Back to Work--boooooo!!!

Well, I must confess I've been a bad blogger. I didn't even realize it had been so long since I posted. Seems like there was never any time while I was off from work. I had to come back to work yesterday and am now updating on my lunch hour. I don't even have my camera with me, so I have to add pictures maybe tomorrow of our Haylie--because of course, we have a ton of new pictures. Coming back to work was actually not as bad as I had dreaded...of course the fact that my mother is taking care of her helps soooo much--thank the Lord for my wonderful mother!! The worst part is I came back and worked 2 days, and then I have to leave tomorrow for a conference in Philadelphia. Again my mom is going to keep her the 6 days I'm gone. It will be interesting to see how we do!!

Haylie has made great progress in the month and half we've been home. She is now walking everywhere and getting into everything. Within just 3 weeks of being home she had gone from crawling to practically running. Her giardia was totally gone after her antibiotics. We went back to the pediatrician last week and she has gained 2 1/2 pounds and grown an inch since we got home!! They did titers for her vaccinations, and although we have records where she supposedly had them all in Russia, none of her titers were protective except her Tetanus, so we are going to have to redo them all. They gave her 3 shots that day (actually 5 different vaccines in combined shots). She was a little fussy the next day, but overall did well with them. I just hate that she has to do them all again.

She continues to have issues with any solid foods and will only eat pureed/baby food. She now drinks milk without any problems, so I'm sure that's helping pack on those pounds. We had First Steps come out for an evaluation and we are going to do some Occupational Therapy to help with the food aversion issue--they think it probably isn't a true aversion, just that she was never given anything solid in the orphanage. They are also going to do speech therapy, just because she is delayed with her speech and having to learn English. She says Mama, Dada, Bye, and Uh-oh, but that is about it. I am so glad that she LOVES books and goes and gets them for me to read to her, so hopefully that will speed up her language development.

She is still such a happy and good baby and bonding without any problems. We feel so fortunate and blessed that the Lord sent us such a wonderful child. In addition, it's amazing how many people tell us how much she looks like us, especially my husband Rich--and I must admit it is true. Unless we choose to tell anyone she is adopted, I don't think anybody could tell just by looking at her (not that we care that everyone knows she is adopted!!)

I'll try and post some pictures in the next few days so you can see my beautiful girl yourself!!