Sad day

Yesterday was a difficult day. Sofie and Ainsley had their first full day of daycare together. Ainsley had a blast but Sofie cried off and on all morning. Makes me sad.

Last night our eldest dog Domino passed away quietly. She had bad hips and knees and had been having trouble getting around. She was slowly getting worse but last night she took a real turn for the worse. Her breathing was very labored and she was in a lot of pain. She went to go lay in her kennel which is one of her favorite spots. We all gave her a little rub down and when Jim checked on her 10 minutes later, she was gone. She will be missed. She was a unique dog :)

There will be no more banging on the cupboard door where the dog food is to let me know what time it is and that dinner is 5 minutes late. I swear that dog could tell time. There will be no more opening of the door to the cupboard where the garbage is kept. It had to be open at all times and if you closed it, she would open it back up. One never knew when food might fall out of there. There will be no more nasty looks when you have angered her for some reason. I could never figure out what I had done to anger the dog so much. No more angry stares at 9 PM cause that is my bedtime and no one has tucked me in yet!!!! No more dog who will come up and lick your leg for no reason other than it was there!

We will miss her :(

We know that she is in heaven banging on a cupboard door demanding to know "where the BLEEP is my dinner" I hope they have  Mcdonald's french fries in heaven :)

Birthday Party

This past Saturday, we had a birthday party for Sofie. We has some friends over and my Mom and Dad were able to be here for it. We had a great time. I think Sofie finally figured out that the decorations and all the fuss were all about her. Her expression when she opened each gift was priceless. It was a big "WOW.......WHOA" and then she had to show it to everyone, even the clothes. We had a fantastic time celebrating her first birthday with us, with all of our friends around us. It was a great moment. Here are some great pictures :)

Cleft Team Day

Sofie had her cleft team appointment yesterday. She was a rock star. She saw 6 different specialists in the morning and then had a group meeting in the afternoon with everyone including the ENT surgeon. I was a little nervous with her being in a room of about 10 medical people, but, in true Sofie fashion she flashed them all her huge smile and waved hello to all of them. She had a blast. Her repair looks great and no fistulas. They want to wait to start speech therapy for another 6 months in order to let her acquire more words.

They bad news is that we were hoping to put off another round of medical procedures with anesthesia for a while, but, it is not to be. At her first ENT appointment, it was noted that she had some hearing loss. We were hoping that it was just the wax and some fluid in her ears and that the ear tubes would take care of all that. She had a lot of wax in her ears. We had a hearing test at the audiologist yesterday and she was diagnosed with moderate hearing loss which will probably require hearing aids for the rest of her life. Neither Jim or I were prepared to hear that and it hit us pretty hard. Poor thing has been through so much and she just needed to catch a break. She will have so much to deal with throughout her life she just really didn't need this too. Oh well, things can always be worse so we will look at the bright side of things. She will deal with this like she does with everything else....with a smile!

The bad news is that she has to go for a ABR test (auditory brainstem response) and will need to have sedation for it. We have decided to do the dental surgery and the ABR together so she will once again have anesthesia. The ABR will have to be done ASAP so we will not be able to put off anesthesia until November. Sofie just finally got over her pneumonia and now she will have to be put under again. I hope we can ward off the pneumonia this time. Her hearing loss affects her ability to hear common speech and without that she will not be able to hear and form the words she needs to for her to develop speech. I feel better about it today, it was just such a shock yesterday to hear that. I will keep everyone posted as to when the surgery will be :)

3 months ago

Today is our wedding anniversary, 19 years, it is Miss Sofie Lu's 3rd birthday, her first birthday with us and it has been exactly 3 months since we first met that sweet, smiling, scared face in a civil affairs office in Hefei, China. WOW....what a day :)
It has been a while since I have blogged. We are still having issues with Sofie waking up in the middle of the night so I am a little tired and find it hard to find the time to sit down and write....laundry wins all the time!

 I find myself thinking of Sofie's China mother a lot today. I wonder if she is thinking of her, how she is doing today, the day she gave birth to her daughter, the daughter whose bright smile she will never know. I think of the painful decision that she had to make to let her daughter go so the she would hopefully get the medical treatment that she needed. My heart aches for her today. I cannot imagine the pain and grief that a mother experiences leaving their sweet, precious baby in a public place for someone else to find and hopefully bring to a safe orphanage. It just breaks my heart. I am sure that she thinks of her daughter almost every day, but today must be a very difficult day.

I am very thankful today for so much. Thankful for my wonderful family whom I love dearly. My sweet husband, who is my best friend and my rock and my wonderful oldest sweet pea Ainsley who was just in Thunder Bay for 5 days visiting her cousins. She missed her sister so much that she had to call one morning just to talk to her. It was a priceless moment....so sweet. I am very thankful for Sofie getting through her surgery, she is totally back to normal again....eating up a storm! I am also so very thankful for all the twists and turns, ups and downs and disappointments that led us all to each other. So many things in our adoption process either changed or didn't work out. If one single thing had been different, we wouldn't have found Sofie. We were meant to find each other....all of us. She was born on our anniversary, two weeks before we had our very first meeting with the adoption agency. If we hadn't decided to start our journey in the Ethiopia program and then withdrawal from it, we never would have found each other. So many little things had to happen for the timing to be perfect. We were meant to be a family, all of us.

Today we will have a quiet celebration at home. My Mom, Dad and their friend are coming down for a week and they are bringing Ainsley back home. Yeahhhhhh!!!! I miss her so much. This is the first time that my Dad will meet Sofie. I am so excited to see them together. Saturday we are having a big Hello Kitty themed birthday party for Sofie. She has no idea what a birthday is or what it involves :) It should be a ton of fun!!

So I am sending out a huge HAPPY ANNIVERSARY WISH to Jim and a very big HAPPY BIRTHDAY WISH to Sofie. I cannot believe how far we have come in 3 short months. I feel so very blessed :)

My two adorable goofballs......they have such a great sense of humor!!!

My sweet angel!!!