One Year Ago Today We Met Our Precious Girl!!

In the Directors Office in the Orphanage immediately after they first brought her in for us to meet
She was a happy girl even then!!
The first time Daddy held our girl
Our Haylie Booster
1st Family Photo--can you tell we are happy???

I can't believe it has already been a whole year since we first traveled to Russia and met our darling girl. It was exactly a year ago today that we first met her in the orphanage in Proko. We got to spend only 1 1/2 hours with her that day, and then 2 hours the next day, then had to come home and leave her there for four long months before we went back to get her. It truly seems like it was just a couple of weeks ago. The entire experience of that trip is still so fresh in our minds. It occured to me that I had never posted any pictures of Haylie from that first trip because we weren't allowed to show any pictures until the adoption was finalized. So, just look at how my girl has changed in the past year!!! We went for her official 2-year-old check up yesterday. She has gained 7 pounds and grown 5 inches since we brought her home in January!! She was only 18 pounds--is now 25 pounds, and was 30 inches--now 35 inches. It is truly amazing what love, good nutrition, and vitamins can do. The pediatrician yesterday said "You have really hit the jackpot with this little doll!". We certainly already knew that and feel so lucky and blessed that God sent her to us.

Big Kids Place Playdate!!

Carl, Elijah, Kim, & Ava
Baby Ava
Karen & Nick
Nick and Karen
Eli, Haylie, & Nick (I never could a picture of all 3 looking at the camera!!)
Haylie playing in the balls
Not too sure about all this
She did love bouncing in the jumping thing
Eli & Haylie bouncing
Playing on the Flinstones car

We had our first official playdate this week with our friends who have also done adoptions with Adoption Ark. We all met a Kids Place in Lexington to get the kids all together for the first time. Karen is my friend who first gave us the idea about doing an international adoption when she was adopting Nick from Kazakhstan. She was using Adoption Ark and recommended them to us. We are eternally grateful to her--we never would have found our Haylie if she hadn't gotten the whole ball rolling for us!! Kim is another friend we met actually thru the Adoption Ark blog, who we found out also lives in Lexington. She traveled on her first trip to Russia one week after we did. We got together on the phone first and then in person and commiserated thru the entire process. Unfortunately, her first trip didn't go exactly as planned when their referral was no longer available. Long story short, they had to make 2 more trips but finally got their precious little guy, Elijah. She then also was blessed with a little baby girl named Ava whom they adopted domestically this June.

We had a great time and of course the kids had a blast. Nick, who is 4, had been to Kids Place before and was a pro at all of the climbing, sliding, and bouncing contraptions they have. Haylie and Eli, both 2 were a little more leary of the things, but finally got into playing in the balls and bouncing in the blowup bouncer thing. They actually spent most of their time climbing on the many car and animal rides they have that you put a token in and it rocks back and forth. They liked the riding part, but enjoyed climbing up and down on them just as much!! Of course Ava, at only 3 months was too little to play, but I enjoyed holding and playing with her. It's been a long time since I've got to be around such a little one. Course, with all of those years working in the newborn nursery, I am a pro at baby holding. It was great to be able to talk for awhile with Kim and Karen as we are all so busy with the kids, seems like we never have time to call anymore. It is so nice to have friends, especially older moms, who have been thru the whole adoption process and have had the same experiences to compare notes with.

She's a Water Baby

Splish-Splash
A rare still moment
With my bestest friend--cousin JuJu
She is fearless and sticks her face right in the water--unfortunately she forgets to close her mouth and usually comes up sputtering, but laughs about it
So much fun!!!

I'm posting a few cute pictures of Haylie playing in her little pool in Grandma's backyard. A few of them are from when we went camping and took her pool along. She absolutely loves the water and wants to stay in even when she starts to shiver and turn blue around the lips (which she easily does while swimming even when it's 95 degrees outside!!) I wanted everybody to see my little water baby. Just like her Aunt Lisa, who gave her the pool.

Summertime Fun

What is this crazy thing?

Just sitting here isn't too exciting...

Wow, you mean I'm supposed to hurl myself down that?

This is the best ever--I loooove the slide!!

The big teeter-totter is pretty cool too

Peek-a-Boo!! (What stupid person put graffitti on this cool bubble?)

My Daddy--my heroGo on out in the deep water Daddy
I'm sooo tired, but there is no way I'm gonna stop
I LOVE to swim!!

We've been having a blast playing with Haylie outside this summer. We took her to our favorited park, Woodland Park in Lexington last weekend for a little picnic. Then we let her play on the playground for a little while before we took her to the pool--her first visit to a public pool!! She had a blast, even though it was past her naptime!! She threw a fit when we took her off the playground, and then of course didn't want to leave the pool either. But she played so hard, she literally fell asleep the minute her head hit the carseat for the ride home. Daddy and I are really enjoying having a little one to play with too--it is so amazing to see the world thru the eyes of a child again. We'd forgotten how much fun playing on the playground is!!

I Can See Clearly Now!!

Getting fitted for my new glasses

How do I look?

I'm not too sure about all of this!!

What are these things?

I don't think so!!

We went and picked up Haylie's new glasses and after only one short week, she is actually doing pretty good keeping them on. I never would have believed it, but she will wear them for 3-4 hours at a time before yanking them off and shouting "All done!" She seems to do better when she's outside running around...guess she can see better so she will leave them on. We have had a few "throw downs"--litterally!! The second day we had them, Grandma took her for a walk in her stroller and she was wearing them without any problem, until she decided she'd had enough and threw them on the sidewalk. Bad thing was, my mom didn't realize she had thrown them and then proceeded to roll over them with the stroller, dragging them on the concrete and scratched the frames all up. Then there was the time I pulled into the garage after our 1 hour commute home, and she pulled them off and proceeded to throw them out the car window!! Luckily, we were in the garage, not rolling down the highway. But overall she has done amazing with them. Plus, she looks so adorable in them.

