Two Month Update

Today marks two months from Gotcha Day!  It seems like a lifetime and a day all at the same time.

Maia Faith has spent the last two months learning what it means to have a family.  Family is such a foreign concept to a child raised in an institution.

These kids don't ever leave me alone!

I must say, though, that despite the challenges these adjustments bring, she is doing fantastic.

She's now had two months of nourishing food.  Two months of laughter and eye contact.  Two months of touch.  It's amazing what a little love, a lot of hard work, and a faithful God can do in just two months.

For beginning stats, click HERE.  1 month stats can be found HERE.  Be on the lookout for an update on the rest of us soon as well.  :)

Size: 32 lbs, 3'3" tall.

Wears: 4t (pulling the waist in tight still)

Mobility: crawling, pulling up to her knees.  Will stand with support and come to a standing position on her own.  Will also take steps holding onto our hands.  

Eating: Mashed veggies, chopped chicken and ground beef, rice, yogurt, applesauce, etc.  She will also eat table food that has been finely chopped.  Her favorite food by FAR is yogurt.  We also have her on a toddler formula designed to help children gain weight.  We have discovered that she does not tolerate soy products or cow's milk very well so we are avoiding those.  We have added in a little bit of gluten and she seems to be okay with that, but we are keeping it minimal while her gut continues to heal from 8 years of malnutrition.  

Institutional behaviors: rocking, thumb sucking, repetitive movements, moaning, hands in front of her face, holding things to her ear, chewing on her tongue.  The head banging is almost completely gone now, praise God!  

New things she's learned:  How to come to standing holding onto something by herself.  How to sign "all done".  How to say/sign "again".  To sit indian style instead of "w" style.  That things are WAY more fun when you're not laying down!!  She's also learned to say "dada" and understands who "mommy" and "daddy" are.  She has learned to mash food with her tongue and to make new sounds (popping her lips, blowing raspberries, "lalalala", and "nnnnn").

Maia appears to be progressing developmentally as well.   When she first came home she would cry or whine/stim when going to sleep.  Now she lays in her crib and "chatters" to herself.  I almost missed this milestone, but it is HUGE.  Just as a baby moves from crying to chattering, Maia has done the same!  

She is also now fully involved in physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy.  We are working on tolerance of textures, building an arch in her hands, finger strength, core strength, and balance.  Also working on tracking, signing/speech, and feeding skills.

(She can do this without Craig's arm for support now - but we don't have a video of it yet.)

We have a long way to go, but we've come SO FAR already.  I'm super proud of her as she discovers who God intended her to be - a DAUGHTER who is LOVED.  As much as she is loved by us, she is so much more loved by her heavenly Father and I pray will all my heart that she will come to understand that with time.  

Maia (then Maria) at 19 pounds.  Estimated age 6. This was before the new director came to Pleven and started getting the kids help.

 

Maia (then Maria) June 2012, age 7.  After a hospital stay and some changes made by the new director.

 

Maia at pickup, age 8. 30 lbs.

Maia, 2 months home, age 8. 32 pounds.

One Month Update

Happy one month from Gotcha Day, Maia Faith!

As promised, here are our updated stats.  She continues to blow us away!

Size: 30 lbs, 3'3" tall.

Wears: 3t/4t for length but 4T are big in the waist.

Mobility: crawling, pulling up to her knees.  Will stand with support and come to a standing position with support.  Will also take steps if we are fully supporting her.  (She has no balance right now)

Eating: baby food, oatmeal, yogurt, pediasure, milk.  She will drink from a spout sippy and a straw sippy!  Also eating "real" food that has been mashed or chopped up small.  She mashes food with her tongue and will try unsuccessfully to chew.  

Institutional behaviors: rocking, thumb sucking, some head banging, repetitive movements, moaning, hands in front of her face, holding things to her ear, laying on her side

New things she's learned:  How to come to standing with support.  How to drink from a sippy and a straw sippy.  How to sign "more".  To come to her knees in her crib and reach for us instead of waiting for us to reach in and get her.  To point to what foods/drink she wants.  How to play catch with her siblings.  She also sits up more now than she did before, but still prefers to lay down.  

She also lost her first tooth as a Moss!  (That makes four missing top teeth now, lol.)  What a blessing these three are!  

