We are growing...by one

In case you didn't know....we are expecting. So if my head seems like it's in lala land... It's because we're now entering the 1st trimester of paperwork, homestudies, and background checks. Fingerprints, medical evaluations, and forms forms oh and more forms! And we are so excited that we are growing! By one more I might add. And this time....wait for it.....A GIRL! Yes we are now entering foreign territory in this family....as we have four boys I have no idea what to expect when expecting a GIRL! Can I say that I'm over the moon excited that now when all the boys are skateboarding or digging for worms or doing "boy things" I now will have a little girl that will get to go shopping  be right there doing those same exact things as her brothers...just in pink. Okay not all pink. But hey is it bad I'm saving some sleeper pajamas from her brothers to pass down? Little baby girl will have FOUR older brothers to protect her. And can I say being daddy's only little girl.....she is in for a lot of lovin from all of us!! At this time I will not be sharing any details online about baby girls adoption process. But please feel free to ask us in person:)

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Catching Up

Its hard to believe that Kai has been home with us for ten months now!!! Wow. Time has flown by sooo fast and we have gone through so many changes in the past ten months. From learning about sickle cell disease, numerous hospital stays, first spleen crisis at a hospital in Puerto Rico, to moving from Puerto Rico back to the states, staying with family in Michigan for a few months to find a house...while Scott was living/working in New Jersey finding us a house.  It was just a crazy crazy time. 
Kai had a second serious spleenic sequestration on my birthday (March 10th). He was admitted to the ICU with an enlarged spleen, severe fatigue/anemia and heart failure. Thankfully this time we were at a hospital who took immediate action. Kai was immediately given new blood. We were at the hospital for blood work three times a week at Memorial Children's Hospital in South Bend, IN. He was then put on a three week blood transfusion schedule by our hemotologists. 
 On May 7th he had an operation which removed his spleen. Which was causing a lot of the life threatening symptoms he was having. After a full month recovery we noticed significant changes in Kai. This was the fist time since he came home that he started to gain weight. He no longer had a yellow tint to his skin which was a symptom of severe anemia. His skin started to glow and his cheeks started to fill in. His personality changed from a grumpy most of the time, fatigued boy, to bouncing of the walls, chasing his brothers, getting in on the fun boy.
 Since he came home he's gained a significant amount of weight. 12lbs. in ten months, grown two shoes sizes and went from a 12-18months to a 3t. He's now at 48% for height and weight for a three year old. Right on track! Below are some pictures just to see the physical changes in the last ten months. And of course the birthday pictures!! We couldn't imagine life without our little man.

Kai on the second day he was home. That night he was admitted into the ICU in Puerto Rico with a hemoglobin number of 3.2. By the time he had his blood transfusion 18 hours later it dropped to 2.8. An average person has a hemoglobin number of 12grams. 

Kai after his second blood transfusion in ICU at Centro Medico. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Starting to feel better. He was released from this hospital four days later. It was horrible. Makes me thankful for our hemotologist in Indiana and New Jersey.

July 2013. Two months after his splenectomy he's feeling great!

Kai just celebrated his birthday on October 23rd. He turned 3 years old!! Can you see the differences?

Almost 3!!! boy has he grown!

And this is the face of a kid who's feeling good!!!

Updates and hospital time

I'm going to get to Scott's time in Congo with Kai...the gotcha day pictures and his almost two weeks in country. But I wanted to post some recent updates first as the past four weeks since we brought Kai home has been a whirlwind!!! Some of you may know we relocated to South Jersey (which should be classified as a whole different state apart from northern New Jersey...and because somebody always asks..no it's not like the tv show, the Jersey Shore)  for my hubby's new job as a civilian fire fighter working for the Coast Guard. We said adios to active duty military, hola to civilian world. It's pretty nice. We're feeling pretty free, but the transition for our family of six.... has. been. pure. craziness hell. We are staying in a temporary rental for a few weeks as we finalize our home purchase.  All of the kids are out of whack. We left warm beautiful Puerto Rico..oh how I miss you..and we are freezing. And we are bored because we can't go outside because we are freezing. And poor Kai. Coming home from Congo, to Puerto Rico, to New Jersey. Yes he's freezing too and makes this cute little mad scrunched up face when the wind hits him. It will get better. We are taking it a day at a time and I couldn't make it here if I didn't have beautiful caring friends in our life who keep us entertained with toys and coffee so we're not sitting in our rental all day going nuts. You better believe I'm already planning our escape to Puerto Rico though. 
Now to a more important topic then all of our chaos. Kai is doing fantastic! He's gained 4 lbs since he's came home and is such a ball of constant energy. I haven't posted this yet or these pictures. After Kai came home 6 days later we went to a check up at our family doctor for what we thought would just be a physical before our move to NJ where we would take him to the international adoption clinic at CHOP. The doctor did the normal check up and he wanted to run a couple of blood tests while we were in the office. Something didn't look right when the blood test came back and they asked to run it again. His hemoglobin was 3.5. The average persons hemoglobin is 12. Anything under 8 is considered dangerous. The doctor called for an ambulance and I rode with Kai to Centro Medico. If you ever are in Puerto Rico and need to go to the ER, don't go to this one. The doctors came in and asked background history. Which of course we knew nothing. We did know that Kai may be possible sickle cell. While he was at our agencys transition home he was administered to the hospital and had a blood transfusion for what we thought was for malaria. He did have a test done for sickle cell. One test came back positive. The second time the test came back negative. So it was a thought in the back of our minds for the past month that he could possibly have sickle cell anemia. The doctor felt that his spleen was very enlarged and she said it felt like it was sickling and they needed to do blood work right away.
 

