Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween! Last year Oksana had no concept of Halloween at all. I chose her costume and she just went along for the ride. This year she definitely knew what was going on! She chose her own costume this year...Tinkerbell. Evan was a horseback rider, and Clayton was a mad scientist. The boys decided to pass out candy this year instead of trick or treating. They love passing out candy and knew they would still have plenty to eat between the leftovers and Oksana's candy! We were excited to get out tonight and meet some neighbors. We recently learned of another homeschooling family on our street and had the chance to meet them tonight. They were very nice! Then we went to one home at the end of the street that was giving out tracts with their candy. We enjoyed the chance to talk to them more and appreciated knowing there was another Christian on our street!

Oksana had Larry and I absolutely cracking up. She was SO excited! At every house she would yell "Trick or Treat" and then usually inspect the candy she got and comment on what it was or how much she got! She'd then decide to tell stories to each and every person, that none of them understood because she was talking so fast. Then she would squeel with excitement and say "Are we going to another house?!" She was thrilled to see her bucket filling up. After awhile it started getting chilly so she decided she'd rather go home and eat some of the candy. We let her have a few pieces and then she was off to bed. I definitely didn't want her para paying the price tomorrow for a late night!

It was overall a low key but very fun Halloween.

Quick adoption update

I am THRILLED to say that yesterday we got our completed homestudy and today our I-800A went in the mail!

So what does this mean? It means time to wait again! We will need to get an appointment to be fingerprinted and then we will wait for our approval. All of this will take about 3 months. In the meantime we are finishing up the last paperwork for our dossier so that the moment our immigration approval comes we can have it apostilled and we will be ready to send our dossier to Bulgaria!!!

24 hour EEG

Yesterday we arrived at Children's Hospital for Oksana's 24 hour EEG. To start they took her in another room and got her all hooked up just like last time. The only difference was that they wrapped her head in gauze to make sure the little electrode thingys (I'm sure that is their official name) didn't fall off. They called it her EEG hat. They put the machine that she was hooked up to in a little backpack for her to wear around. When we got back to her room they hooked her backpack up to a long cord that basically made it so she could walk anywhere in the room but she couldn't leave the room. She kept getting tied up in the cord and I breathed a sigh of relief the next day when they disconnected that thing! It drove me crazy!

They explained to me that every time she had an "episode" we needed to hit a button to mark it. Unfortunately a resident came in before they could tell me where the button was. He started talking to me and the EEG tech left the room. I asked him where the button was so he showed me (I thought it seemed like an awfully odd "button" but he's the doctor, right?) and he left. Shortly after that I saw her zone out so I ran to do what he said and it wouldn't work! I ran out to get the nurse only to learn that he had told me wrong! The EEG tech was not too thrilled when she came back and learned what he had told me. After that we just sat around doing nothing! Exciting, huh?! I figured for sure they would have at least a game or a couple of toys in the room. Nope. Luckily I brought a couple of books, some school work, and she is very well entertained by plastic gloves! Around 4 or so someone finally came by and asked if we'd like a game or something. After a couple of very long rounds of Candy Land (with a child who doesn't understand the concept of moving the pieces forward on the path), Larry and the boys came to visit. Later my mother in law walked in the room. Oksana had no idea she was coming. When she saw her she completely zoned out. Larry called her name and she didn't respond. He did it again and she "snapped out of it" and then looked at my mother in law confused and asked who she was. We felt confident that if they did not see seizure activity with that one we were free and clear.

Last night she had a very hard time falling asleep so I finally went to bed too so that she wouldn't be distracted. We were woken up when we learned that our room is right below the helipad! After that she was up so I just went to her and told her that it was still the middle of the night and she needed to go back to sleep. She fell back asleep fairly easily. I was woken up again a few times because the nurse sticks her head in every couple of hours just to make sure everything is OK. At 6:30 there was a knock at the door. I got up and a nurse came in letting us know she was doing a finger prick to get blood. In a very surprised voice, I said "Really?!" No one had mentioned a need for blood and I could not imagine why they would need it. She then said "What is her name?" I told her, she stepped out into the light of the hall to check her notes and then said "Oops, sorry." Grrrr.... I laid there for a little longer to see if Oksana would get back to sleep but no luck. So much for sleeping in!

She seemed to also have her "episodes" when a new nurse would come in. We would usually just say her name or tap her on the leg and she would snap out of it. This morning the nurse saw it and felt it was significant enough to hit the button to mark a seizure. So finally at about 10:30am, after about 24 hours on an EEG and 3 marks of a seizure, the doctors came in to discuss the results with me. They had reviewed the EEG and she is NOT having seizures. As you can imagine, we are thrilled. I asked for their theory on why she was doing this and their theory was exactly the same as mine. She uses this as a way to "shut down" or "take a break" mentally. This explains why we see more of them when she is stressed.

After that we still had to wait forever for someone to come in and take everything off of her head. I was getting very annoyed after noon came and went. Finally they came in an gave her some beautiful post EEG hair!


