Andrew's 6th birthday and October neurologist visit

This July we celebrated Andrew's 6th birthday.  This year we were unable to do his traditional "crazy" hair picture since he prefers his hair cut so much shorter so that he can look like his daddy.  He is doing so well and we are so proud of him.  He is half way through Kindergarten and is learning how to read short vowel, 3 letter words.  He loves school. 

Andrew was born with hydrocephalus, water on the brain, and at the young age of 6 months they did surgery in Bulgaria to put in a shunt to control the extra fluid made in his brain. 

September of last year, Jen noticed something different about Andrew's valve and the tubing that runs from it.  We called the neurologist to see if we should be concerned.  They asked if there any signs of dizziness, nausea, or disoriention.  We told them that there were none and they told us it was probably something normal that we didn't notice before.  We were welcome to come in for an appointment if we were concerned, but we weren't and considering the 2 1/2 hour trip to their office, we opted against a visit.

We went to our normal scheduled appointment in April.  They did a CT scan and x-rays.  The neurologist looked over the scans and told us that the shunt had malfunctioned and that everything looked normal on the scans.  He then scheduled an appointment for this October to check and see if anything had changed.

Sure enough the shunt was still broken and his scans still showed everything was normal.  The neurologist then scheduled an appointment for a year from now where he will check one more time and then schedule surgery to remove all the parts of the shunt.  He told us it appeared that he had outgrown hydrocephalus and that keeping the shunt in could cause problems in the future.

A year and a half ago during our first visit to the neurologist, we asked whether Andrew would ever outgrow his hydrocephalus and we were told not to count on it.  He said it was a 1 in a 1,000 chance that he would and that there were only 2 ways that we could tell.  One would be that he removes the shunt to see, but he won't do that because he ends up having to put them back in because the patient did not outgrow it.  The other way would be if the shunt malfunctions. 

Looks like God wanted to really make a statement.  He healed our son.  The main reason we were able to adopt him was because he had a special need and now here he is without this need.  Our son is the 1 in a 1,000 and we are so thankful to Jesus for His work in our son's life.

Bulgarian Reunion 2012

At the end of June we drove to Cincinatti, OH for a reunion of families who had adopted, or are in the process of adopting from Bulgaria.  It was a great weekend for both us and the kids.  We were finally able to meet many of our online friends in person and see the children whose stories we had followed. 

During the day there was a splash pad for the kids, minute to win it games and plenty of play time to meet new friends.  At night there were pot luck dinners, traditional Bulgarian music and dancing, and time spent listening to each other's adoption stories.  This was a great weekend to learn Bulgarian culture, talk to other adoptive families and simply spend time together as a family.

The kids spent most of their time together in the cul de sac of cabins.  They were different ages, nationalities, backrounds and special needs.  The thing that really impressed us was that the kids were so well behaved. They were all polite and respectful and there was not a single incident or fight during the entire weekend.

We stayed a couple days longer to visit the Creation Museum.  We all enjoyed it but it was a bit much for our 8 and under kiddos.  Lots of reading, and while some of them can read, they didn't read a full priced ticket's worth. But they all loved it and we're glad we went.

We can't wait to go to the reunion next year.  We look forward to time with our new friends and meeting the new family members that have come home from Bulgaria (and other countries) since June.

We are so thankful to Yvonne and Viviane for their hard work in making this reunion such a great success.

On  our way home we stopped in Kentucky to meet other online adoptive friends, the Waggoners.  We met them way back when we were in the Albania program before the agency closed the program.  The Waggoners adopted their 2 kids from Albania and are in the process of raising support to move to Albania as missionaries.  We were so glad to have met them in person.  They are an amazing family and we are looking forward to spending some more time with them when they come through Georgia on their support raising venture.