Mama and Kai in the PICU room during second transfusion.

 Two hours later the nurse came in for blood work. 12 hours later they moved Kai to PICU and he was confirmed he had sickle cell anemia and needed a blood transfusion. One blood transfusion Kai was starting to perk up. He was starting to laugh, and chat in his swahili/french/2 yr. old babble. Second blood transfusion....he tried to jump out of the crib. He was feeling so much better and sooo good! Four days later he was finally released from the PICU and now he is on daily meds to help manage what could turn into a "pain crisis." I'm going to commit a whole post to Sickle Cell Anemia in the next post because I want people to be informed and aware of what Sickle Cell anemia is. Even if you are curious or happen to know somebody who has it but you don't know anything about it. That was us a few weeks ago! I'm no expert, but we are learning as we go.

starting to feel good!

He's a trooper, and of course keeping it cool in the PICU with his hat. He wanted it backwards;)

Kai is HOME!!!

LOVE is coming for you!!!

Feliz Navidad Kai!!

 Christmas surprise! Photos of our little man on Christmas Eve AND Christmas day!!!!! whoa!! 

Christmas Eve in Kinshasa!!

We saw the break was his right arm. Another mama that was there said it didn't seem to bother him but he would sit down to rest when he got tired.

Merry Christmas Kai! Looking all handsome and in an outfit and shoes that we sent!! They dressed all the kids up in their Christmas outfits for the party.

The transition home all decorated for a Christmas celebration.

It was so wonderful to see that the children at the TH had a Christmas party! It looks like they all had a lot of fun! There was also a photo of the food table and it looks like there were some plantains and yucca. We call plantains "amarillos" or another kind "tostones" in Puerto Rico and that was what we made on Christmas Eve with a traditional PR meal...rice, pink beans, pollo..yum! A lot of the PR receipies have African roots so it was neat to see some of the same foods that they were eating at their Christmas party. 

We are really counting down the days now!!!  

To the hospital and back

A day after the last post I wrote (on December 15th) we thought that Kai would have been well enough after the one night hospital stay to go home the next morning. Turns out he had to stay a second night and he received a blood transfusion.  There were two amazing women who stayed with him all day and donated blood for him, C & J. For them I will forever be grateful they did this for my son. There is no blood bank in DRC so in order for Kai to receive the blood transfusion, blood had to come from somewhere.  They are also ran some blood tests on Kai. As of an update yesterday we are still waiting to receive those results from the hospital in Kinshasa. Kai was feeling great after the blood transfusion and he was able to go back to the transition home that night. So thankful. We cried, prayed, and worried so much over this little boy. So many people were praying for him. We were so glad to hear that he was doing well and out of the hospital!

 

  
We received another email last night from our caseworker. First line, "well....I don't know why this always happens with your family."......that worried me to read....then it went on to say that Kai is feeling SO GOOD that for the past 36 hours he has been running around like crazy at the transition home with all of the other kids laughing and having a good time. He decided to climb up on a chair and jump off. In doing so he landed on his arm on the hard tile floor and fractured it. Our poor little guy! Back to the hospital for Kai. They were waiting for the swelling to go down so they could cast it. Our case worker said, "I want you to be prepared for two things..he's coming home in a cast, and he's all boy!" She also wrote that the nannies said ever since his blood transfusion he is like a completely different child! Scott and I can't help but find this situation slightly comical. Only slightly because I do feel so bad that he broke his arm, but he just got out of the hospital, was having a good time, and found himself back at the same place again! He's also the first out of all four boys to break a bone, and he's two yrs. old. I think when he gets home him and Keane are going to be good buddies. 
We can't wait to get him home and we will be flying very soon. His embassy appointment was Tuesday this past week. We sent off our visas last week. We should be getting ready to fly about a week or so after Christmas. We wish he was already home and our family was all together on Christmas day, but we are leaving the tree up and all of his presents will be waiting for him to open when he gets home!! I can't tell you how much I LOVE this little guy already!!! Can't wait to watch him jumping around and wrestling with his three older brothers. We love you Kai, and we wish you a Merry Christmas!!!

