Jodi Speaks Her Mind

Our trip is ON 8/29/2007

It looks like our tickets will get used for this trip after all.  It was a close call, since technically the final paperwork is not complete for the girl we are going to see.  What that means is that she is not yet 100% legally free for adoption.  It is basically just a paperwork holdup and is expected to be taken care of soon.  The officials in Vladivostok have encouraged us to come anyway, as they are confident it will not be an obstacle.  Of course, there is always the risk that they are wrong, but we are okay taking that risk based on the information we’ve been provided.

So there you go… on Saturday we fly from Phoenix to L.A. and from L.A. to Seoul and from Seoul to Vladivostok, Russia.  From door to door a total of 25 hours in travel time (not including arriving 2 hours prior to our flight and any post-flight processes).  It’s probably more like 28-30 hours before it’s all done, but really, who’s counting?

We are pretty excited, but at the same time, I’m not sure it’s really had time to sink in yet.  Addy is going to be staying with a family from our church, and I think being away from her is probably going to be the hardest thing about this trip - even harder than jet lag, and I get jet lag something awful.  But we’re trusting her in God’s hands and in the capable hands of our friends.  She’s totally excited about it, so at least that’s a plus.

We do plan to blog while on our trip, so stay tuned.  I will try to get in at least one more post before we leave.

Happy Independence Day, Ukraine 8/24/2007

Today is Independence Day in Ukraine. My original plan was to have a celebration, but we have so much going on with preparations to travel next week and beginning of school year stuff that I’m not sure much is going to be made of it this year.

Maybe this weekend I can make a yummy pot of Borscht at least and we can reminisce about our wonderful time there and wave little tiny Ukrainian flags.

Here are a couple of pictures from 2005 when we were in Ukraine for Independence Day.

Rock-climbing girl 8/23/2007

I have so many things from this summer still to post about, so I’ll start here with a very brief post about Addy’s first foray into rock climbing (besides the little carnival climbing walls). Man, this girl is a natural athlete. She demonstrated good technique with little to no guidance. She has no fear of heights, as evidenced by the picture showing her at the tip-top of the climbing wall.

The rock-climbing experience was coordinated by the deaf/hoh department for the kids. What a cool thing!

The pictures should be able to communicate the rest.

Adoption Trip Details

Okay, I’m sure many of you are dying to know more about this upcoming trip.  I’ll share what I can.  We are traveling Sept. 1-Sept. 7 to Vladivostok, Russia.  We are doing so by way of Seoul, so we are flying across the Pacific, which means we cross the International Date Line and other such jet-lag inducing nonsense.

What we know about this girl is that she is almost 3 and she is deaf and is also diagnosed with very mild CP. Other than that, we know very little.  When we receive our official referral for her, we will be provided all the other details such as medical history, birth history, and so on.

The plan is to meet the girl on Tuesday and make a decision by Thursday or Friday at the absolute latest, though technically we can decide once we come home, but we don’t expect the decision to take that long.  Either she is meant to be our daughter or she isn’t.  We are trusting God to make it clear one way or the other.  We are prepared to involve various Dr. experts to assist us as needed with the medical details so we are clear about her diagnoses. If we say yes, then we will return to Russia in 8-12 weeks for court and to complete the adoption and bring her home.

Once we have agreed to adopt her, we will be allowed to post a picture, so stay tuned to see what happens!

Post-surgery update

I’m one week out since my surgery and doing great!  I have my post-op visit with the Dr. today and am hoping they give me the okay to be a bit more active, though I’ve probably already violated a ton of the “don’t” rules.  Still, I’ve tried to be careful since I don’t want to sabotage my own recovery!

The first 24-36 hours after surgery were pretty bad.  I didn’t have nausea so to speak, but any time I moved from a horizontal position to an upright (or even sitting) position I lost anything that was in my system at that time.  That anesthesia “air” is just nasty tasting and it insisted on coming out.  So, things like taking medications or going to the bathroom were a little traumatic for awhile.  But it got better, and it got better pretty fast.  By Saturday I was up and about, and Sunday I actually went out a few times… probably more than I should have because Monday I was pretty tired again.  But each day since I’ve been stronger and more like myself.