Finding Joel a family

This past Spring we were made aware of a little boy named, Joel.  He lives in an orphanage in Albania and needs a family to call his own.  He is just over 2 years old and absolutely adorable.  Our friends, Nathan and Cydil Waggoner, adopted 2 of their children from Albania and are in the process of raising the funds to move to Albania as missionaries.  They were able to meet Joel in 2010 when they went to bring their son home and again in February of 2012 when they went on a scouting trip for their missionary journey. The primary caretaker of the Waggoner's son has now made it her mission to find Joel a family and has asked the Waggoners to help in this mission.  For more information and pictures of Joel please vist the  The Waggoner's blog. 

Spring Happenings

The first half of the year went by without any other major incidents like what we had in the previous post.  In March, we went to Gatlinburg for the weekend. We stay at a timeshare but Andrew always calls it "the big house".  Our kids enjoy exploring and learning about "the olden days" so visiting the settler's houses is always a must, second only to swimming in the pool.

During March and April the boys played ball.  Unfortunately, due to their birthdates Tobin had to be put on a prep-ball team and Andrew was put on a T-ball team.  The good news was that their younger cousin, Sadie could be on the team with Andrew.  Andrew was so excited to play T-ball and cannot wait to be on a prep-ball team with his brother in the Spring.  The boys games were on the same night, one after the other with about an hour in between games, so we packed dinner every night and enjoyed it together as a family at the baseball field.  Some people ask how we can afford to go on vacation and one of the reasons is because we hardly ever eat out. 

One night a couple of the girls and Andrew were bored at Tobin's game, so they found an empty warm-up pen and tried to play with a bat and ball.  Next thing you know, Jen hears Andrew's scream and knew something was wrong.  Andrew came running over and by the time he got to Jen(only seconds) he had a bump in the middle of his forehead between his eyes the size of an egg, no exagerating.  Turns out he walked right into the aluminum bat as his sister was swinging.

Jen scrambled around trying to find someone with a cooler so she could put ice on Andrew's enormous mound.  Andrew ended up being completely fine except that for the next week he had a bump with a bruise, which then turned into a scab for several weeks. To this day it is a faint red spot.  He keeps asking when his bump will go away.

Living in the middle of the National Forest, 2 miles in, on a dead end road has it's disadvantages.  Apparently, people think it's a great place to free their unwanted animals.  Being a family with many kids in a neighborhood of not many kids, most strays find their way to our yard.  In May we picked up 3 sweet little German Shorthaired puppies playing in the road, obviously malnourished from being recently dropped off.  Animal control would not come since it was a Friday, so we kept them for the weekend and of course, the kids fell in love.  We have one Alpha male dog already, so we decided to keep the female.  We brought the 2 brothers to a foster home for dogs sponsored by the Humane Society. 

Even though we were keeping one of the puppies, our kids were really upset about giving up the other two.  It may seem strange, but we were really encouraged to see Andrew grieve over this loss.  To us it showed that he was in a good place emotionally.  Just this past week, our puppy(4 1/2 months old now) unexpectedly passed.  Again, we got to see him process his sadness with many tears.

We went camping in June with family and friends.  We went to our favorite spot in the woods, a small hike in to a campsite surrounded on 3 sides by a creek. It doesn't have a strong current so its perfect for children of all ages to wade in.  It's full of rocks and wildlife so it makes for a kids' paradise.

The creek turns into a waterfall that flows into the Chattooga River.  There's a small beach area by an edy for the smaller kids to play. Some of us swam out with the older kids and explored the rocks across the river.  Andrew absolutely loves water, so again another great trip for him. 

Long over due

In real life we often tell people we meet or long distance friends not to worry if they don't hear from us, we're just low maintenance kind of people.  When we meet again, we'll just pick up where we left off!  So here we are picking up where we left off- January 2012!

The above video is Andrew doing school. It was halfway through the school year and shows a sampling of his progress in speech and learning.  As we mentioned in the previous post, we had decided to post pone school for him, but he insisted.

About this same time we had some guest speakers come to our church. We had them over to lunch on Saturday. They were great. As soon as they entered our home, they jumped right in with the kids playing on the Wii and really took time to make them feel important.  At this point we felt Andrew had attached very well and were not at all concerned about him interacting with strangers.  As Aaron left to bring our guests home Andrew asked to go with him. No big deal.  One of the speakers sat in the back with Andrew and let him play with his cell phone.  Andrew showed no signs of past behavior that would alert us. 

