I'm leaving!!!!! On a big ol' jet airliner....

Tomorrow's the day! I leave to go back to Brigita's country for her adoption hearing! I'm so excited. I cannot wait until she is officially my daughter. Of course, there is a 20 day appeal period that we have to wait before Brigita and I both travel back to finalize everything. But still...Monday is such an important day for us! It will be her official adoption day!

Please visit the link below if you would like to purchase some Pampered Chef products to help us out with some of the travel expenses for the last trip. The consultant has graciously offered her entire commission to our FSP!

Pampered Chef for Dee and Brigita!

Brigita is doing okay. She is still struggling with ear infections and so we are waiting for a surgery date (again) to put tubes in (for real this time). I will be so glad. Every time she gets an infection, her behaviors regress and of course she is in pain. She is now making a gesture of someone lifting her chin up sometimes. I think she is mimicking me lifting her chin to help her with her medication. She doesn't always lift her head up to drink. So, I think she is letting me know she needs medicine. And of course there are behavioral cues when her pain meds have worn off: covering her ears, screaming, grumping and groaning, hitting herself in the face :(

When she starts to feel better, she is such a loving, sweet girl. She starts learning new things and doing things. And then she gets sick again...and regresses. I'm so tired of this cycle.

Please keep us in your prayers this weekend through Wednesday. I leave tomorrow, have court on Monday, and leave Tuesday morning. I will land around 7pm Tuesday night and already can't wait to see Brigita! Please pray for Brigita during this time as well. This is our first time apart and she will also be with people that have kept her short term but never long and definitely not overnight. She is such a strong little girl that I feel like she will be fine. And she's with good people! But, you just can't tell what separation will do when having a family is so new to you.

In addition to the ear infection, baby girl had a tummy bug. She slept nearly all day. We enjoyed lots of snuggling together.

Stretching

She LOVES her keyboard!

She got 2 cakes: one with me and Aunt Liz and one with my family

She climbed all up on this tall bed by herself after watching her cousins one time

Heart Sunday @ church! Her hair has gotten long enough for pigtails!

Don't let her fool you...every last puzzle piece was promptly thrown

Again, she LOVES the keyboard!

Playing with a doll. Hasn't she gotten so big?

Oh, we had her school assessment with the School for the Deaf (partly b/c it was scheduled prior to us knowing she had basically no hearing loss and partly b/c our school system had no idea how to evaluate a child with no communication). They will send me the results soon. The biggest thing that came out was that 2 different people there have mentioned concerns about her vision. They do not think she is focusing correctly and not seeing things well. They have recommended another doctor (not sure if he's an ophthamologist or optometrist yet). They are writing a letter so I can send to the insurance company so I will hopefully not have to pay for it since she has already had one examination already. Also, they said sign language will likely not be her main way to communicate due to dexterity and vision concerns. They believe she is an auditory communicator. Also, in terms of communicating, we have been working on saying "mama" which is a sound Brigita actually makes sometimes but not trying to say the name. Anyway, Brigita is starting to try to mimick me saying it! Then today I was saying "nana" and she copied me! She also signed "milk" last night while drinking her milk. She even stopped drinking to watch herself sign it. My big girl! She makes mama proud so many times per day!