Randomness

• Larry had his gallbladder removed on Thursday.  Everything actually went really well and he's been feeling good as long as he is well medicated :).  He has camped out on the couch and Anya has decided it is her job to keep him company!  Today is the first day he seems to have really turned a corner for the better and is weaning off of meds some.

• Yesterday I got to start my morning by giving a suppository!  Lucky me!  We had a follow up appointment with GI.  I told her how incredibly frustrating her holding was and how she exploded when she finally went.  I told her we can't live like that.  We both agreed that because she is having periods of time where she goes just fine that she is capable of doing this and we don't want to do anything drastic yet.  We are working to find the perfect combination of meds that keeps her from going all day long and leaking in between, but also doesn't allow her to hold.  I still haven't found that balance but she gave me some suggestions, told me exactly how often she wants to see her going, and gave me a plan of action if she goes any longer than that so that we don't get the massive explosions anymore.  I feel really good about the appointment.  My job is to find that perfect med combination over the next 3 months and get her regular on it.  Not an easy job but I feel confident that I can do it!  She reminded me that her colon has no idea how to work properly so we are training it which accounts for many of the inconsistencies we are seeing right now. 

• I don't think I mentioned on here yet that we learned recently that Oksana will be having surgery on her eyes in August.  She had one strabismus surgery in Ukraine so this will be her second.  That will make the 3rd hospitalization for our family this summer. 

• I've been doing the Attachment Challenge that I mentioned in my last blog.  I haven't had one day of perfection yet.  It's really hard.  Honestly, I don't hug anyone 10 times a day, but it has been great for making me more aware of connecting with her.  I'm really digging Christine Moers' stuff.  She has a ton of videos on You Tube and she just brings a fresh perspective to therapeutic parenting from someone who is in the trenches with us.  Besides that she makes me think that I might look good in dreadlocks :).

• We've been trying to squeeze fun in where we can.  We love to pull out our kiddie pool, sprinkler, and hose and have water days.  Anya gets so dark in the sun!  I took the kids to the Butterfly House the other day.  I thought Anya would be scared of the butterflies but she wasn't all that interested in them!  The kids got to feed roaches and ride a carousel.  I spent way too much money for way too little time but it was well worth it to not be sitting in our house :).  Next week  I hope to hit the Science Center and/or the zoo and then the week after that Oksana is back in summer school and Clayton starts his film camp.  Here are some pictures from the Butterfly House.

Try getting a decent picture of these 4!  Someone is always looking away, closing their eyes, or looking like they are being tortured!

Like I said...... :)

Feeding the disgusting roaches!

She was terrified of the carousel horses!  Once I put her on a bench to ride she was a happy camper!

A little bit of normal

The last 2 days have been the best couple of days we've had in weeks.  This summer has been absolutely horrible starting with the hospitalization, illnesses (strep and colds in the summer...how does that happen?!), poop issues, and now Larry has been in pain since last Monday and may have to have his gall bladder removed.  It's been insane and dreadful. 

Oksana has been pooping in the potty since Thursday.  I've altered her meds a little bit to try to prevent the leaking but still keep her from holding too.  It's a delicate balance.  We'll see how this works. 

On Saturday the adoptive/foster families from our church spent the evening at a local ranch for a family picnic.  Honestly, I didn't want to go.  I was just not in a very good place and didn't feel like dealing with lakes, bonfires, etc. with the girls.  I had made a commitment to be there though so off we went and we had the BEST time!  I so needed that.  I just needed to have fun with my family again.  We had a blast doing hay rides, paddle boats, pony rides, making s'mores, and just having a great time with great friends.  Even Larry's pain was well under control so everyone was able to really enjoy themselves.  I can't tell you how refreshed I felt after the horrible few weeks we have had. 

To top it all off I got to go to church today and it was wonderful, amazing, spectacular!  Our pastor is doing a sermon series on love based on 1 Corinthians 13.  What a timely series for me.  Today's time in church and with the Lord ministered to me in a big way.  I felt better than I had in a long time when I left there.  We've had a relaxing day at home Sunday and then I planned some fun activities for the week (with flexibility since we should know Tuesday if Larry is going to need surgery).  We are going to have a summer vacation even if it does start late! 

Here are some pictures from our time at the ranch :)

Clayton's birthday

I decided Clayton deserved a birthday post of his own that didn't have the word poop in it....well except the fact that I just said it there....so I'm doing 2 posts tonight.  If you want an Oksana update scroll down to the blog below this one.