The next morning after our service ended, we saw Andrew sitting in the same speakers lap, playing with his phone! Aaron discreetly called Andrew to him and held his hand until we headed home.  We felt we had averted a relapse.  However that afternoon we decided to watch a movie together as a family for some down time. All the kids piled on us on the couch except Andrew. We said,"Andrew, come cuddle with your family."  Shockingly, he responded,"You're not my family. I want to go back to Bulgaria."

We had never heard anything remotely close to this.  Having no idea how to respond, Aaron replied, "Well go ahead, go back to Bulgaria."  Andrew shook his head no and immediately climbed up on the couch with us all.  We have never dealt with anything like that since. 

We have found it helpful before coming into new situations that might trigger similar responses to ask Andrew who his family is.  We specifically ask ,"Who is your mommy?,Who is your daddy?", etc. and have him answer us. We're not sure if this is the key to anything, but again we haven't seen this behavior since.

Over a year home

We've been meaning to update the blog since Gotcha Day, September 23rd. 

We have been keeping busy.  Jen has been diligent homeschooling the kids.  We did not have intentions of doing school with Andrew this year.  He still seems to be a little behind in his language and we thought it might be too much.  However, Andrew had other plans for himself.  He wants to do whatever his siblings do, not to mention, he is self motivated.  So, Jen quickly threw together a few things. 

So far, Andrew has learned all his shapes (even ones his older siblings didn't know), he recognizes numbers up to 10 and can count to 39 with a little help, plus he begged to learn how to write his own name.  Now he knows the names of the letters in his name too, plus "c" for Cora, "r" for Rachel, "t" for Tobin and "h" for Haley.  Andrew knows his colors too and loves to color. 

His favorite part of the day is "Jesus Time".  The first half hour to hour of every school day is started with some quiet time to pray and read and draw with Jesus.  Jen prays a small prayer to start and then everyone spends time with Jesus either by reading the Bible (the girls who can read) or by drawing pictures (the boys).  When everyone is done with that they all take a turn praying.  Andrew asks most nights if we'll have "Jesus Time" when we wake up.  He loves to pray.  All he knows of prayer now is "thanky for...." and then he fills it in with just about anything.  Most of the time it's "thanky for church, for daddy work, for van, for house..."  Every now and again it's "thanky for Tobin bleed" after Tobin gets hurt.  I guess he knows better than the rest of us how to be thankful in all things.

One of the things we've realized over the past year is just how much we've missed with him.  It's mostly the little things in training that we don't think of.  Like how its not appropriate to write on cars with rocks (No really. Its a good thing Aaron works in auto restoration.).  Of course we also see it in his understanding about who Jesus is. 

Although it was encouraging this past week ; Jen told Andrew to go sit on his bed when he was misbehaving during school.  She was going to deal with him as soon as she could get the others started on their work.  She heard talking in his room and had the other kids keep quiet so she could listen.  Jen heard him talking to Jesus and saying Amen.  He then yelled out, "Mommy, I'm all done."  His attitude had changed.
Andrew does not remember much prior to being with us.  He thinks we were there in Bulgaria with him in the orphanage.  He really does not remember much from there other than what he sees in pictures.  We ask questions, but haven't gotten much out of him.  The most he's remembered is "going downstairs with a small mug with black in it with the Doctor".  He remembered this one night while we were eating soup and there happened to be a coffee mug on the table at the same time.  So, as you can see we haven't gotten much out of him.


Andrew has had one minor cold for a short couple of days since being home.  We have had no issues with his hydrocephalus.  He is a healthy boy.  He is growing in height, but not weight.  He eats well and loves fruits and vegetables the most.  His favorite foods are tomatoes and apples.  We do not eat fast food very often, but he doesn't like it when we do.  Although he does love candy, cookies and soda.


