She's BACK!!!!!

The spunk has returned!!!!

Miss Sofie Lu is almost back to her normal self.....almost. She has ditched the no no's (arm restraints) and only has 3 more days of the puree diet. The ear drops were done today and we have 3 more days of the antibiotic.  We are concerned she may have developed a fistula in her palate, but, there is nothing that they can do about it right now if she has so only time will tell. She is still a little clingy but nothing like a few days ago. When I have more time I will go through the whole last week in more detail, mostly to chronicle Sofie's story for her. I am tired and don't have any time right now......I have a pile of laundry to do again :) The best part, her smile is back and it hasn't changed a bit.......as soon as I can get her to hold still long enough I will get a picture of it :)

Set back

It has been a crazy few days. I have had little sleep and no time to myself. Sunday night we ended up in the ER with Sofie who spiked a 104 degree fever. Her ear looked red and she was tugging at it but that didn't really explain the severity of the fever. Turns out she has pneumonia. Poor little thing is just not herself. After a round of IV fluids and IV antibiotics, they finally let us go home around 11 pm. I was so afraid that we would have to stay the night again. The visit to the ER has set us back tremendously. She has regressed an unbelievable amount. She is back to not letting me any farther than a couple of feet from her and she will no longer sleep in her pack and play. She will only sleep with me. Sofie has gone back to rocking back and forth to soothe herself and this morning the catatonic look that we first saw in China was back again. It just breaks my heart to see her like this especially since Saturday afternoon she was outside running around and playing with the kids. This has also taken a toll on Ainsley.  She is very worried about her sister but doesn't quite know how to talk about it or express it. I do not know what we would do if my Mom were not here. She is a lifesaver!!! I think this family might have imploded already is not for her. We certainly would be eating more take out!!!

Please say some prayers for Sofie. I so desperately want to see my spunky little Sofie Lu return :)

All Done...and home already!!

Sofie had all her surgeries successfully completed with no problems yesterday. It took us a while to get her pain under control but then she just took off. This child continues to astound and amaze me. She has been happy with just Tylenol with codeine and ibuprofen. She hasn't had any morphine since last night at 9 pm.  Last night was good. She slept for almost 4 hours in a row. Jim and I did not however so we are seriously tired. I need to go to bed but I wanted to update everyone. I also need to tell a Sofie story.....she does some pretty amazing, funny things.

This morning we were debating whether or not to leave the hospital today, one day early, or stay the time period that we were supposed to. I had decided that we should stay as she just wasn't quite spunky enough for me to want to take her home. She still seemed to be having pain and just wasn't totally settled.  She must have heard me because suddenly she wanted to leave the room and go for a walk. Off she and Jim headed down the hall, her in her jammies toting her IV pole along. She turned into a totally different child just like that. She didn't want to stop at all. Jim finally left the hospital to go pick up my Mom and Ainsley for a visit. We decided to wait until her last dose of Tylenol at 2 pm before we decided whether or not to leave. Our surgeon was fine with us leaving today. Again, Sofie must have figured it all out. She started dancing in the room along with her IV pole and all the tubing. We went and talked to the nurse about getting rid of the pump and just keeping the IV in her arm. So now IV pump free,  she got very upset when Jim left. She took one look at me and pointed to the door. She then crawled out of my lap and started dragging her IV pole across the room. I went over to stop her and she grabbed my hand and put it on the pump and pointed to the door again. She wanted the pump out of the room, NOW!! I put it near the door and she continued to push it right out the door into the hall. She then walked back into the room, grabbed my purse, pointed to me and then to the overnight bag and then back at me as if to say, grab the bag Mommy, we are outta here!! She then proceeded to walk out of the room. Needles to say, we were discharged today mostly to avoid a complete revolt!! She came home and then played all evening until she went off to bed.  Like I said earlier, she totally amazing and astounds me all the time. She is one tough little girl. Some pics to tide you over until I can get her to hold still long enough for some proper pictures.

Pre operatively goofing around with Daddy

Our sweet little angel :)

The view from our room

Naptime with Daddy

Surgery Tomorrow

Sofie will have her lip revision, palate repair, ear tubes and hernia repair tomorrow at 7:30am. I won't go into great detail tonight as I will end up in tears and I have too much to do :) Please keep in in your thoughts. It broke my heart putting her to sleep tonight as she has no idea what she is in for tomorrow and I have no way to make her understand. I just lay beside her and watched her sweet little face as she slept. She is adorable!!!!!

Today we also figured out what she means when she points at something and says "HO". It means NO and I cannot believe it has taken us this long to figure it out. She says it a lot :)

Pictures!!!

Just some recent photos!!!

Too cute!!!!

