J's Surgery

J had his tonsils and adenoids out on Tuesday. Here he is waiting to go back for the surgery.
He is SO good about having medical procedures done. He whines a little but doesn't fight it and barely cries. And here we are admitted into our hospital room. The Dr. wanted him to stay overnight for observation since he was diagnosed with "severe obstructive sleep apnea". She said that his adenoids were so big that they were virtually cutting off his air supply. Yikes!
I ordered him peaches, jello, and icecream and in about 3 hours he ate it all! That night he moved on to mac n cheese and spaghettios. We were model patients with getting him to rest and drink.

A volunteer came and did a craft with him.

The next morning he really wanted to get his own clothes on and was begging to have his IV port taken out, which they didn't do until right before dismissal.

He watched TV nonstop and was very happy to do so! Toy Story 3 kept coming on the movie channels and this is his favorite movie, so that kept him very entertained. My biggest complaint was that the nurses did not check on us very often at all and I had to ask 4 times in a timespan of 40 minutes for his pain meds to be brought to him. If they mail me a survey of our visit, I will be filling it out for sure. Also, when they took his IV out, his hand didnt clot so I looked down and his whole had was covered in blood and dripping all over the floor. That made him very upset as were were being discharged.

Today, our biggest problem is that he does not want to swallow- even with his pain meds being given every 4 hours round the clock. So he talks muffled with a huge mouth full of spit and you can imagine how hard it is to get him to chew and swallow any food! He kept his one bite of pancake in his mouth for 15 minutes until I made him spit it out.

So I know I am going to be in for long day of him saying he is hungry. :(

Update on J's Adoption...and an AMAZING Surprise Gift!

Close As Can Be

These two continue to be the best of friends! Today, J's caseworker came for a visit. The bad news first: she has done NOTHING in the way of ruling out the birthfather. And I mean nothing. I was very frank with her about how frustrating that is to hear being that this child has been in the foster care system for 7 months and they could have either: a)found him by now and had him sign a waiver to his paternal rights or b) ruled him out as unknown and terminated his rights in court. She had nothing to say to that. So as of now, there is a court hearing at the end of May to do that and then of course "his" 45 day appeal period will then go into effect. So that puts us at a July adoption date at the earliest. Billy and I could not be more ticked off. He will be calling our attorney on Monday to see what if anything we can do to expedite this obnoxious process. *Huge Sigh*

The good news: she handed me two letters from the boys' birthmother! One to us and one to the boys. This is SO big for us because we have never had anything from the birthfamily, not a picture, not a token of Isaac's infancy, nothing. I read them and scanned them immediately for preservation. The letters will remain their private property but I wanted to share a few lines from our letter:

"To The Family That Adopted My Boys"

"...I would like to thank you for taking both of my babies and loving them as your own...I do love and miss them...I will try to keep in contact through letters and cards if that is okay with you...maybe one day God will bless us to meet personally and then I can tell you how grateful that I am."

And my favorite line in their letter said, "letting you go live with your Mommy and Family was the best thing for both of you."

All I can say is "WOW." What an amazing gift to us and them. This is especially amazing coming from children who were removed from foster care. For her to want to do that for them despite her sadness in losing them, is more than we could ever ask for. And it makes maintaining contact with her through pictures and letters all the more meaningful. I want to take her in a big hug and cry with her for the raw end she was dealt in life, for all the bad decisions that led her to this place, and for the gift of life that she gave to my sons. I want to tell her that I know if she could have the life she wanted; she would be healthy, make positive life choices, get clean, and be able to raise the boys she gave birth to. But because she can't or won't, our life is richer and more full. And that just doesn't seem fair, in so many ways it is not. However, I also know my body didn't work right because our God had a bigger plan for my children to come to me, and that plan involved loss and deep sadness for all of us. But the outcome is that I have smiling, happy, thriving sons and a daughter who are the absolute world to me. And that the path that brought us all to this place was worth it a hundred times over.

As I end this blog post (can you tell my head is not so foggy anymore?! Praise God!) I wanted to explain this picture. We put Vivi in J's bed the other night and when we came into check on them, this is what we found:

It appears as though they tried to make pallets on the floor and decided on the beanbag chair instead:

Awwwww....
We really do have the most wonderful kids!! :)

One Step Closer...