Andrew was potty trained when he came home and has stayed that way.  For several months he wore diapers at night, but once the box ran out, he wanted to be a big boy like Tobin.  He wet at night quite a bit in the beginning and we would not make a big deal of it and just wash the sheets a lot.  We woke him up every night, but he'd still wet.  Then he seemed to stay dry for quite some time and we thought we were in the clear.  It wasn't too long and he was wetting again. We know he's only 5 and that boys do tend to wet at this age, so we don't make a big deal of it and still wake him once before we go to bed.  Plus he never seemed that bothered by it. However, we do believe there may be some connection to his emotional state.  We have noticed that he wets the most when he seems to have several days in a row with a little bit of attitude or when there has been several changes in our schedule.  Over the last month he has started to get upset about it and tells us he is sad when his bed is not made because the sheets are in the wash.


Andrew is occasionally scared people will get him.  We let him know we are his mommy and daddy and will take care of him and keep him safe.  One night Jen told him that if somebody tried to come and get him that daddy would fight him.  He seemed very content with that answer.  If he says somebody might get him we ask him what will happen and he says, "Daddy fight them."  He still doesn't like to be in bed without Tobin in the room, so when Tobin comes out to tell us something or go potty, Andrew comes out of the room as well if he's awake. 

Dear Gift of Adoption: 2011

We were blessed with 3 different grants through our adoption journey. One was from our church Grace Covenant Fellowship, one from Showhope and another from Gift of Adoption. The video was put together by Gift of Adoption in order for them to raise money for future grants. Our story is the last one. Enjoy!!!


This month is Gotcha month and it is amazing to think that it has almost been a year since Andrew left the doors of the orphanage forever.  Andrew is doing so well.  We have had such tangible moments of seeing his attachment. 


We had a dinner to go to in August, but none of our family was available to watch the kids.  Up until that point we have only allowed family to watch Andrew.  We ended up having a friend watch the kids.  The older 4 knew her, but she was a stranger to Andrew. 


We explained as best we could to him who was watching him and how we'd be home while he was sleeping.  He didn't seem to mind.  We weren't sure how he would react and thought that he might try to get really cute with her, sit in her lap and that there could be a bit of manipulation. 


There had also been a few times in the month before where Andrew would go get something that wasn't his without asking and decide it was his to play with.  So obviously we were concerned that he may try and pull something while we were out.


We arrived home and came in to the living room.  Immediately Andrew came over and sat down right next to her.  Then Jen picked him up to show Andrew something and he clung to her and wouldn't let go.  Our friend said he did totally fine and didn't do either of what we thought.


Just to help explain what is so amazing about this night, Andrew is not a cuddly kid.  He lets us hug him and kiss him, but he never iniates affection.  If we're watching a movie and try to cuddle him he will shrug you off.  A few days before this night Jen was talking about how she really could use some affection from our son iniated by him.  Here it was.  God knew what she needed and he gave it to her. 


The next night Jen went out before bed time, so Aaron put the kids to bed without her and Andrew cried for mommy.  He has never done that before.

Since that week Andrew has been very cuddly.  He will walk up to one of us and just lean on us looking for love.  He asks to be picked up and wants to be in our laps cuddling while being read to.  We're thanking God for all He has done.  It is so wonderful to see your child feel more and more safe and more and more a part of the family.


A few weeks later Jen was putting some old pictures on Shutterfly.  They were from 2009 before Andrew was home or known.  Whenever he sees pictures of the 4 other kids without him he asks where he is.  We always explain to him that he was in Bulgaria and we were trying to find him.  That he was in another mommy's belly and how she couldn't take care of him, but that God brought us to him. 


This time he looked at Jen and said,"I don't want to do that again."  Jen understood what he meant.  Then he said, "I don't want to go there again," meaning the orphanage.  She assured him he would never go there again.  This was another big change.  Usually he sees pictures from Bulgaria and says that he wants to go there, but apparently those days are over.  He now wants to be here with his family.


It is amazing to think about how our biological children go through these same phases, but of course they're suttle and we hardly notice them.  With Andrew we're able to see drastic changes, literally within a day's time, and it fill our hearts with joy.