A Maia Update

You all have been asking so here it is: an update on Maia.  :)

Maia has been home for almost three weeks now and life has resumed it's new normal here at the Moss home.  We had our first big checkup at the International Adoption Clinic today so we have some updated stats for you all in addition to some new milestones!

Right now Maia weighs 30 lbs 10 oz and is 3'2" tall.  Not much gain at all yet considering how much better her diet is.  This actually could be because it appears she may have some sort of thyroid issue.  They ran blood work to check, but her thyroid was a bit enlarged according to the pediatrician.  We should know more in a few days.  Her spine is also curved so we will be seeing an orthopedic at some point in addition to a hematologist for her anemia.

 

Maia's official diagnoses after the visit today are: global developmental delay, microcephaly (this was new to us), and diffuse hypotonia.

As far as her milestones go, Maia Faith will now support all of her weight on her legs for up to a few minutes at a time (with us helping her stay balanced).  She even takes steps with us supporting her!  She drinks from a sippy cup and is starting to eat more chunky foods.  She seems to be connecting with Craig and I even more and turns to us instead of other people for the most part.  We have been so blessed to see this little girl blossom right before our eyes.  We are also very blessed that nothing life threatening was found today!!  Praise God for His protection over our girl.

We will begin OT, PT, and ST soon.  Can't wait to see how she changes with therapy!

Two Weeks!

We picked this beautiful girl up two weeks ago today!

She has slid into our family pretty seamlessly.  We certainly didn't expect everyone to get along so well.

She is SO HAPPY.  ALL the time!  

She loves to clap my hands and wrestle on the floor with N and A.

She's getting used to baths and does much better going to sleep now.

The perfect picture of redemption and what the love of a family can do!!

Now for her stats: (click here for the starting stats)

Size: 30lbs 2oz.  (Gained a whopping 2 oz so far, lol)

Wears: 3t/4t still

Mobility: crawling, pulling up to her knees, will put weight on her legs when we hold her up and will take "steps"

Eating: Same.  We've added some high protein high calorie foods in there as well.  Everything must be mushy or she will spit it out immediately.

Institutional behaviors: The teeth grinding is pretty much gone now along with the head banging.  She still rocks a LOT and sucks her thumb.  She also "zones out" frequently.  

New things she's learned:  How to "walk" with support, how to sign "more", how to mimic faces. She can play catch with a large beach ball and can put blocks into a box. She understands "eat", "mama", "dada", "more", "no", and "gentle".  

HOME!

After a VERY long flight and lots of drama I will cover in another post, we finally made it HOME.

Maia is doing GREAT!  Other than a few issues with eating, you would have never guessed she just came home two days ago.  She's so laid back and really goes with the flow.  (Part of this is institutional, so we are working with her on getting involved and communicating with us in little spurts.)  She has figured out how to tell us when she wants more food and she will crawl up to us and put up her hands when she needs some extra attention.  

She has taken especially well to Nathan, and he to her.  Something tells me they will be best buds.  Alex is a little momma and tries to do everything for Maia.  She will bring her the bottle, share toys with her, and talk to her in a sweet little momma voice.  Maia, however, wants nothing to do with her yet, lol.  

In an effort to not throw the balance of the family off too much, we have been spending a lot of individualized time with our bios.  They are LOVING all of the extra attention.  This is easy to do now because Maia needs lots of time to herself to watch things from a distance.  When she starts getting involved more I'm sure we will have to find a balance.  Right now I spend about 5 minutes one-on-one with her every hour and that's as much as she can handle.  The rest of the time she's playing with the kids or watching them from across the room.  This gives me time to get some housework done and pull Nathan and Alex aside for extra loving.  

It almost feels like she's been here all along.  She really does fit right in.  

Nathan takes his job of "big" brother very seriously with Maia.  We were a little concerned that he would have trouble adjusting to her, but that hasn't been the case at all.  He is caring, gentle, and very understanding with her.  He has lots of questions about the noises and motions she makes, but they are just curiosity.  And I answer them at least 10 times a day.  lol.