This afternoon, mediation is scheduled on J's case with CPS and the attorneys to move his case towards termination and adoption. We thought we were waiting to find out of his birthmother would show up to sign relinquishment papers, but it turns out she already did that!! She won't be coming today, but her attorney will be there to work out the details and get the paperwork ready to be submitted to the judge. We should have some kind of time frame at the end of next month as to when we will be able to go to court to finalize. We are one step closer to J becoming OURS forever!!

J's Sleep Study

We were both able to take J to his sleep study thanks to our friends Jen and Jay who kept the older two. I laid out all his stuff to make his hospital bed look familiar.
He wanted to put his suitcase in the closet!

Then we trotted down to the lounge for a drink.

He sucked down an orange juice.

Then the sleep study tech told us to really get him active and tired, so we ran up and down the halls for about 20 minutes. There were 3 other toddlers on that floor participating in sleep studies...but none of them came out to run.

Playing chase with Daddy.

Then we went back and watched TV for about 30 minutes while he had a snack and began to look droppy eyed. That is when we paged the techs to come in and hook him up!

It took over an hour for all of the wires to be taped on.

He sat perfectly still while the TV played Despicable Me in Spanish!

He didn't seem to mind any of it. They said they see few patients this young that take to it so well. We found that out quickly because when they moved on to the next room we had to endure blood curdling screams for about 30 minutes while they got another kid hooked up.

That's our boy!!!
We were very proud.

then it was time to lay down and shut off the tv and lights.

I laid with Billy for about a half an hour waiting for J to fall asleep. The screaming kid and other hospital noises kept him up so I kissed him and headed home.

Billy told me that two times in the night the tech came in and was concerned about how much congestion he had. He called a Dr. to see if he should proceed with the sleep study despite his trouble breathing. They had oxygen in his nose, so we are glad they kept going with the study. They released him around 6 this morning. We should know the results in about 2 weeks.

Sleep Study

I have spent the entire week trying to get the ENT for J to call me back because he was supposed to have a sleep study scheduled for this month. He has had a runny nose practically non stop since he came home and his cousins have bad asthma...so I really feel agitated that we have not been able to get exactly the medical treatment that J needs. He snores like a bear and lately I have found him sleeping with his eyes open!! He is also a constant mouth breather, his mouth is always open because he can't breathe through his nose. So, getting this sleep study is the next step to see if he has sleep apnea or anything related to that. The ENT finally called me back yesterday and said they put the order in, but when I called the sleep clinic, they said it was not in their system! So frustrating! She said that their first available is mid March...lovely. Then after looking through her books she noticed that she had a cancelation for tonight! I of course snatched it right up. We have asked our friends if they can keep the older two so Billy and I can both take him to the hospital to get settled. Then I will come home while Billy stays the night in the room. If our friends can't keep Isaac and Vivi, looks like Billy will be heading off on his own. He will get better rest on a hospital room couch than I would, so it is the best plan. I have all of J's items packed and ready to go. I will feed him dinner, bathe him, and send him off in his pj's and pull-up. Let's hope for some results!!!

J's Birthday Party

J had a wonderful birthday and started his first day of school!
(for clarification: his tie is screenprinted on the black sweater. I didn't put him in a tie for school. LOL)
He woke up Sunday morning to donuts and balloons. and got to play with the toys we bought with the giftcard his grandparents gave him.

I tied balloons to a little firetruck which he wanted to open right away!

On our way to dinner, we saw an actual firetruck!

Perfect. :)

Our friends (who have never missed one of our kids birthdays),

Jen and Jay met us for pizza!

There were maybe 3 other customers in the whole place because of the snow, so I set his party up in a quiet corner and then we took our pizza buffet to the movie room which was playing Despicable Me.

I bought licorice to represent fire hoses and firetruck plates/napkins.

Vivi helped me shop for their party favors, candy cups with a fireman action figure.

J loved playing games.

And riding this and the giant rocking pirate ship.

After games it was cupcake time!

He had the sweetest smiles when we sang to him!

Then presents! We gave him a Little People firestation and some bath pirate toys.