We were both starving and exhausted when we got home. I managed a nap but she didn't so guess who is going to bed at 7 tonight?! We are very glad to have that behind us and to be able to move forward confident that she is not having seizures!

IEP

As you know, we had an IEP meeting before the school year started just to all get on the same page and for the team to learn what Oksana would need to start the year with success. They have been working hard since school started to get all of Oksana's testing done and finally today was her first "official" IEP meeting. I could not be more thrilled with how it went. First of all I'll say that I truly believe that this team has her best interest at heart. They love her and they desire to see her succeed. With that as the foundation of the team I came in expecting great things and they did not disappoint!

We started by going over all of the test results. I'll just say there were no surprises there. There wasn't much that was encouraging except that we all agreed that everyone needs a starting point and there is a lot of room for growth! Still, it all fell within the developmental limits that I thought she was at. There was MUCH said about her improvement in concentration and her ability to sit still since starting school. Her ability to focus and work hard has really impressed everyone on the team. They also all commented on how she always bounds into a room with a smile on her face. Yep, that's Oksana! Her strengths and weaknesses on testing were definitely things I had seen at home so there were no surprises there.

After going over all of the test results we got into the IEP. This was very uneventful since I agreed wholeheartedly with what they were proposing. She gets to ride the bus finally! She is SO excited. They have to get the details all worked out so it will be sometime next week before she starts. She is going to stay in regular PE and not adaptive. The PE teacher does a great job of adapting for her, and with her para helping her it is working out fine and allows her to stay with her class. She will be in the regular class 76% of the day, which I thought was pretty good! Besides that she will have some time each day in the special ed room and each week in OT, PT, and Speech. She will also do extended school year which will allow her to get some OT, PT, Speech and academic work for 2 weeks in June and 2 weeks in July.

There was one comment that really surprised me. We were discussing her inability to write. Oksana currently can not write even one letter, unless you count O because she can manage to grab the pencil and create a circle. I've had her looked at by OTs, doctors, etc. who all took her arms, hands, and fingers, moved them around and then told me that her arms and hands are not affected by CP. This team has been watching her use her fine motor skills like no one else has and they told me that her hands and arms are most definitely affected, just not to the extent that her legs are. Because of that they are going to start working with her on keyboarding. The believe that there is a possibility that Oksana may not ever be able to write legibly and that even if she can it will be very exhausting for her to get any kind of volume out of her writing. Because of that they are going to start now to prepare her for the possibility of using an assistive device of some sort (laptop, etc) for her writing. I found that absolutely fascinating. I always knew her fine motor skills were very poor but I never realized it was from the CP and just figured it would take time to catch up. I'm so thankful that they are looking ahead like that and preparing for the future. I'm also thankful that we live in time when the fact that you don't write doesn't affect your ability to communicate through the written word!

I think that pretty much sums it up. Larry and I both came away very encouraged by the experience. Oksana's best days are ahead of her yet!

HUGE Garage Sale Success!

There are few things I despise more than garage sales. I've had a few in my time, but only a few. When it came time to consider fundraising efforts to bring Anya home one of the first things I said to God was "Please don't make me have a garage sale!". Well, He didn't...instead my wonderful friend Nicki offered to have it for me! I said "YES!" very fast before she came to her senses and changed her mind ;). We decided to do a bake sale at the same time. We also decided that we would not be pricing anything. When people came we would tell them about Anya (we also had a big poster with her picture on it with her story) and then tell them that they could take what they wanted and just leave a donation that they felt was worth what they wanted to pay for it. The hours of our sale were Friday 4-8 and Saturday 7-1.

Our goal was to raise $1500. That would pay for the remainder of our homestudy (we are required to pay up front for all of our post placement reports too which threw us off a bit) and our money needed to mail our I800A for immigration. It was a huge amount of money. I posted on our goal on Facebook. I almost didn't post it because I thought it might be a bummer if I had to post later and explain that we only made 1/2 of that or less. Oh ye of little faith....

On Thursday evening we worked hard getting the garage sale set up. Our plan was that I would come back about noon on Friday and we would work all afternoon until the garage sale opened at 4. At around 8 am Nicki started putting out signs and next thing she knows people are in her driveway! She was not near ready to open and she told them that but she did open up and let them come in. People were rummaging through boxes while she was trying to organize. Then more, and more, and more people came. She had a non stop flow of people until we got to her house around 12:30! By 2 we had raised $600 and the sale wasn't even supposed to open for 2 hours! I started to become concerned that we were going to run out of stuff and next thing I know there are people who had been by earlier to buy something coming BACK to drop off donations!!!! I could not believe it! By the end of the evening we had raised over $1000 and had PLENTY of stuff for Saturday!

We had another great day on Saturday and in the end we raised right around $1700! I am still in shock. Now it's time to start thinking about the $5500 we will need when it is time to mail our dossier!