We explained to Nathan on the first day home that Maia doesn't know how to be gentle yet.  Without knowing it, she will kick, hit, and scratch us if we aren't keeping a careful eye on her.  This is all institutional and has already greatly decreased.  We told Nathan that we have to teach Maia how to have "gentle hands" and "gentle feet" because she didn't learn how in the orphanage.  He will intentionally get close to Maia and when she reaches for him he will show her how to be gentle.  I'm so blow away by how understanding he is with her.

Alex wants to be involved so badly and (as always) will do everything Nathan does.  Even with her interactions with Maia.  She loves to make Maia laugh and get RIGHT in her face and talk to her, lol.

I know we are still in the honeymoon phase with this whole thing, but we are so blessed with how well all three kids are handling this transition.  God is definitely watching over us.  We are, however, getting a little stir crazy already.  Even Maia does better after a quick walk around the block to get out of the house.

Pick up trip: day 6

Today was our last full day in Bulgaria!  I have loved being here this week, but I am so glad to be heading home tomorrow.  

Maia threw us for a loop today when she woke up sick to her stomach.  After some deliberation we decided to take her to a local clinic.  We now have some specialized formula, the Bulgarian equivalent of Tylenol, and some medicine for vomiting.  She has not been sick again, praise God, but we are prepared just in case.  

Today was full of milestones - some of which were caught on camera.  

After downing half of the prescribed dose of probiotic formula, Maia decided she wanted more.  So she crawled off the couch, crawled over to the empty bottle on the floor, picked it up and brought it to me!  She continued to push it into my lap until I got up to get her more.  :). Who needs words?!  She's got this communication thing figured out!

Speaking of words, she was clearly trying to say "peek a boo" today!!!  Craig got it on video, but I can't figure out how to get if off his iPad and onto my blog, so you will have to wait a bit for that.  Or find it on Facebook if you are friends with us.  

She continues to amaze us daily as we watch her already overcoming obstacles.  She is such an amazing example of grace and redemption.  We are SO blessed to be given the opportunity to parent this sweet child of God.  It not takes her about 30 minutes to fall asleep now compared to the 4 hours it took the first night.  

After an afternoon of resting and recouping we met with our bulgarian agency one last time to gather the official paperwork.  Everything is now done and ready to go!!  We are SO excited to be heading home tomorrow.  I miss Nathan and Alex so much it hurts.  I miss American speech and American food as well. :)  

Hang on, family.  We're coming soon!!!

Pick Up Trip: Day 5

Let me start off by saying today was our best day with Maia yet!  We are starting to get accustomed to each other and are slowly figuring things out.  We knew this trip wasn't going to be easy (and it's actually been easier than we thought) but its still been a hard week for all of us.

Not having any knowledge of how to specifically care for Maia has been hard. She can't tell me what she needs (she probably doesn't even know what she needs after so much neglect) and I don't know what she needs specifically.  We are guessing on how much to feed her.  Guessing on what to feed her.  Guessing as to when she needs quiet time in the crib and when she needs to practice interacting with us.  Guessing on what to work on and what to let go.  And if you know me at all, you now I don't like to guess.  But there's nothing concrete or exact when you start figuring out what makes your adopted special needs child tick, so guessing it is.  It's exhausting.  

Then you factor in being in a country with a different language, different customs, and different food and you have a whole new set of adjustments.  :). We've been keeping KFC and Subway in business since they speak a little bit of English and we know what their food is.  We also found a little mini-Walmart type store that we bought sandwich stuff at for lunches.  Nutella and jelly it is!  (Couldn't find the peanut butter, lol) 

Anyway.  After sucking it up and coming to terms with all of this last night, today as been fabulous.  I have no expectations other than surviving the week and making it home Saturday.  What a difference that makes!

(Gentle hands, Maia)

We had another lazy morning today before our appointment at the embassy this afternoon.  That was a bit intimidating until we got to the counter and realized everything was over with no pain or stress. :)  Maia did SO WELL at the embassy.  They are short staffed right now, so we ended up waiting almost an hour for our appointment.  She sat quietly and let me rock her most of the time.  :love:

Maia is still eating well, but isn't drinking much.  She is, however, still hydrated so we are not too concerned by this just yet.  I was able to give her a little sponge bath today.  She was uneasy, but was ok until it was time for soap.  Then she got a bit freaked out so we cut things short.  

