February Already!

The time seems to just be flying by! Okay, so I owe you guys a few updates. Here's the medical stuff... Monday morning Livi will be having an MRI. This is related to the pale optic nerve situation, but we hope it will also give us info regarding her balance issues. Then Wednesday we see Dr. Roy for her final post op from the jaw surgery. He'll want to see her again in a year or so to look at the cleft palette, but I do think we'll be done with his office until then. I'm hoping he can help us with her ear infection, too, though. I have her on some antibiotics but they don't seem to be making much of an impact on it. Then next month we see the orthopedic doctor and a developmental specialist and in April we see a neurologist. The fun just never ends!

Aren't these photos just gorgeous? Livi was entered in the Most Photogenic Baby contest. We'll get the contest results tomorrow, but I was able to get the CD of all the photos today. I just love these pictures of her. Tonight we're going to be meeting some friends for dinner and I can't wait for them to see her--it's been a couple months and she's changed quite a bit. Oh--and today we bought Livi some regular earrings to replace the original set. She's wearing the ladybug set right now--too cute! And I also got her a set that is this truly adorable pair of purses. I just love having a little girl to do all this stuff with!

Monday after her MRI we are going to go check out a couple preschools for Livi. The one that had been recommended by her other developmental specialist had too many autistic children and behaviorally challenged children. I don't need for Livi to learn more of those kinds of behaviors. Oh--and Livi has finally started to show an interest in television. She just adores Blue's Clues. You should see her when she sits in her thinking chair to think! Personally, I think she has a bit of a crush on Steve, the host (yes, we are watching the old episodes.)

Well, I'll probably try to post again tomorrow to let everyone know how Livi did in the photo contest. In the meantime, have a great weekend, everyone!

~ Jeana

Happy 2008!

Sorry for the delay in posting. Things have been rather hectic during and since the holidays.

First, the holidays! Livi and I had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's! Christmas Eve we had my parents join us at our home for dinner. Livi was delighted to have Gran and Papa join us for our walk around the neighborhood to see all the lights. She rode in her new wagon (she got to "unwrap" one gift that evening. We finally got her in bed around 8:30 and then my parents helped me carry in all of the presents "from Santa" and get everything set up. Christmas morning Livi was up around 8 a.m. The first thing she saw when she went into the living room was her kitchen--and it probably took a good half hour to get her to even think about looking at anything else. Once she did move on to the other gifts her new tricycle was the next thing she latched onto. Judging from Livi's reactions I'd say Santa did well...

Livi and I spent Christmas afternoon at my parents house... there was another huge pile of presents for Livi. I gotta say she's finally gotten the hang of this gift opening stuff! After dinner we all visited some other family across town, then retired for an early night to get ready for our trip to Atlanta. We drove up the day after Christmas and stayed several days. Livi loved that she got to share a bed with Mommy! She spent every night snuggled up with me--it was SO sweet! My aunts, uncles and cousins all spoiled her silly, too. Then, on New Year's Day Livi had a couple more gifts to open--these from Father Frost. It was a great holiday season!

On the medical front... things didn't go as well as I'd hoped with the opthalmology exam. It seems Livi does have a lazy eye and she also has "pale optic nerves." They are doing eye patch therapy for the lazy eye, but the optic nerve situation seems to be the greater concern. It means her eyes are not getting an adequate blood supply. They are doing and MRI on her and refering us to a neurologist to try to determine the cause. I'm glad to be getting the MRI, actually, as it will give us more information about her brain and how it is growing. She has some significant balance issues still, for which we may find explanations in the MRI. The MRI is early in February, so we'll know more about that then, but the neurologist can't see us until late April...

In other news... Livi got her ears pierced today. She looks so cute with her little earrings! I'll have to get some photos to post here. Also, just before we got her ears done, Livi had a professional photo shoot as part of a "Most Photogenic Baby" contest that is raising money for Wolfson's Children's Hospital through the Chilren's Miracle Network. We have entered three of the shots in the contest. There were some really cute kids there, so it'll be a long shot for her to win, but I'm happy to participate in the fund-raising which will go to Wolfson's where Livi has had all of her surgeries. Once the contest is over (mid-February) I'll be given her photos and I'll post them here. They are absolutely gorgeous! In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy the candids from Christmas!

~ Jeana

A Little Trooper!

Livi just amazes me each time we go in for surgery or some other medical procedure. She's got the most incredible recuperative powers. She took one dose of pain medication right after the surgery and hasn't needed any more since. The swelling is completely gone and she looks amazing! She's such a little trooper!

Anyway--that was our last surgery. Now we get back into our therapies routine and follow up with a couple specialists (opthalmology and orthopedics), but we don't expect any negative reports in any case. Oh--we also have an evaluation by the school district in a couple months to see what services she will qualify for once she turns 3 in July. I'm hoping they say they think she won't need anything but speech and PT, but we'll see!

Otherwise, things are going great! I've finished all the Christmas shopping and now just have to get everything wrapped and/or put together. But that's another story...

~ Jeana

Happy Holidays!

December is flying by, folks! I feel like I'm in a non-stop winner-take-all race to the end of the month. This week was the last week of classes, next week is finals, I have several projects due over the next couple weeks in my day job, Livi has surgery on Wednesday, Dad has surgery on the 20th, Christmas is just a couple weeks away, and I hope I can survive the journey! Today Livi and I sojourned out to get some holiday photos done. It's in the 80's here, so it's hard to dress Christmassy! We did manage to find the perfect Livi Christmas hat, though!

Last weekend I took Livi to see Santa. She wasn't really thrilled with him. She didn't cry or anything--just wouldn't smile. We ended up with a photo that's practically a duplicate of last year's, so I'm going to use these other ones as our holiday photos for this year. I'm almost done with the Christmas shopping. I still have to find one more thing for my mom and pick up some gift cards for my brothers and nephews, but otherwise all is done! Livi is going to rack up the gifts this year, though! Whew!

