they both ran several tests, but still we haven't found anything technically wrong... so I am trying to get to see a gastrointestinal doctor this week.

7/12/2007 INS Appointment - Certificate of Citizenship

I when to the INS office to try and see how we get PROOF she is a citizen. We were initially told that all we needed to do was show her visa with her stamp and that was proof that she was a citizen. We learned from the social security office that this is not true. Then the INS office informs me that we will need to apply for a certificate of citizenship, which can take 30-45 days AND costs $215 AND we have to bring in 2 passport photos. I personally think that it is ridiculous that we have to pay for proof our daughter is a citizen. We have already paid a small fortune in fees, and paid the INS fees for permission to bring her home, and not we have to pay to PROVE she is a US citizen. It seems that everything is always such a hurdle.

When I got home from the office I called several offices (homeland security, social security, etc), I tried to explain our situation and that we really couldn't wait 30-45 days to get her social security number that we needed it to proceed with other things that our daughter needs to start her care. The social security office told me that if I can get a passport I won't have to get her certificate of citizenship. So I have scheduled an appointment for next week, lets keep our fingers crossed that they will issue a passport.

04/02/2007 10th Orphanage Visit

Our 10th visit... When we arrived at the orphanage today Olivia was waiting at the window jumping up and down. When she came in the room she seemed more excited then the last few days. We learned that she was crying when we didn’t come the day before, she said that she cried a lot… which surprised us since we had the translator tell her that we wouldn’t be coming. I worry if our court date is delayed that she will not understand if we have to travel home for weeks before the adoption process if finalized. So hopefully we won’t have to leave the country.

I feel bad that she was upset and worried that she thought that we had changed our minds on her adoption - especially when we just brought in the other baby (Pearl). Today Pearl was ill and had a fever. We also heard back from the department of education that they would not allow us to adopt baby Pearl - we will only be allowed to adopt one child - so we will proceed with Olivia’s adoption only.

If anyone knows someone that is interested in adopting Pearl is a SWEET baby girl. She is very happy and laughs a lot and likes to play. If she is this pleasant only 2 days after her surgery you can imagine what a delightful child she is the rest of the time. I wish that we could come back for her, but our children at home are already very sad that we have left and between the expenses to return, and all of Olivia’s medical needs I don’t think that will be possible, at least in the near future.

04/01/2007

Today we are not allowed to visit Olivia. We slept in a little and planned to go to a restaurant that was down the strip for breakfast at 10am, since the rest of the week we are at the orphanage we weren’t able to try their breakfast. We walked in slight rain all the way there to find they were closed even though we had specifically asked about their breakfast. We weren’t sure if they had different hours on Sunday, or why they weren’t opened. They have no signs on their door with hours or days of operation. We stopped by another restaurant they were also closed, so we decided to just head back to our hotel, since by this time we were pretty soaked.

Since we can’t pronounce the babies Kazak name I wanted to pick an American name for her, so that we can call her something besides “baby”. We tonight we agreed on Lily Pearl. Since she is Kazak she looks Asian (Olivia is Russian). We thought Lily was fitting, and we liked that her name meant Pearl and thought that was pretty so for now that will be her name. We realize the chances are very low that we will get to adopt her but we are embarrassing her for now. Worst case she gets to spend 2 hours a day with us and get extra attention. Well it is almost 1:00 am, so I better sign off for now.