Today was Clayton's 14th birthday!  I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday.  I had intrauterine growth restriction which in simple terms is abnormally slow growth while in the mother's womb.  I had weekly stress tests to make sure all was well until I delivered.  When I got to the hospital the nurse freaked out because I was so small!  She breathed a little easier when I told her I was 37 weeks.  After 14 hours of drug free labor our 4 lb 7 oz boy entered the world.  It happened to be Father's Day that day!  I remember saying "I did it!  I did it!" over and over after he was born!  The nurse handed him to Larry and said "He looks just like you."  He didn't think that was a compliment and thought he looked a bit like an alien but he didn't say that out loud :)!  He was literally just bones with skin over them and his preemie clothes hung on him.  In fact he was a few months old before he really fit in his preemie outfits.  Despite his small size Clayton was very healthy.  Each time a new nurse would come in she would oooh and aaah over how small he was.  Having never had a baby I finally asked a nurse what the big deal was.  He looked perfectly normal to me.  A little while later she asked me to come out into the hallway.  She had brought me a 10lb baby from the nursery so I could see the difference.  I distinctly remember looking in the bassinet and saying "I'll keep mine!"  Another nurse brought him to me and said "You have a feisty one there."  I was so offended.  How in the world could she say that about my tiny little baby?!  Let's just say I quickly learned to trust nurses :). 

14 years later he is taller than me and has a voice as deep as his dad.  How is that possible?!  Here are some pictures of his day:

His #1 request was a souffle from Panera for breakfast.  He was so excited he ate it in the car on the way home!

I made him get his picture taken with me.  I enjoyed torturing him through the whole thing.  If I'd thought of it I would have kissed him for the picture too :).

I wonder about these kids sometimes!

That's a little better!  Cookie cake was the requested birthday treat.



Evan's birthday is in just a couple of weeks so the boys are pooling their money together to get an xbox which is coming in the mail tomorrow.  This weekend we are going to eat at Jason's Deli (his request) to continue the celebration.  You've got to love a birthday that lasts multiple days! 

I can't believe 14 years flew by that fast.  I absolutely loved him at 2.  It was such a fun and cute age.  I never thought I'd enjoy an age as much as that, but I have to say that 13 was a really awesome age, and I anticipate 14 will be even better.  He's turning into a pretty incredible young man :).

Oksana update

It's been a rough week.  After Sunday's blowout she pooped on the potty a little bit on Monday and then held again.  There was NO WAY I was waiting 5 days and then loading her up with meds again only to have a Sunday blow out and miss church.  I decided by Wednesday that the game was up.  I gave her a suppository and she held against it.  Someone tell me how in the world you can do that?!  Then I loaded her up with miralax.  I was ready for the explosion on this morning but as luck (or more likely tons of prayer) should have it she slept in so I had to wake her up for school which didn't give her a chance to poop in her pull up before she got up.  She woke up and immediately pooped on the potty.....and then continued to do it over and over again all day long.  She is leaking a lot again which is fine with me as long as she is pooping on the potty.  I have no idea what changed and I have no idea how long this will last but for today I am so incredibly thankful for the day of rest from all of this.  There are a lot of people praying for this situation and I am sure that is a big part of the reason that I was given a day of reprieve.  Thank you God.

Now a funny story to go with this.  I don't have enough underwear to keep up with her and a friend had suggested that I use a panty liner so that when she leaks I only have to change out the panty liner and save the underwear.  So tonight I walk in the bathroom and show it to her and here is the conversation we had: 

Me:  Oksana these are things that you put in your underwear and it protects your underwear if there is anything that might mess them up. 
Oksana:  Like what?
Me:  Oh well, pee...you know.....if someone had trouble holding their pee in.....or poop....ummmm....or something like that.
Oksana:  Well why do you have them?
Me:  Oh I just had some in the bathroom, so OK, lets get going to dinner!

On an only slightly different subject, if any of you has a child with RAD I want to share a blog called The Attachment Challenge with you.  I was just introduced to the blogger today. She has adopted kids who come from trauma and she is now a therapeutic parenting coach.  She's also a little on the wacky side and very brutally honest which I quite like about her.  I am going to try this challenge. If you don't have a child with RAD you might read it and say "How horrible that a person has to be challenged to hug and interact with their child."  In fact you might even be tempted to say that in the comments.  I'm just going to tell you now that you can spare your fingers the waste of energy typing it out because it won't be published or acknowledged.   If you want to get a glimpse into life with the children that we often affectionately call RADishes feel free to read the comments.  This is not easy stuff when we are in the thick of it.

