My Birthday Hope

We had a great turn out for our Thrivent BBQ fundraiser for Marina's adoption.  We couldn't have asked for better weather.  Sunny, upper 70s, and low humidity.  It was a beautiful day!  We praise God that we have such supportive friends and family who helped us put this event on AND donated so generously.  We do not know the exact total yet, as we are not sure of how many donations may have been mailed in. We are also going to leave it open for more donations for a little while longer. But from what was donated at the BBQ, we received $8,180 (including the matched fund of $500)!!  We are in awe of God's provision in our lives in so many ways!  Some of the children even donated their own personal earnings.  This was very heartwarming.  And a family whom we had never met, read our blog and decided to come!  They are currently in the process of adopting from the same EE country and happen to live an hour south of us.  This was awesome!  Having the opportunity to make new friends who are on the same journey was an added blessing.

You may have noticed we took the chip in button off of our blog.  We have decided to take this down for a couple of reasons.  When there are multiple ways for donations to come in, we think it makes it more difficult to accurately show how much money is needed on an ongoing basis.  And it seems that people are preferring to donate through Marina's Reece's Rainbow (RR) grant fund, which is just fine with us.   And all donations are tax deductible this way.  So we will continue to have this be the primary way to accept donations. 

As of now, we have $9,960 towards Marina's adoption.   This means we have $10,040 to go.  Today is my 37th birthday.  And my birthday hope is for each of you to prayerfully consider donating just $37 towards our soon to be daughter's grant fund.  This is one dollar for each year old I am now.  I know that WE personally feel the heartache for so many children who don't have families.  And we are aware of the financial hurdle that so many committed families are trying to get over to bring their children home.  I'm sure there are times when we all have felt a strong pull or desire to donate larger amounts because we obviously feel like we are making a bigger difference.  Especially when so much money is needed for so many children and families.   But there are also times when many people can pull together and give a LITTLE and it lessens the burden on each of us while still making a HUGE impact.  

If 272 of you donate just $37 over the next 6-7 weeks (before we travel), we will have what we need.   We would be fully funded.   My prayer is that as each of you view this post, to please pray over whether you are to be part of making a collective AND significant difference in THIS little girl's life.   

New Pictures of Marina

Water Baby

All about Julia

God has taken this little girl who would have died within a couple of months had we not gotten her and blessed her with a family.   He led us to rescue her.  She is continually showing the world what love, family, and good medical care can do to redeem a life that would have been lost. All glory be to HIM!!

Julia is doing incredibly well lately, but had some troubles over the winter.  She was having terrible wretching episodes every time she had a bowel movement.  Trying to figure out the underlying cause for these episodes was difficult.  In the beginning she had a fever, so we just assumed she had a stomach bug. But when it continued, we suspected something else.  Her GI doctor did an xray of her tummy and found that she had a lot of stool in her intestines.  They had me give her some pretty hefty doses of Miralax over a 6 hour period of time to clear her out.  Boy was that fun : /  But it did seem to help her.  She was having terrible constipation even though we gave her Miralax daily to help keep her regular.  When she was suffering with this terrible wretching, we were stopping her feedings of Pediasure and giving her Pedialyte.  Then she would be fine.  The GI doctor also switched her to Pediasure Peptide which is supposed to be easier on the stomach.  She had lost about 3 pounds during this time period.  But now that she is doing well on the Peptide formula, along with giving her more Miralax daily, she has gained the weight back.  At her last doctor's visit they said she looked great, had put all the weight back on, and grown another inch in length.  She is in 4T clothes now!  That's pretty good for a 5 year old, who only a little over a year ago was in 18 mo. clothes and 15 1/2 pounds. 

In the beginning of April we had her evaluated by a feeding clinic, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech.  There is a long wait (like 6-9 mo.) for the feeding clinic and they said that there is no physical reason for her to eat orally.  She really does NOT do well with anything we give her orally.  Not only does she have trouble, but she really does not like it.  She gets very upset if you push it too hard.  So we have her on the waiting list and will decided what to do when the time comes.  She has her first PT appointment on July 2.  Both the PT and OT therapists said they can't wait to get Julia into the clinic.  They think she has a lot of potential.   So we are excited to start that soon!

One other problem we had been having with Julia is her inability to fall asleep at bedtime.   We would get her ready for bed and put her in her crib and she would spend 3 or 4 hours squealing and screaming in delight before finally zonking.  One problem with this is Julia shares a room with our 4 year old daughter Regan.   And Marina will be joining the girls in this room when she comes home.  Julia will be keeping them up every night.   We tried turning off the night light (even though Regan did not like this) to make it completely dark in the room and took all toys out of her crib.  It didn't matter one bit.  She still happily ranted at the top of her lungs.  I know, its a good problem, right?  But it also seemed to be difficult to get Julia up and going in the morning.  Likely because she wasn't actually falling asleep until around 11 pm, even if we put her to bed at 8.    I did some research and read that some children with neurological disorders can't fall asleep at night because their brain doesn't make a certain neurohormone that puts you into sleep.  So we tried giving her a low dose of liquid Melatonin right at the end of her last feeding for the day.   And it worked.  We get her into her crib with lights out within a half an hour of giving her the Melatonin and she falls asleep very quickly.   And stays asleep : )

Overall, she is now in a very good routine.  Feedings are very regular, she is passing bowel movements with ease, she is happy almost all the time, she loves her toys and her playpen and she continues to grow, gain weight, and get stronger all the time.  What more could we ask for?  She is such a sweet little girl and we are so blessed to be her family.

Woo hoo!!

 Dossier is ready to go!