She is also figuring out how to let us know if she wants more food.  If we have a bowl and spoon near us she will grab our hand and move it toward the spoon.  Then she will move the spoon (that's in our hand), to the bowl.  She will reach for her bottle when she wants milk as well.  She's making fast progress.  

One of her favorite games is to play with her stroller.  She pushes it around the apartment and rocks it back and forth.  Her other favorite game is to laugh at herself in the elevator.  SO CUTE!  Enjoy.  :)

Tomorrow we have one last meeting with our facilitator in which we will get all of the official paperwork.  And we leave Saturday morning to bring her HOME!!!

Maia's Stats (starting)

I have grand plans to do a monthly update on Maia for all of you following her story.  I want you to see how much good love and nurturing can do for an institutionalized child.  But plans change so if the updates don't come when they are supposed to, show me grace.  I'll still be getting used to this mom-of-three thing.  

So here's our first report on Maia.  Our starting point, if you will.

Maia Faith is 8 years and 3 months old. 

Size: 30 lbs, 3'2" tall.

Wears: 3t/4t for length but both sizes are big in the waist.

Mobility: crawling, pulling up to her knees

Eating: baby food, rice cereal with pediasure, water, juice, other mushy foods.  Her favorite seems to be applesauce and yogurt.

Institutional behaviors: rocking, thumb sucking, some head banging, repetitive movements, moaning, hands in front of her face, holding things to her ear, laying on her side

New things she's learned:  the word "eat", where to keep her hands when she eats, her name

We are already so proud of her!!  Can't wait to update you in a month. :)

 

Pick Up Trip: Day 4

Four days in Bulgaria!  Three days (two full ones) with Maia and we are already seeing so many improvements!  God is good.  Better than good.  He restores.

Good morning new Mommy!  She recognized me this morning and reached for me when I walked up to her crib.  

We went down for breakfast a little earlier this morning since we were all up.  Maia ate two bowls of yogurt while we were there!  (This is in addition to her breakfast which she ate shortly after getting up.)  we have a great eater.  Craig was able to teach her this morning that she needs to keep her hands down if she wants to eat.  (its super hard to feed her with her hands in front of her facd all the time.). We also have a hard time keeping her hair out of her face if you can't tell. :)

After breakfast we chilled out around the apartment for a bit before taking a walk.  Maia loves to be outside and she especially loves her stroller.  

There was nothing on the agenda for today so we took it easy and spent some more time getting to know each other.  Maia has a lot of institutional behaviors that are becoming more apparent as we spend 24/7 with her.  A lot of them she's already showing improvement with as well!  It will require a lot of hard work and a lot of patience on our end, but I think she will overcome most of the obstacles of her early years.  

And if she doesn't, we will still love her!  How can you not love that beautiful person?  Created in God's image and fearfully and wonderfully made.  Miraculous.  

Also - we are now on the back end of our pickup trip!  In three days we will be headed home!!!

Pick up trip: Day 3

Today marked three days in Bulgaria - two days with Maia.  

While today was pretty lazy, it seems to have been harder on Maia than yesterday.  

We gave her a little mini bath this morning and she did NOT like it.  Pretty common for institutionalized kids, but she really needed one so we made it as quick as possible.  As soon as the water was gone she was her happy self again. 

We hung around the apartment this morning and just relaxed.  Maia stommed a lot more than yesterday, but nothing that would hurt her.  So we let her stim and just talked to her and played with her when she would let us.  She makes great eye contact when we call her name so we are able to distract her momentarily with that.  Her stimming right now consists of rocking and moaning.  With the occasional grinding of teeth.  Eek!  

Everything goes in her mouth. :) 

We went to her medical appointment at 1:30 (the one immigration needs) and totally wiped her out with that.  They just checked her length (3ft 2in) and weight (30lbs), and listened to her heart and lungs.  The poor girl was terrified and fought the whole time.  She reached for me and Craig multiple times which shows she is starting to see us as safe people.  I was so glad to be able to calm her down after it all was over. 

We came back to the hotel and took a nice nap.  Even Maia napped in her crib beside us!  

