Ana's First Christmas Home

                                       
                               We are so grateful! Thank you for this precious blessing, Lord Jesus!

 

Jonathan loves his little sister!

 

 

My sister made Ana this tu-tu and she looks so cute in it!

 

 

 He sure loves his little girl!

 

 

Ana is a blessing to all of us!!!! We love her so much!

 

 

Homecoming Pictures

This first picture is of our two sons, Jonathan (age 5) and Benjamin (age 2), waiting for us at the airport. The second picture is of Mike, Ana and me coming down the escalator and seeing our boys for the first time in nine days. :)

Jonathan and Benjamin watching their new sister, with smiles on their faces.

Our family of five, together at last!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                 
                                                           Benjamin giving Ana a hug :)

Looking back at these pictures it is hard to believe that this was not even two weeks ago. It is starting to feel as though Ana has always been in our family. I know that I have said this before, but it is such a privilege to love her, to teach her, and to be her mommy! We are so grateful for God's faithfulness in bringing Ana into our family! God is so good!

Seeing The World Through New Lenses

Ana and Daddy just picked up her new glasses. Mike said that Ana was extremely unhappy as they were putting them on, but after just a couple of minutes she was looking around. She has taken them off twice since she has been home, but overall I think that it will go better than I expected. I'm very excited for Ana to finally be able to see well! Thank you, Lord, for yet another blessing!

Enjoying Our Little Girl

                                         Our Beautiful Princess-Daughter of the King of Kings

                                          Look at this precious face!  We love this girl!

                                          One of Ana's many faces--she's too cute!

Ana is doing very well! We are getting to know her better every day and we couldn't love her more! She is starting to feel much more comfortable with us...which we are very happy about! She loves to be tickled and loves to be picked up. However, Ana has started to feel comfortable with everyone, so she will lunge towards a stranger for them to hold her. And this happens when Mike and I are holding her. So, we are going to be the only ones to hold her now. The bonding is just so important! We feel bad telling people that they can't hold her, especially when she lunges for them, but we know that most people will understand.

Ana will be sporting glasses with big pink rubber frames in just a few days :). We were really hoping to go with wire frames but they only had one pair small enough for her and we know that it is going to take a while to teach her to leave them on her face. So, frames that have a strap and are hardier are a much better choice for Ana. After the lady that was helping us met Ana and watched her interact with the glasses, she quickly brought out the rubber ones and assured us that this is the best choice for Ana :). As I mentioned before, Ana is very strong...and we love her just the way she is!

Ana is still eating pureed food only--mostly baby food. I tried giving her regular oatmeal and she was not able to eat it. She kept gagging and pushing it out of her mouth with her tongue. She is doing better with not spitting up if we give her small amounts. However, if we feed her too much then she will spit up, even with the medicine for reflux. So, we are feeding her small amounts of food every two and a half hours throughout the day. She eats mostly anything we offer her. She didn't care for the turkey (baby food), but I don't blame her for that. She did eat the chicken and gravy (baby food). She eats vegetables, baby rice cereal and oatmeal, yogurt, applesauce, pureed fruits, yogurt, mashed potatoes etc. She has no clue how to bite food or chew. Her teeth are very ground down from her grinding them so much. She will be seeing a dentist soon.

Ana only knows only interacts with toys and other objects  in one way. If they have a loop or handle, she picks them up and puts her thumb through the loop and shakes them. If it does not have a loop shes will pick it up by the corner and shake it. She loves to grab Jonathan's and Ben's fingers and shake their hands. And they are both so proud when she does it. Jonathan will say, "Look Mom, Ana likes me." They are both doing so good with her!

This is all I have time for now. I will update more as I can. Thank you all again for your prayers and support! My mom has pictures of our homecoming on her camera. I will try to get them from her and post them soon!

Doctors, Doctors and More Doctors!

I'm just going to post a quick update. I still hope to post pictures as soon as I get a chance. However, at this point it's looking that is not going to be anytime soon. :)

Our pediatrician is absolutely wonderful. She is so thorough, proactive, and answers all of our questions. Ana is on medicine for an eye infection and is on Zantac for reflux. (She has been spitting up after every meal since we picked her up from the orphanage.) After taking the medicine, she did not spit up even once yesterday!

Ana weighs 25 pounds and is 35 inches. She is not even in the 1st percentile on the growth charts for children with Down Syndrome. We go back for a weight check in a month.

We had an appointment with a pediatric eye specialist yesterday. Ana is getting glasses to help with her strabismus. The good news is that she still has vision in her bad eye. We were very happy to hear that! We are not sure how much she can see, but we were afraid that she had lost her vision in that eye because her strabismus had been left untreated for so long. We also have to patch her good eye for one hour a day to make her bad eye to have to work more. We are going to attempt to pick out glasses today, so we will see how that goes. :)

Ana had a lot of blood work done and I have had to collect stool samples. I still have to get a urine sample. Ana was not happy about sitting on the potty yesterday. Getting the sample is going to be a challenge, but I am going to keep trying because I do not want them to have to cath her to get it.

I was very nervous about having all of these appointments so quickly after getting her home. But we prayed about it and it has actually given me a lot of one on one time with her and a lot of time to cuddle. She was very content to sit on my lap yesterday and lay her head on my chest while we waited at the doctor's office. We know that all of these things have to get done, and God has been opening doors to get appointments quickly, so we are just going with it.

It has been such a joy to get to know Ana better! She is absolutely a sweetheart! She is also a fighter. I try to warn the doctors about how strong she is when they try to examine her, but they are always surprised when they see it for themselves. She squeezed her eyes shut so hard yesterday that the nurse could hardly pull them open to put in eye drops. And Ana was not going to let the pediatrician look in her mouth without a fight! Yesterday was the first day that Mike and I were able to brush her teeth. We were not able to get her mouth open before last night. We did it with her lying on the changing table and it worked much better. I think that the "fight" in Ana is one of the main reasons that she did as well as she did in the orphanage that she lived in for most of her life. Our little girl is strong...and we love her just the way she is!!!!!

It is a blessing to love Ana and we thank God every day for her life!

We're Home!

Sorry that I didn't post sooner. We are home!!!!! Everyone is doing well. I will try to write more and post some pictures when I have time.

Thank you again for all of your support!
-Gail