Moving forward and sleeping well....

Just a quick update...the homestudy update is moving forward and will hopefully be completed within the next 10 days or sooner. I will be approved to adopt children for four different special needs and am very happy with the decision.  Once the agency receives the update, it will then go to the ministry for approval. Once I receive the ministry approval on these special needs, my family will be added to the agency lists and then will be better able to find out our status on the list.  Feeling very positive and slept so well last night!!

Matteo with pink eye

Pink eye...

Well my little boy woke up this morning or should I say it started out with a night full of waking moments where I knew something was up and this morning one of his eyes was encrusted and partially shut...Bacterial pink eye and he now has antibiotic drops. First time on any antibiotics of any kind...I'm sure not the last...but it has put a damper in all our plans this weekend as it is highly contagious and the doctor suggested we really stay away from individuals for the next 48 hours..he should be find for daycare on Monday but he thought it best to lie low.......so instead we will change things around and have a quieter weekend than planned..

Pee pee in the potty....

While Matteo won't be happy that I am recording this, I wanted to and maybe one day when he may be a daddy, he'll appreciate it on a different level....Today while I was getting him dressed and changing his diaper, he said "pee - pee" so I asked if he meant he had to do some. He nodded yes and I whisked him off to the potty...and sure to his word a few seconds later, there we had it, pee pee in the potty!  They had been telling me at daycare that he had been doing pee-pee in their potty a few times...They have a system in the toddler room that when they do diaper  changing they sit each child on the potty for a few minutes to get them used to that. Some in the toddler room are already in training underwear....toddler room is from 18 months to 30 months.....so when they told me Matteo was already peeing in the potty there, I made sure to get one potty (will need another one for the upstairs bathroom) but I've been asking Matteo to tell me if he needs to go....we haven't attempted this seriously or anything but will be thinking about it soon.  Not sure if this is a single parent issues, but Matteo has been following me to the bathroom for the longest time and I've been telling him from day one, that mommy doesn't wear a diaper like Matteo and one day Matteo won't be wearing a diaper either...so Matteo has understood this for a long time now....so Matteo just two weeks past his second birthday, for the first time at home, my little boy told me he had to go pee-pee without any proding from his mommie!!

Coming full circle...minor correctible special needs...

When I started the adoption journey in 2005, initially with research etc...through twists and turns in 2006 was almost about to go with China special needs waiting children with cleft palette ...and then discovered that Vietnam had opened up (it had closed for various reasons) and my agency who was originally not working with Ontario, had just opened an office here.  Through other twists and turns, had I gone ahead with the adoption at that time, the turn around might have been about 3-6 months as there were very few who knew about this change in the agency and that their relationship with Vietnam was recognized (and of course that was, if I recollect, when things changed in China, closing to singles, and making all kinds of requirements from parents, so the Vietnam program was flooded ).....so instead when I did finally go forward it was to be November of 2010 when I finally became a mommy to my beautiful son Matteo.

Now about a year a half later I am sort of coming back to trying to adopt a special needs child and of course the challenge is what is considered a "minor correctible special need" that I, as a single mom to one child already, can deal with.  The adoption process is so hard as everyone knows especially where you have no control over getting approved for what you want and instead you have to convince a social worker who then has to convince the ministry who then has to rely on the agency's relationship with the country and their trust that this parent will take care of the needs of this child.....and of course what is special needs in one country, may not be special needs in another, hence why the suggestion is to list it as "minor correctible special needs"....though that doesn't necessarily solve anything.  The reality is we have a pretty good medical system here, not to say that the one in Vietnam is not good, but the finances are different...ours is a national health care system with of course provincial support...so once my child is a Canadian citizen she/he will have access through surgeries that may be expensive but they will be covered.....

....so all this to say....we are so close to finalizing the update but my social worker is suggesting we should or I should think about and research and if possible speak with others who have been dealing with certain special needs... etc. to see what the experience has been....and of course to see if it is something that I can take care of. The reality is there are no guarantees with any of the children we adopt or for that matter any biological child as well.  I hope that as a parent whatever needs my children have I can continue to advocate for them in all areas, and in this case it may be medical.

  While I can appreciate that research and understanding and knowledge can dymystify the process, I'm not sure it will help me to really prepare in advance  the psychological and emotional dimensions of seeing your child who you love, be sick, suffering or in pain....Lucy's story is a testament to that...I recall the post where her mom told us when Lucy was first diagnosed titled "In the blink of an eye." Things changed dramatically for Lucy's family, yet the doctors, the parents, family and friends, were there to support Lucy and her family and contnue to be. 

   so again all this to say, we do what we have to do what we can to prepare and I know I need to trust in myself absolutely that whatever the needs of my next child, should I be given this gift, I will do whatever I can and whatever it takes to make sure her/his medical needs are also taken care of... 

...if it was up to me, when I adopted Matteo I would have taken all the children home with me if I could regardless of knowing anything about them....I just wanted them to have a home. 

So now I will try to research and prepare myself for the following "minor correctible special needs" that I have listed and that are some of the needs of children in Vietnam....If anyone has any additional information on other special needs that you are dealing with and that you think a single mommie with one child already can handle, please feel free to contact me and I would appreciate your help or advice.