After nap Craig fed Maia dinner (baby food and cereal mixed with pediasure), and we got her ready to go out.  We went to a little pizza place a block away from the hotel.  They have English menus and speak a bit of English.  SO NICE!!  It's strange in Bulgaria though - they won't bring you a check unless you ask for it.  It's seen as rude on their part to just bring the check.  Whereas on our end we kept thinking the were ignoring us by not bringing it, lol.  

After dinner we fed Maia another snack and gave her her medicines.  (She gets vitamins once a day and an iron supplement twice a day.). Then we started our new bedtime routine, that will hopefully in time make bedtime more relaxing and easier on her.  I attempted to brush her teeth (she wanted nothing to do with it), and gave her a short massage with lotion.  Then we got dressed and said leka nosht to Daddy and went to the crib.

She's currently laying in her crib playing, rocking, and making silly noises.  We are in the sitting room where she can see us, but still has her own space.  She looks up at us every few minutes and grins and then goes back to her playing/stimming.  She makes the CUTEST noises.  I'll try to get it on video tomorrow to share with you. :)

All in all day 3 went well.  It's hard starting new with her and not knowing what to do to care for her.  Almost like having a newborn all over again trying to figure them out.  Thankfully we know what she will eat so that's a great start.  ;)

There's nothing on the agenda tomorrow, so we are hoping to take her for a walk and get some laundry done.  I'll update again soon!  

Pick up trip: Gotcha Day (day 2)

We woke up this morning with a bounce in our step despite the fickle sleep we got last night.  After a quick run to the ATM, showers, and breakfast, we were ready to go get our girl!!

The drive to Pleven is about 2.5 hours from our hotel.  It's a good thing it's a beautiful drive!  Everywhere we looked there were fields of sunflowers.  Acres and acres at a time.  I've never seen anything like it.  When you look at the side of a mountain and its covered in sunflowers: yeah, beautiful.

We arrived at Maia's orphanage around 10:45.  I will never forget this place.  They gave my daughter life until we could bring her home.  While it wasn't the best care ever, it was care nonetheless and for that I'm eternally grateful.  

We waited in the lobby for about 10 minutes while they got Maia ready and then her baba brought her out to us.  

She loves her Baba Zdravska and her Baba loves her.  It did my heart good to see this sweet lady get choked up while saying goodbye.  I'm so thankful for the care she gave our girl.  

We said goodbye and loaded up in the car for the long drive back to Sofia.  I was a little concerned about the trek.  Maia didn't seem to remember us, so here we are, two complete strangers, carrying her off into the wild blue yonder.  I would have freaked out if I was her.

Y'all.  We got a trooper!  She sat in her little booster seat and took turns looking out the window and playing with us the entire trip.  Not one cry!  Not even a look of uncertainty.  She's super brave. 

When we got back to Sofia our driver took us to the passport office.  This was the first time Maia cried all trip.  She didn't like the crowded, close space.  I don't blame her.  We got her picture and got her out of there.  Then we had to go to another little place to get another picture taken.  Poor girl.  I had to hold Maia while also keep her hands put of her face.  The guy taking the picture kept telling me to do something and I had NO CLUE what he was saying.  How do you say "I don't speak Bulgarian" in Bulgarian?

We grabbed a quick gyro lunch and hopped in a taxi to head back to the hotel.  Once at the hotel we sat on the balcony a bit and ate our lunch.  Maia ate for us as well!!!   

She sat with us on the balcony and played for a while before I took her in and laid her in her crib for a rest.  

After rest we had some play time and then we fed her dinner before we headed out to find something to eat for ourselves.  She LOVED going outside in the stroller.  We took off to the mall and grabbed some KFC "take away" before heading down to the grocery store to get us all some food for the week.  

Upon arriving back to the hotel we face timed with the kids real quick and gave Maia a yogurt snack and put her to bed.  She's quietly rocking in her crib right now.

Y'all.  This child is an angel.  She has done SO WELL.  She just had her busiest day ever and took it like a champ.  She's so happy and active and smily.  She makes wonderful eye contact and is eating and even drinking a little.  We've had very little stimming despite the busyness of today.  I'm so relieved and blessed to have today go so well.  

To God be the glory.  Bring on tomorrow!  (After a good nights sleep. Please.)