I mentioned Livi's surgery earlier--it's the one to remove all of her hardware. As you can see from these photos, she has a really nice jawline now. We could have even brought it out a little bit further, but I'm happy with where it's at. She still has a mild overbite, but nothing serious. She's finally starting to build a vocabulary, too. We're up to more than 30 fairly intelligible words. Hurray! The next step is to get her to start combining them in phrases. And on the physical side, while she's still off the charts, her height has jumped up to 32.5 inches and her weight is about 21 lbs. She'll probably always be on the small side, but that's not a bad thing at all in my book!

I'll post more the next time I get to come up for air. In the meantime--happy holidays, everyone!

~ Jeana

A Time to Reflect and Give Thanks

This is a year in which I truly have a lot for which to be thankful--and my family and friends are very high on my list. I have truly been blessed with wonderful people in both categories. None of could be the wonderful people that we all are, however, without the freedoms and the opportunities which we all sometimes take for granted. No, our lives aren't perfect, but they are so much better than they might be if we had been born elsewhere.

A thought has been playing through my head these last few days--a memory from the court hearing for Alivia's adoption. The judge was reading through the papers and suddenly stopped and asked why I needed such a big house. My house isn't all that big--in fact, by US standards, it's rather small and I would love to have a MUCH bigger place--yet the judge felt it was more than adequate for my needs. How much does one person or one family really need? And is it wrong to want more when there are so many in the world who don't even have their basic needs met?

Greater minds than mine have pondered these questions and, inevitably, my mind will soon tire of them and wander back to happier thoughts. But as we broach a day that our country has set aside as a day for giving thanks for what we have, it does seem appropriate to at least acknowledge the battle even if I choose not to fight it. And so among many other things...

I am thankful to have been born an American and to have been able to bring my daughter out of the poverty of Russia to be raised as an American. I am thankful that I am not an inmate in a Serbian asylum for the disabled. I am thankful that I have friends throughout the world that I can keep in touch with on this board. I am thankful that I have a job that pays well and a beautiful, albeit small, home. I am thankful that my parents are still with me and are able to enjoy spending time with their granddaughter. I am thankful that I am able to obtain medical services for me and my daughter when needed and that we can afford to travel and have a few "luxuries" in our lives. And mostly I am thankful to have her--something I never could have imagined just a few years ago.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

~ Jeana

8 Random Things About Me...

Uh oh! I've been tagged.

So, here are the rules of the 8 Random Things tag game:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

(I think the hardest part of this will be coming up with 8 other people to tag!)

Okay--so 8 random things...

1. When I was 12 years old I appeared in television commercials for Hardy's restaurants. It was my first acting gig. Somehow my acting career never did take off, though. Rats...

2. When I was 4 years old my family moved to Guam. My grandmother had just given me a new cowgirl outfit complete with a beautiful red hat. Unfortunately in the rush to board the plane with two small children, my mother forgot the hat under our seats at the airport. I cried for days... I still sometimes wonder who ended up with my beautiful red cowboy hat.

3. One of my favorite places in the whole world is a tiny little church in Paris, France, called Sainte Chappelle. The first time I visited there it was late afternoon and the sun was hitting all of the stained glass windows just so while monks chant played softly in the background. I was overcome with this incredible sense of peace and serenity that's never been matched anywhere else in my experience. The church claims to have the true Crown of Thorns as one of it's relics.

4. I hate eggplant. 'Nuff said.

5. I love Byzantine and Renaissance art. I'm not sure if it's because of the vivid jewel-tone colors that are so pervasive in both periods or the story-like renderings of the religious subject matter, but something in both of those eras speaks to my soul.

6. I once wandered through the Catacombs beneath Paris all by myself--yep, just me and a few trillion bones. Very "atmospheric", to say the least.

7. My favorite author is Diana Gabaldon. She writes a very hard to catagorize series of books (Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, etc.) about a time-travelling family. Set largely in 18th century Scotland and America, the books have enthralled me since I accidently stumbled on the first one in a grocery store many years ago. What I like about her writing is her character and story development--you truly feel like you know these people in her books and their adventures are phenomenally well written. And their "romantic encounters" aren't too badly done, either... Seriously, though, it's a rare book that can make me laugh and cry at the same time, but Diana's books always do.

8. I have never in my life had a cavity. Never. Thank God, because I'm terrified of the dentist!

Whew! Now who am I going to tag... Christy and Kelly come to mind first of all. And Cyndi, of course. Hmmm... I'm going to have to think a bit to come up with some more.

~ Jeana

Final Surgery Date!

We received the date for Alivia's final surgery this week. It will be on December 12th. They'll take out all the hardware during that one and she should only have to spend one night in the hospital. Then we'll be done! Hurray!!!!

We had some other good news, as well--both of my biopsies were negative. I was rather nervous about the second one, but it turned out to be just a fibrous cyst. Thank God! I have to go back in 6 months to follow up on the one they couldn't biopsy, but they don't expect any problems, so I'm not going to worry about it until then.

Livi is having another growth spurt, I think--she's up to 32 inches in height and 20 lbs in weight. She's still very much below the charts, but catching up bit by bit. She's also becoming quite the chatterbox! I love it!

Oh--if anyone's interested, I've found another great price on a cruise and have requested a group of cabins. This one is on the Carnival Glory, October 4-11, 2008. It departs from Port Canaveral (Orlando) goes to Cozumel, Belize, Honduras, and Freeport. The fares start at just $469 per person and each cabin will receive a $100 ship's credit. If you'd like information, please email me at kizibits6@bellsouth.net and I'll send you the e-flyer.

~ Jeana