He had a great day! He kept saying "My birfday, Mommy?"

We love you, J!!!

The Latest With J!

I have several big announcements to make about J!

The first is that he is potty trained!!! We have been diaper free since Friday. He has done really well with only about one accident a day. We are 50/50 on doing #2 in the potty so I am hoping that gets better as he learns control. He is loving sporting his big boy underpants (and choosing from Mickey, Buzz, Wall-E, The Incredibles, Nemo, or Elmo) and putting stickers on his chart.

(Please excuse his little dry ankles in this photo! It is wintertime, but we are now on a prescription for excema ;)

He probably could have been potty trained months ago, but I just didn't have time to devote to it. I was joking with some friends on the phone that the 3rd child has to train themselves! There was not quite the fan fair that the other two got when they were training. Basically I put a basket of books and clean underwear in the bathroom, a sticker chart on the wall, and told him to go for it! Thank goodness he is super independent because my attention is pulled in so many different directions to be sitting in a bathroom for long periods of time! In other news, J officially graduated from ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) and has qualified for PPCD (Public Preschool for Children with Disabilities), which means he will get to go to school every morning M-F!!! He will actually be going to the same elementary school that Isaac goes to from 7:45-10:45 a.m. this semester and in the fall until his annual review comes up next January. Then they will determine if he still qualifies for PPCD with a speech impairment. I could not be more thrilled because he is going to be in a Pre-K classroom (like Isaac was) with four teachers and will be receiving all of that curriculum plus a speech therapist weekly. The fun part is, he starts on Monday! Why so soon? Well...our little guy will be turning 3 years old this Sunday and the program takes children as soon as they turn 3 and are kicked out of the ECI program.So onto the final news announcement...as I said, our baby is turning THREE years old!! Can you believe it? He has come such a long way from the chubby little two and a half year old that came home last summer. He is taller, leaner, stronger, and much more active. We have decided to forgo hosting a party because he will have his big adoption party in the Spring/Summer when we finalize. But we will celebrate his birthday, and of course my party planning mind has already taken care of where we will go and the theme! He loves firetrucks so that is the theme of his little family celebration and he loves pizza, so we will take him to his first trip to Gattitown. I bought him some firetruck themed gifts and party favors for he and his siblings. It should be fun!

I will post photos on Sunday.

Update on J

I did not realize by "teasing" you with an update on J...that I would stir up such emotions!! LOL. Ya'll are too sweet to stay up with our family, so since this is the easier of the two posts I promised this week...I will go for it!

Friday before the boys got here, J's attorney ad litem came and gave him this cute Vtech apple toy. She was concerned that he was the only only one getting to open a gift (she shops for 27 kids that she has cases for!) But I assured her that Vivi would be fine with watching J receive a gift because a)we share all toys in this family and b) I adhere to the learning lesson that life is not fair and does not have to be and the earliest age kids realize that the better off they will be to face to BIG injustices in the world. The attorney was impressed with that and his stocking on the mantel. She literally said, "you all are SO normal. Not all of my families are like this. I wish my other foster Moms would get on the floor and play with their kids instead of just seeing it as a job." She said we are a "real" family (I could have told her that!) and she was bragging on us to the other attorneys at her office! What a compliment!

So his attorney was able to tell me what happened at our December 7th hearing, where CPS went to court to tell the judge that they would be petitioning for termination of parental rights. His birthmother did not show up. J's attorney appoached her attorney who was there and told her she thought this was ridiculous and that they needed to get her to relinquish rights. She called his birthmother on the phone during a recess to tell her what CPS would be pursuing and that it would be in her best interest to go to mediation and sign her rights off on him, allowing him to be adopted by us. She said she was interested in pursueing that route!! Great news for all of us really. She has not worked her service plan at all...not one thing (including even visiting him since October)...so getting him back was not going to be a reality. And he deserves to have a permanent, stable family and to grow up with one of his 3 biological brothers. So she said she will be putting the paperwork in this week for mediation and that we should have a date set by mid January. That means if she signs off at the end of January, she will be given 30 days to appeal it in court (which she will not do) and after that time parental rights will be terminated. The attorney said we could be looking at a late spring to early summer finalization on his adoption! Woohoo!!! She is working out an agreement that says we will send letters and do up to two visits a year at a McDonalds.