We've Come a LONG Way!!

Boy, this stuff sure beats baby food!!
Look at me go
See, I'm a big girl now!!
Haylie and Grandma
In one of my MANY Sunday dresses from our church showerJust as pretty from the back

Boy, has Haylie come a long way in the eating department. As you may remember from previous posts, when Haylie first came home, she would not eat anything except pureed food or Stage 2 baby foods. Slowly but surely, she has made major progress and eats many table foods now. We do still do a few baby foods, especially to get in veggies. But as you can see from the photos, she will now do corn on the cob--a major victory!! We have even stopped the occupational therapy thru 1st Steps that was supposed to help with her food issues. Not sure it really helped that much as they decided it wasn't really a food aversion, just learned behavior. Whatever the reason, we are thankful she will eat mostly table food now.

I'm also including some cute pictures I took after church at my mom's a few Sunday's ago--she looked adorable in this dress. We got so many dresses for her at the shower our church gave, that she literally hasn't worn one twice. I'm afraid she'll outgrow them before we get around to wearing something the second time...a terrible problem to have I know--we are sooo blessed.

We're Getting Glasses!!

Haylie loves to climb under and sit on the bottom shelf of this bakers rack in the kitchen.

She gets this adorable look on her face everytime the phone or doorbell rings.
Looking at all the new toys Grandma bought for her--what a haul!!
Always such a happy girl

I'm posting some recent pictures of my girl just so you can see how adorable and happy she always is. But on a more serious note, yesterday was not so fun. Haylie had to have a brain MRI under anesthesia. I hadn't posted about this so far because we didn't know for sure what all was going to happen. We've been dealing with this issue since April. Everyone has been asking what is going on... so, I apologize ahead of time for the long post, but because we are also using this as our journal for Haylie, I wanted to get my thoughts down.

At our first trip to the international adoption clinic, Dr. Taylor referred us to the pediatric opthalmologist because she thought her left eye turned in just the slightest amount when her eye was covered and then uncovered. I had noticed it when we played peek-a-boo. UK has a great pediatric opthalmologist, but her 1st available appointment wasn't for 8 months, so we went to see another guy they had there instead--big mistake. Well, putting it nicely, I couldn't stand this guy. He talked to me like I was a complete idiot, and said "I'm sure she needs glasses" before he even looked at her eyes. When he examined her, he said she is extremely near-sighted in her left eye, and moderately near-sighted in the right. Said she had to wear glasses, and patch her good eye everynight. I really don't have any problem with her needing glasses. But when I said to him, "oh gosh, I don't know how I'm going to keep them on her--I can't even keep a hair bow in", he just snapped and said "Well, you might as well just sign her up for Braille then". I was so upset with him and the way he treated us, I decided to get a second opinion. I had a hard time believing she was as bad as he said since she can see to pick up a hair off the floor 3-4 feet away.

So, I took Haylie for a second opinion to an optometrist. This guy was very nice and really took a lot of time with her. He too got her left eye very near-sighted, but her right eye normal. He recommended another "third opinion" with another pediatric opthalmologist. So, even though this 3rd guy was "out of network" on our insurance, and we had to pay full price out of pocket (ouch), off we went to see him. He confirmed what the second guy said--that in her left eye she is really badly near-sighted (a -9 for anyone who knows what your eye prescription is) which is considered legally blind, but correctable. But her right eye is normal, which explains why she can seemingly see so well without glasses--she compensates with the good eye. However, on top of all of this, he said her optic nerves were small; a condition called "optic nerve hypoplasia". Evidently, with this condition 20% of the time there is also some brain abnormalities like pituitary/growth hormone deficiencies, and even some neurological problems. Luckily 80% of the time, there is no brain abnormality. He said she sure doesn't look like she has any of these, but that she needed a brain MRI to rule them out. Since he was out of our insurance network, I sure didn't want to have to pay for a MRI out of pocket, so I said I had to go back to UK. Soooo, long story short, I finally got into see the peds opthamologist who I should have seen in the first place for a 4th opinion. She confirmed the last 2, and also recommended the MRI but also doubted any problems other than the optic nerve hypoplasia, and she thought it was only a mild case. It is evidently a genetic defect--not necessarily caused by anything her birthmother did. Luckily it doesn't worsen overtime.

So yesterday was the day of the MRI. It was a VERY loooong day. Because they had to put her to sleep to do the test, she couldn't have any solid food after 7am, but the test wasn't until 1pm. Needless to say, that is not a good thing for a 2 year-old. She was pretty fussy and kept asking for milk or drink. We actually first had an appointment with the ear, nose, and throat doctor at 10:00. She recommended we put tubes in Haylie's ears because she has some fluid behind her eardrums, which might or might not be interfering with her speech development...(I'm inclined not to do that since she's not having any ear infections, but I'll keep you posted on that one). Then we went over to the hospital for the MRI. Of course Haylie was not a happy camper getting her IV started--poor baby was scared to death and just sobbed and sobbed. They let me go in while they put her to sleep, then shooed me out for the procedure which took about 45 minutes. She woke up fine and stayed drunk for a few hours. She was pretty funny when she first woke--couldn't even hold her head up but was talking saying "Hebbo" (hello) to everyone she saw. Luckily I was able to get the results today and it was totally normal--thank you God!!!

After she got pretty good and awake, we went and picked out and ordered her glasses and lenses. I still don't know how I'm going to keep them on her, since she STILL won't keep a hairbow on, but we will survive. They are supposed to be here in about a week, so I'll soon post some pictures of her in her cute little glasses.