For now...

HIV antibody positive, PCR negative (at birth, where a child has the mother's antibodies it is normal to test positive, however this specialized test taken one month later can show if the antibodies are still there...if it is negative, then the child is retested when they are 18months old and there is a 99% chance that the child does not have the HIV antibodies.  The child is considered special needs because of the 1% and the fact that time needs to pass in order for the test to be readministered when the child is older.

Heart issues such as ASD, Atrial septal defect...babies born with  a genetic heart defect that is correctible through surgery if it doesn't close on its own, which it sometimes does, but again time will tell.

Strabismus...a lazy eye....surgery can correct this...

Syndactyl etc...fingers fused together, webbing, missing finger, extra finger...again surgery can correct these...

The special needs that some consider minor and others major are

Cleft palette

Club foot

When I researched this in the China program it was considered a minor need, however now, because it can require multiple surgeries at different times, over time....it is considered major by some?

And Club foot, requiring more and constant attention etc....

So again, if you have others that you have encountered and/or have anything to add on this list, I hope to hear from you.

Singing or Sleeping with his shoes on?

   I've added the photo below....and wanted to write it so I would remember it. As some of you know Matteo is an early riser....5:15 - 5:30...very challenging when in reality we can easily wake at 7 and still be at daycare by 8-8:15.  Well in the last few weeks Matteo has been sleeping until 6:00 and sometimes even 6:30...so wonderful....and I'm not sure what the difference is....but when he started his new daycare in March, he was so exhausted by the end of the day that sometimes he'd be in bed by 7 and would not want to do any reading or have me sing to him...something I've done from the beginning....well I was told a few weeks ago that because of his early mornings, he sometimes doesn't make it through lunch and is one of the first to hit his little bed and sleep for sometimes 2.5 to 3 hours....so I decided to try to go back to our routine of insisting we have time to read bedtime books in his room (we usually read and look at books after supper) but the bedroom had stopped so I started this again, and then started to also sing a couple of songs to him...always "somewhere over the rainbow" which is what I sang to him when I first picked him up in Vietnam....and other songs...well he has been going right to sleep after he gets into bed, sometimes he sings a bit to himself, and then sleeps through the night without any night waking...he usually would cry out in his sleep at least once but that seems to be gone.....in the mornings when he wakes and calls me, and he sometimes calls "mommie" singing it.  So the change in bed routine I hope has made a difference to sleeping longer and later.

   Then again the other thing I should mention is that in the past few weeks, possibly when we went back to our previous routine, Matteo has insisted on wearing his look alike crock shoes to sleep?  He has a couple of car shoes, that are too big for him and that he got as gifts from Samantha, Vanh and Max's mom, but he loves putting them on and off, sometimes changing back and forth a couple of times during the evening and sometimes not on the correct feet. Yet he has been wearing his shoes to bed and there is no way I can get them off!

  So, is it the fact that we now sing again, or is it that he is wearing his shoes that is helping him to sleep better and longer? 

So singing or shoes?...or maybe both??

....but whatever it is, this mommie is loving having that extra 30-45 minutes of sleep in the morning. And sometimes I even get 5-10 minutes to sit and watch the morning news with my espresso before I hear my little one sing for me.  So thank you my little two year old!!

A bit of a blip on adoption #2....

.....but back on track...I hope!!....yesterday I wrote that I was going to be looking for a new social worker but have now deleted that post...after an email exchange and a face to face meeting, the misunderstanding was discussed and all has been resolved and I will not be looking for a new social worker. This is such a hard process...second time around it hasn't been as stressful but yesterday was very stressful.  At this point the final approval will now be drafted and the only thing to really confirm is what 'minor correctible special needs' I am capable of dealing with as a single parent and mother of one already.  Hoping that the homestudy will be submitted to the agency within the next two weeks. 

Praying that the next steps are not as daunting and that the wait will not be as challenging....

On a more positive note, have been searching for a scrapbook to turn into Matteo's lifebook and it isn't easy. I'm also been trying to work with an online company to turn my Blog for Matteo into a book...have decided it is going to have to be a couple of books, as my blog is too long....so am taking baby steps on those projects. I am probably going to leave them aside for the summer and instead focus on some swimming lessons for Matteo and make sure we do a lot of outdoor activities. For now I am looking forward to our short trip to Toronto in July via Kingston.....that is probably as far as we'll go this summer...no Italy this year but who knows maybe next year it will be Vietnam. 

The only other thing I hope to get done at some point this summer is to get some photos enlarged of my trip to adopt Matteo...I figure that can be something to do on rainy evenings....I have a lot of photos of Italy hanging and want to integrate ones from Vietnam, mostly Vungtau as well!

Anyhow this week I was very excited as I am starting to feel like child number 2 is out there and waiting to join our family...not out there as in born already but just somehow that it may really happen. That's a much better feeling to have then what I had yesterday!

I will end today's blog with a prayer for Lucy and her family !  I think of her and them often through the day and can't imagine what they are going through. If thinking and praying for them can help sustain them, it is a small thing that I most willingly will do.