On a sidenote, we were able to talk to K this weekend about us adopting J and his thoughts. He said it was great because he is bonded to us and calls us mom and dad. He said "and taking him away from his parents wouldn't be right." Billy asked him if it was strange to him that his cousins have white parents and he said not at all. He told me it was great that J got out of that home when he was young and could bounce back from all the junk going on there. We are very excited to make him a permanent part of our family, but he has been ours since the day he came home.

CPS Troubles....

Billy and I have been fuming since yesterday morning when we went to J's Permanency Conference at the CPS office. There were 6 people there (8 with us) and the purpose was to officially change his plan from reunification to termination. That all went fine and well, until the Supervisor asks about the birthfather. We have been led to believe that it was unknown all along, so that nothing needed to be done in regards to this. Well our caseworker (who some days I want to hug and other days I could strangle), says "ummm....well....ummm. Birthmother gave me a name but then she retracted it." She gives the full name outloud and the Supervisor goes off on how they need to do their "due diligence" with this guy and contact him and do a paternity test and yada yada. Billy and I look at each other like "what the heck?" I said "why is this just coming up now? This should have been done 5 months ago when he first entered care. Isn't that part of the process of ruling out all relative placements?" Noone had an answer for that. And the other bad news was that they won't even schedule mediation with Birthmom (where they give her the option to sign relinquishment papers vs. being taken to court) until mid to late January, at the earliest. The problem with that is there is a new law that gives a 90 day appeal process to any family members that want to step forward and have a homestudy done. We are not worried that will happen, because all of the family live in the home that is deemed unfit. However, this ghost of a birthfather could throw a wrench in things, if he is found and chooses not to sign. If the Birthmother signs in January, the appeal window will extend until end of April-ish. Then it takes them 30-60 days to file his case as adoption, and then another month or so for us to be scheduled a court date. That puts us into June or July for finalization. I know in the grand scheme of things, one year is not long for a child to enter the foster care system and be adopted. But for us it is a lifetime, because this child is our precious baby boy and until he legally has our last name, he can't be considered our son. I was hoping to have a court date by Spring Break, but that is not going to happen. It just makes me mad. Billy has been in contact with our adoption attorney, and being that we are the parents of J's brother, we do have legal claim on him after he has been in our home for 6 months (January 28th). So until then, I will be riding his caseworker to rule out the birthfather so we can just move along without the need for legal aide. Ahhhh....the ups and downs of adopting through the foster care system....

J had his surgery today!!!!

J was able to go in for his oral surgery to fill what ended up being twelve cavities!
He enjoyed the admissions waiting area.

There were beautiful windows.

We pointed at the kite decoration outside.

Then they called us back and Daddy tied on J's gown.

He was SO cute in his gown!

The bed was waiting for us with a hat for him to keep and some toys and books to play with!

AND he got to watch Dinosaur Train...all the comforts of home.

He wasn't scared and let the nurse wheel him right out.

Of course he had a dose of "silly juice" which was putting him to sleep already!

He was in surgery for an hour and a half. Now he has silver lining the inside of the top and bottom teeth. I called it his "Grill". The dentist said he will be prone to decay throughout his life because of this early issue. So sad.

Billy went to get Vivi from school while I was in recovery with J. He woke up, I dressed him, and they wheeled the kids out to our waiting van in a fun wagon!

His recovery was brutal for Mommy. I set him up on the couch with juice and jello. He whined and fussed about EVERYTHING all afternoon. At times I had to have him on my chest for awhile to get him to settle. I understood why...every kid needs their Mommy when they don't feel good... but it was hard to deal with all the fussing coming from my normally easy going child. Then I rocked him to sleep at 6:30. My shirt was covered in drool and mucas/blood from the discharge. The tube down his throat to allow him to breath during the surgery made for a bloody nose all afternoon. Then after he slept for about an hour, he was throwing up mucus on his pillow and blanket, so I changed those and then had him sit with me while we watched the season premiere of The Office. There was no consoling him in bed, so he hung out with Mommy and Daddy for awhile!

Here is to hoping that tomorrow my sunny child will be back in action!