One Week

One week from today our little Sofie Lu Jingjing will have her palate,lip,hernia and ear tube surgeries done. It is finally starting to sink in and I cannot believe how fast it has come up. Time just seems to fly by. Jim and I are starting to get very anxious about her surgery. Sometimes medical knowledge is not a good thing. I am also very concerned for Ainsley. She is very stressed out about her sisters surgery and she broke down the other night and cried that she doesn't want to be apart from her sister. She is such a sweet, caring little girl who loves her sister dearly. She has already started making cards and posters for Sofie's hospital room. That's my Ainsley!!
The friend that we travelled to Hefei with sent a very sweet care package to us for Sofie's surgery day. It had a Starbuck's coffee card, chocolate, instant espresso, a Crayola color explosion kit, stickers, cute hair elastics, leg warmers for post op and, of course, from her older daughter, nail polish strips for Ainsley :) I so appreciate this wonderful gift. I know how busy she must be because we are too. It would have taken me months to get this together and mail it :) Thank you!!!!!!!!!

I love my Mom and Dad!!!!

My Mom and Dad are the best. Not only for the values that they have taught me, but also, because they have always been there for me with either advice, love, a shoulder to cry on or just support for every decision that I make, good or bad. They are always the word of caution, but then fully support me and my family no matter what. It is very hard living so far away from them, especially once you have children of your own. We have no immediate family near us so we have always had to depend on ourselves or friends for help with the kids. We were a little concerned with Sofie's surgery coming up as to where Ainsley was going to stay. Several wonderful friends, and you know who you are, have offered to help  and we are very thankful for that. I was concerned with Ainsley staying somewhere else other than home. Worse case scenario, Jim would stay home and I would stay at the hospital with Sofie. I didn't really like this as I think that it is very important for Jim to be there with Sofie too. My Mom and Dad were unable to come down and stay with her for a variety of reasons so I hadn't even considered that as an option. My Mom, Dad and my sister have come through for us again!!! My Dad is not able to travel, but, my sister is going to drive my Mom down her for a week and then come back and pick her up. Ainsley will have her Grandma with her and Jim and I will have some help with everything once we come home from the hospital. I cannot tell you what a relief this is and how big of a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I will be forever grateful and thankful for this wonderful gift.....thanks Mom, Dad and Kim :)

11 days until Sofie has her surgery. I think the enormity of it all has finally hit me! I know we will get through this and everything will be OK, but, it is just so hard to think of how much pain our little sweet pea is going to be in....and I can't fix it with a kiss :( Then there is the other part of me, the part that is super excited to see how much her speech changes after she has healed. She is so smart and tries so hard to say English words. I think it is going to be amazing to watch how much she changes....and then I get sad again because the little songs she sings, the speeches she gives and the phrases that she says when she reads a book, her baby talk Mandarin will all soon disappear. I so badly want to know what she is saying and thinking when she sings her songs, but, I probably never will. They are so sweet and I just want to be able to remember them forever.  I had been trying to record all of her words and songs on my phone but she usually either stops when I get it out or I am driving the car when she starts singing :) And then I can hardly wait to see her blow her first bubble. She so desperately wants to blow bubbles...we got a bubble machine but she wants to do it herself. When she blows out, the air comes out her nose and not her mouth, so no bubbles get blown. Today she brought me 2 containers of bubbles in the backyard and then got the sweetest look on her face and then signed the sign for please....broke my heart because I couldn't explain to her that she can't blow bubbles yet!!! Soon though :)

Now on to more :) Sorry, this is becoming a long post!!  I haven't been able to blog much....sleep seems more of a priority now a days. I will try to catch everyone up on the goings on in the Ducharme household.

We seemed to have turned a corner so to speak. Sofie has been spending more time with just Daddy. She stills screams as soon as I leave but it only lasts for about 5-10 minutes and then she is fine. She and Ainsley are playing together and in a room separate from where I am. Sofie doesn't like it when I am in the kitchen cooking. She has to be between me and the counter all the time. Doesn't work well at the stove and I cannot figure out why this is such an issue, unless she really doesn't like my cooking :) Ainsley is back to the same old Ainsley that we know and love. She has stopped talking back to us, is calmer and seems to be more comfortable in her big sister role. It is so nice to have my sweet daughter back and I only hope that the impending surgery doesn't throw all of the fantastic changes right out the window!!

We applied for Sofie's US passport last Monday. It is an odd feeling sending off every document pertaining to the adoption that you worked so hard to get in the first place. Sofie thought so much of the process that she reached up when I wasn't looking and grabbed the original Adoption Registration from China and ripped it in two. After I calmed down, we gently taped it back together and headed off to the post office where, after I sat her on the counter to sign the application, she promptly layed down and fell asleep on the counter of the Post office. The clerk thought it was hilarious!!!

July 4th was HOT and HUMID so we only lasted outside for maybe 15 minutes. Just enough time to get some pictures, not of the girls together as a certain 2 year old would not cooperate :)

The girls are starting to play together more. Being cooped up in the house in the heat did some good. They had a blast in the sprinkler in the backyard.

                                                      Sofie is no longer afraid of water!!!

                                                                    Making "soup"!!!!

                                            Miss Fix It helping Daddy fix the neighbors bike :)

..........and last but not lease, Shiloh the wonder dog or "iloh" as she is now known, got into the action too! She stole my hammer out of my garden bag and took off with it :) New type of dog bone!!