Five months home

It seems like just yesterday and yet like an eternity ago all at the same time.

Elijah came home weighing 23lbs and 2T clothes fit loosely on him at just over 4 years old.

He is now solidly in 3T shirts and 2T/3T pants.

He weighs 30lbs.

He is sitting unassisted.

He's off of puree`s and eats table food.

He loves his daddy a lot.

Elijah really struggles with me as a permanent person in his life,

He's all smiles for women who he does not already know,

But if any woman becomes too constant in his life he changes his attitude greatly.

Elijah struggles to make eye contact with me,

He hyperventilates and gets stiff if I hold him too long,

He gags and fake chokes when I feed him the exact same foods he eats for my husband with ease.

Sometimes he trembles when I even approach him.

He is genuinely terrified and threatened by my permanency,

And it's devastating to watch his struggle.

He walks in a gait trainer with ease.

He sits unassisted if there is something in front of him that he deems worth sitting up for.

He can roll over in both directions now.

He has perfected his army crawling and is trying so hard to crawl on his hands and knees,

He can get up on his hands and knees and rock back and forth.

He is very much a daddy's boy.

Daddy is most definitely his safe person and he just beams with joy when Daddy walks in the door/room.

Elijah may have Cerebral Palsy but his emotional issues are far more debilitating for him and his emotional struggles have been by far the hardest hurdle we've been met with.

A saying my mom use to always say pops into my head often as I watch him struggle with his severe anxiety around me,

"You're only as happy as your saddest child"

And it's so true.

The emotional piece sucks,

It's so hard to watch him hurt and see him struggle from within.

We knew to expect it,

We had watched the emotional struggles that other Pleven families were having,

We didn't feel blind sided by it,

But we thought because we were prepared for it, that it would somehow hurt less.

It doesn't.

Milena came home at 10 1/2 years old weighing 37lbs and in 4T pants and 4/5 shirts.

She was admitted to the children's hospital the day after we arrived home.

She was severely dehydrated and refusing to eat.

She had Refeeding Syndrome and was given the dx of Failure to Thrive.

Within the first week she had dropped down to 34lbs.

We stayed 20 long days.

At 6 days home she had surgery to have a g-tube placed.

We learned via ultrasound that her stomach was the size of a young infant,

That we would have to start feedings at 300 calories per day and would need to reach 1,100 calories to go home. This required multiple blood draws daily to check her phosphates and electrolytes to make sure her numbers were improving and that her Refeeding Syndrome wasn't worsening.

On day 20 we got to go home,

Only to return less than a week later for emergency surgery to replace her gtube that she had pulled out....It wasn't that simple though. There was a tear in the lining of her stomach and the contents had spilled into her abdominal cavity, she was in early sepsis.

Longest night of my life.

If you ever want answers to whether or not you are attached to your newly adopted child,

having them rushed off at 11pm for emergency surgery and being in a HUGE waiting room with not a single other person to be seen, pacing the floor and fearing all the what ifs....It's terrifying and made my sanity waiver, but gave me great clarity in knowing how loved she is, because I was a basket case, I was a mess over this little girl who viewed me as just another caregiver but left me unable to catch my breath as I fixed my eyes on the clock waiting for any kind of update from her surgery team....

She's was fine,

I was not.

I may have cried myself to sleep that night.

I had been home in my own bed for 5 nights between October 30th- December 23rd.

This was not how my adoption was going to go.

I wasn't bringing home medically fragile children,

and really if someone was going to be hospitalized,

Surely it would be the one from Pleven, right?

Yeah, I may not have been prepared for any of the above.

But 5 months home I can see so much beauty in all the crazy.

Milena is so very attached to me and my heart swells with pride when we are out and about and a friend talks to her gives her something and she looks to me for assurance.

Or when I hold a baby and she is jealous and wants that baby out of her mama's lap.

She's my girl and our relationship is everything you don't hear about older child adoption.

She may have had a rough first month but gosh,

She's my easiest child.

She's so loving and attentive.

She takes everything in and is so aware of everybody around her and their emotions.

She is so incredibly gentle.

She loves to be held and cuddled.

She goes with the flow and just takes every day in great strides.

I'd go back for 10 of her if I could.

Milena still has her gtube but eats and drinks exclusively by mouth now.

She loves watching signing time but does not sign and is completely non verbal.

She's 48lbs now, in size 6x/7 clothes, and is taller than my 7 year old.

In the last 3 weeks she has found so much new found joy in life,

She found her laugh and her smile and we are seeing it more and more everyday.

It's been quite the journey and I can't wait to see where the coming months take us,

I hope they slow down a little because these first 5 months have absolutely flown by, almost too fast for this mama.

In the next month or so:

Milena is getting glasses and likely corrective surgery for her severe strabismus in the coming months.

Elijah has a neuro appointment coming up and we will re-evaluate the idea of trying anxiety meds at his 6 month home checkup.