Nets For Christmas

Yesterday we got news that I dreaded. Our caseworker called us around 3:00pm telling us it was nothing to worry about but they had to take Kai to the hospital because he had a fever and flu like symptoms. No wonder the nanny said he was feeling so weak in his update a couple days ago. She told us that he most likely had a relapse of malaria. I had that devastating sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to go be with my son. To have a child an ocean away in a hospital and not be there with him. I did what I could only do. Something much more powerful then any medicine. We prayed. Our family stood in the kitchen held hands and we prayed for Kai. The sweetest most faithful words came out of my 3, 5, and 7 yr. old. They know what malaria is. They walked this road before with baby Kembe Marc. They prayed for the bad mosquitos to go away from Kai and that God would make him feel better. The simplicity of a child's prayer. We also had a lot of other families from our agency praying for Kai yesterday. God heard our prayers and he answered them. At 7:00pm we got a phone call that he was doing better. They wanted to keep him overnight, but he should be feeling much better by the morning!! Right now at this time, he should be out of the hospital and back at the transition home. I'm so thankful he had access to a good hospital in Kinshasa. 

Malaria....this is also how baby Kembe Marc left us to go be with Jesus. Sadly I've known too many kids that have died from malaria this year alone. We've decided to donate to Nets for Life Africa every year to help fight malaria in memory of our son, Kembe Marc. This Christmas would you be interested in purchasing a net for a child in Africa as well? For just $10.00 you can give one net through Nets For Life Africa. 

• Over half a million (655, 000) people die from malaria each year, mostly children younger than five years old.
• There are an estimated 216 million cases of malaria each year.
• Although the vast majority of malaria cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa, the disease is a public-health problem in more than 109 countries in the world, 45 of which are in Africa.
• Approximately 3.3 billion people live in areas where malaria is a constant threat.
• 90% of all malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Malaria costs an estimated $12 billion in lost productivity in Africa.
• When insecticide-treated nets are used properly by three-quarters of the people in a community, malaria transmission is cut by 50%, child deaths are cut by 20%, and the mosquito population drops by as much as 90%.
• It is estimated that less than 5% of children in sub-Saharan Africa currently sleep under any type of insecticide-treated net.  

              This Christmas give a net!!!!

 

1600 approved!!

           We received a small update and a couple of photos yesterday of Kai. He is beautiful and the boys thought it was great he was in a blue clues shirt. In the small update we received the nanny said that he is very very weak. He came in to the TH with a protein malnourishment. I was told the doctor said he is getting stronger and happy with his development though. The nanny said that he is a crier at the transition home. He will be fine laughing and playing with his friends but as soon as she walks by him she said he starts crying for no reason. Well there is a reason. He wants to feel loved, he wants to be held, he needs that kind of love in his life. He's so small, two years old....he's still a mere babe. I can't imagine being two and not having an adult source where you could find love, comfort, security. He needs his mommy and daddy. And we are coming for you Kai! We will be there soooooo soon. I know the days left from today until we travel next month is not soon enough. I wish it could be today.  We had all of that paperwork to do which takes so ridiculously long. Thankfully we received our i600 approval last Friday. Our caseworker is setting our Embassy appointment, a couple weeks after that we get our visas, and then we can fly off this island, back to the states, then to Africa...I hate that we have to backtrack...we are closer to you in Puerto Rico!!! :) 

We are coming for you little love!!

We along with a big group of other parents are expecting to travel in January. So I can't can't wait, and can't believe that is only next month!! Now I'm going into extreme clean everything in sight and start packing the right way mode. Scott's sister will be flying out here all the way from Oregon to stay with the boys. They are super excited about spending a week with their Aunt Jenny. Especially because she loves to do art and craft and that is right up the boys alley.  
 

One Night

Two years ago we started our adoption journey to bring home a child from Africa. 

Two years ago we lived in a small coastal town in New Jersey. 

Two years ago on one special night we gathered with our church family, our family family who drove all the way from Michigan to be with us, many faces we've never seen before, and our good friends who are like family who also were on this journey with us to bring home their child from Africa. 

Two families, Two less orphans....

We worshiped and gave thanks to God.

We prayed for our sons and daughters.

We shared our adoption story. God's adoption story.

We fought for orphans that night.

We sang some more.

My father in law made us laugh with his comedy routine. Thank you Mike, I love your humor:)

I made these "Africa bags" to raise funds for fees. We had a silent auction..many items were donated from business throughout Cape May County. Feeling blessed...so much support from everywhere.

My mother in law and sister in law made these really stinkin cute sock monkeys. Complete with names and personalities. There were none left at the end of the night. They all went to good homes with tiny little owners carrying them around all night. Made me smile:)

People came from everywhere throughout the night. So blessed for the support, the prayers, the encouragement, the questions asked, the stories exchanged, we were all there fighting for these these two precious little ones who were far far away in Africa. We were all praying you home that night.

Family.

Love.

cousin Liam all the way from Michigan came to show his support.

                    One Night...To make a difference