I wish it was good news

Well she held through Saturday morning so we had to break out the suppositories.  She got some out but not enough to make up for 5 days of holding.  Instead she chose to wait until this morning and unload 5 days worth in her bed.  I don't know what else to say to this.  This is the second Sunday of this.  It was everywhere.  I thought last week was bad but it doesn't even compare to what we experienced this morning.  I missed church....again because it took me so long to clean up.  Not to mention that going to church is a reward for her that I'm not willing to give.  This is a time when I need to  be at church more than ever because I'm sinking.  I have no idea what to do.  This is controlling our family and it's damaging the already fragile relationship that took 3 years to build with her.  I guess this is the reality of RAD and trauma.  It sucks.

Still waiting

Had to call GI today.  It's Friday and she's still holding.  They have SIGNIFICANTLY upped her meds for today and if nothing has happened by the morning we start breaking out the suppositories.  Incredible....absolutely incredible. 

Poop....it's what my life revolves around

I am not the person to invite to dinner right now because if you sit down and ask me what I've been up to you might get an answer that will make you lose your appetite! I've had quite a few people curious to know if Oksana has indeed continued to do well on the potty so I thought it was time for an update.

The first week Oksana did amazing....really amazing. I can not begin to tell you how proud we were of her!  There was one small problem though. She was going CONSTANTLY. Sometimes every 15 minutes. I called the doctor and told her that at this point when school started back up she wouldn't even be able to get an education because she'd be in the bathroom all day. She was also leaking quite a bit so we were going through underwear like crazy. They reduced her meds to see if that helped.

Somewhere around that time I noticed that she was not going much at all and yet she was still leaking. We went from multiple times a day to once in 3 days. Even with the reduction in meds she was still on a hefty amount of medication so this was very unusual, but I chalked it up to her body adjusting. Then Sunday morning came. I won't give you any details here. I'll just say that I learned then that she had been holding it for 3 days, we got all of it on Sunday morning, and not on the toilet. I've literally never seen anything like it and I've seen a lot. She learned that day that when you are on this medication, holding it ends in disaster. To say I was frustrated is a huge understatement. She missed church because of the time the clean up took and she was NOT happy. I hoped she had learned her lesson and we would be ready to move on and start over again.

Today is Wednesday. She has gone once since Sunday and it wasn't much at all. Granted she got good and cleaned out on Sunday, it appears she didn't learn her lesson and is back to her old tricks again.

Honestly, had she never gone on the potty at all it almost would have been easier to deal with because at least then I wouldn't be positive that she was more than capable of it. Now that I know she is making a choice to do this I can not begin to tell you the struggle I am having with that. We head back to GI at the end of the month for a 1 month follow up. This GI has a child with autism so she truly understands what we are going through. At our last visit I told her that we deal with a lot with Oksana, more than I've ever shared on this blog and more than most people would be willing to put up with. I told her that 95% of the time we handle her issues with love and grace but this whole poop issue falls into the other 5%. I'm done with this. She was so extremely empathetic. She said she had never seen a case of psych related poop issues this bad and I know she will do whatever she can to help us so I'm anxious to get back there and tell her what had transpired over the last month.

In the meantime I'm waiting for the fall out of the last 3 days and I just pray that when it comes it is in the toilet this time. Please God.....

The boy is not ours...

That is certainly not the title of the post I wanted to be writing today.  Let me explain what happened.  I mentioned in my last blog that they were rushing to find out how to get us the adoption portion of the training.  Well, I'm going to make a long story short and part of it is because I have some not so nice things to say about the way we were told all of this.  I'll keep that to myself since this blog is public.  After waiting and waiting to get someone to contact us about this it turns out that all of the classes are full for this month.  We should be able to get into one next month.  Here's the catch.  Next month is too late.  The staffing to choose his family is at the end of this month and you can not be considered if you don't have this training. 

As soon as I found out I called our licensing worker.  If you don't know what a licensing worker is (because I sure didn't until recently), she is the social worker that deals with the foster care end of our journey.  A permanency worker is the one that deals with the adoption end.  So I called her, because I really like her and respect her, to ask what we should do.  She was very bummed to hear what had happened and encouraged us to get into the next training we can so this will never happen again. We didn't go into this expecting to adopt but if we do find ourselves here again we will be ready.  She also said that since we are no longer being considered for him they can start putting foster placements with us. 

So that's where we stand.  We are hoping to get into next month's training and in the meantime we are waiting for a foster placement.  I've shed my fair share of tears over this.  We knew that the chances of losing him were there.  We also know that this is without a doubt the path we were asked to walk.  This opened our eyes to boys and it will also allow us to have the adoption portion of the training faster than we would have otherwise so we can be prepared should God choose to place a child in our family permanently.  It's all good....just pretty sad.