As for them removing stage 3 endo, I’m just thrilled about that.  It had been suspected more than once, sometimes by doctors and sometimes by myself, but overall, it was never a strong enough suspicion to warrant the necessary exploratory surgery that would be required to confirm (and take care of) it.  So it all worked out for the best.  I’ll be interested to see how things change and, hopefully, improve now that all that yuck is out of my insides.

Thanks to all for your prayers and well-wishes.

Jodi is fine and recovering 8/17/2007

Hi guys, Steve here.

The other day Jodi posted about her upcoming surgery, and I know that a number of you left comments or emails wishing her well, for which we’re grateful.

Jodi came though the surgery fine, though it was an hour longer than planned. The doctor removed the ovarian cyst, but also found that Jodi had stage 3 endometriosis and quite a bit of internal scarring (from the endo), so it took him some time to clean everything out. But the doctor seemed confident that he got everything and that Jodi will make a full recovery.

Thanks again for your prayers and support. I’m sure Jodi will post something in the next few days but I wanted to make sure that everyone had the good news.

Tickets in hand 8/15/2007

We are flying to Russia in just over 2 weeks to meet what may likely be our next daughter.  Yes, she’s a girl.  Yes, she’s deaf.  And unfortunately, that is about all I can share publicly at this point.  This first of two trips is a relatively short trip (7 days including travel days) and has one primary purpose:  to meet the child and accept or decline the referral.  If we accept, I can post a picture or two upon our return.  Something for you to look forward to.

Going under the knife

That’s right. I’m having surgery tomorrow. The Dr. will be removing an ovarian cyst and cleaning up some suspected endometriosis. There is a rather interesting history to this whole endeavor. If you’re interested, read on.

In case it isn’t obvious, we have been unable to conceive any children for over 7.5 years now. We’ve had some possible explanations at times but nothing ever really convincing (or proven). We finally decided to adopt and were blessed with Adelina. Then, the completely unexpected happened: no, we didn’t get pregnant, though a gazillion people predicted that is what would happen. What happened is that Steve got laid off… again. Ok, not so exciting in and of itself, but within 2 weeks he had a new employer and soon we discovered something shocking: the new insurance covers infertility treatments with no limits given certain qualifications (oh yeah, we qualify). Honestly, when I first learned we had insurance coverage for treatments - even the big bucks ones - I didn’t even know what to do with it. I more or less pretended it didn’t happen. Eventually, though, I thought about it and we decided we should take advantage of it. I mean, why not? Isn’t this probably why God made it available to us?

Here is where it gets a little weird. So, we make the decision and choose an RE (that’s reproductive endocrinologist) and start the process. I think we last maybe 3 or 4 weeks before we both started having doubts and it was less than 6 weeks before we decided we didn’t want to pursue the fertility treatments. We really wanted to adopt again instead. We wanted to adopt another deaf child. So, that is what we are doing.

Unfortunately, the Dr. didn’t let me go so easily. He had identified the cyst way back in January and said we needed to watch it for a few cycles to see if it resolved itself. It didn’t, and he started talking about surgery. Initially I was unconvinced, but then he ran some blood work and it came back with a couple of markers showing “positive”. For what, you ask (as did I). The Dr. explained they indicate one of two things: either you have endometriosis, or you have a cancerous tumor. Ugh, I was starting to cheer on the endometriosis possibility. He consulted with a gynecological oncologist who reviewed my file and said I have less than a 10% chance of it being cancer. Hmm, so a 90% chance of endometriosis. That causes infertility, right? Hmmm…

So that’s the story. Tomorrow I go under the knife. And you’d better believe I’m praying it’s endometriosis and not the “C” word. Ironically, it isn’t even because I’m scared of cancer, but man that would put a huge kink in our adoption plans.

Read the next post for details on our adoption plans as they currently stand. It’s good, exciting news, folks!