First Pediatrician Appointment and Other "Firsts"

Hi!  Sorry it's been awhile.  

Olivia has had a few more “firsts” the past couple of days.  I took her out in the jogging stroller Monday and Tuesday.  She seemed to really like it.  Her very first stroller ride was in China in a little umbrella stroller, which she did fine in as well.  She also took her first trip to the mall yesterday.  I think that might have been sensory overload for her, but she never cried.  We were in and out pretty quickly and only went in a couple of stores.  We still have not ventured out to Target or the grocery with her quite yet.

 

We are doing well, really well.  Olivia is still waking up at 4:30am every morning, but we’re working on that.  It is not unusual for it to take several days for children to adjust back to regular time.  Ansley has been sleeping until6:30am (except for this morning), so I think she is getting back on track. 

 

Olivia fits right in and is like a little sponge.  She absorbs everything and is very inquisitive about how things work.  She will turn a toy over a million times to try and figure it out.  She especially likes toys that make noise, and she loves to be outside.  She’s not too crazy about soft toys, however.  We saw this in China as well. She never took to the loveys or small stuffed animals that we offered her.

 

The main “first” we had was her first pediatrician appointment Monday.  Let me start out by saying that we have THE BEST pediatrician in the whole world.  He and his nurses were totally prepared for us when we walked in the door with a plan.  I presented him with what they gave us in China, which was a little tiny book of shot records.  Of course, we aren’t sure how reliable these records are, so we are being cautious and testing everything.  It was a pretty traumatic day for Little Miss, but we have to make sure she is well taken care of.  She had 5 shots, a blood draw, and a TB skin prick test.  I also learned that Girlfriend HATES Bandaids with a capital H.  This is totally opposite of her sister who thinks that Bandaids cure everything.  Poor thing screamed and screamed when they were torturing her with those needles.  I felt terrible for her.  She did want me to hold her afterwards, so that also proves that bonding is going well. 

This is us before the drama!

The doctor was really pleased with what he saw.  I think she was in better shape than he expected.  She was certainly in a higher percentile than I expected for weight, so that’s good.  She is in the 50^th percentile for height (35”) and the 10^th for weight (24.4 pounds).  Despite her 18 month clothes almost falling off of her, she isn’t the smallest of the bunch!  For the most part, she is wearing 18 months clothes, except for Gymboree.  The 18-24 month Gymboree pants/shorts are way too big right now.

 

We have a lot of follow-up in the coming weeks/months.  It’s a good thing that I’m off for a little while.  I can only imagine what the other families who adopted special needs children are having to go through to get them up-to-speed.  Here are a few of the things we are focusing on:  seeing a dentist (next week for her teeth issues); TEIS (Tennessee Early Intervention Services) for an Occupational Therapy evaluation (fine motor specifically) and a speech evaluation; hearing evaluation (standard for an international adoption); and getting the results back from the blood tests.  As long as nothing out of the ordinary shows up there, we should be good for at least a few weeks.  We will have our next round of shots in 6 months.  

 

I am really looking forward to Philip coming home and settling back into our “new normal.”  We are so blessed that my Mom and Beth have been able to be here while he is out of town.  I honestly don’t know what I would have done by myself.  Ansley is adjusting pretty well, but she has her moments.  She is requiring more “alone time” with me than I anticipated.  Thank goodness Mom and Beth are here to take Olivia when she needs that time with me.  She is back at school in a fairly normal routine for her.  The differences are in the morning and in the evening when little sister is here, too.  I know that this is typical when you introduce a new sibling into the mix.

For those of you interested, I am working on posting my packing list…..what we were glad we took and what we didn’t need.  I spent years scouring blogs for packing lists, so hopefully this will be helpful to those of you in the process right now.  It is a daunting task.  I am pleased with what we ended up taking, but I would make some adjustments.

 

As always, thanks for your support and interest.  We appreciate you. 

 

Until next time,

Jill