Little bits

First of all, (as I type that, there are at least three things that jump into my mind as the first thing I would want to tell you! So here they are in no particular order!)

1) Adam is here. ;) (That was an easy one, so it came out first.) It is wonderful to have him around. We gave Tsvetomira (Mira) an all-over check, and she did great, except when he touched her feet. Then she cried. She has so quickly become so trusting of me! We were actually able to get her clothes changed without cutting, and without Adam having to do it for me. Partly, he was able to encourage me to not be afraid (much like Dondi did for me on Krassi's pick up trip!), and partly, her trust in me to be gentle with her is growing, so I can do a little bit more without frightening her, which means she is not as tense. It's a good cycle. Seeing her little unclothed body made me cry. Yes, I suppose, at the terrible gauntness, and the preventable deformity, but primarily I was overcome by the same emotions that I've had after giving birth to my biological children and I see them with my own eyes for the first time. The little birthmarks (and the one that's a little bigger), the shape of her spine, the flat little belly button - every little thing that is just her. She is so beautiful.

1) Mira is doing so well. Sometime between the midnight and 4am feedings last night (Bulgaria time, so 4pm and 8pm MN time), she "switched" and instead of surviving, but not really doing well, today she looks SO good. (Well, as good as any 25 pound eleven year old child can look!) We took her out to retake the blood work panels that Adam had requested on Monday, giving us the chance to see comparitively how she's doing, and the results are all moving in just exactly the direction Adam had hoped they would move - cautionary liver values are slightly lower, her sodium level, which was in the moderate to severely low range is now at the very bottom of the normal range!! And a few other significant numbers are moving in the right direction. As we, over Skype, hemmed and hawed about the best way to increase her sodium level without needing to split up our happy party of five by taking Mira to the hospital, we stumbled upon the simplest of simple measures: mix her formula with a saline solution instead of plain water, and make that saline solution by adding a teaspoon of salt to a 500ml container of bottled water! What a difference that simple change made!!!

1) We got the results back from the tests that were done on Monday - both girls are clear on the tuberculosis test, and one more that Bogomila needed (as a child over 14 or 15), also came back negative. We are still waiting on the one last sample that was taken Tuesday. We will not know the results of that one until after our Embassy appointment tomorrow.

Okay, now on to second things. ;)

2) Adam put a nicer tube holder on Mira. I took the opportunity when he had the old tape off to take a photograph of her. You can really see how very delicate her features are in this photograph.

3) Bogomila had a good day. Yesterday she kind of withdrew in the afternoon and just wanted to listen to her music on the iPad. We let her, knowing that she as a young adult, needs some space, but we were glad today to see her still being cheerfully engaged. Even though she also had her music on for a fair amount of the day (and is pretty involved in it), we were also having plenty of anecdotal interactions as we went along.

sisters

3b) She also got to connect with her psychologist, who lives here in Sofia, and they had a great hour and a half talking together. Her psychologist knows enough English that Leah and I were able to be somewhat involved in the conversation, and I found it to be a wonderful time where she was giving Bogomila plenty of good coaching on getting ready to be part of our family. I was able to share some tender thoughts I'd had a hard time getting Google Translate to communicate. For example, right before bed last night I sat next to her with my arms around her while she finished watching her show. She just leaned right into it. I started crying as I mourned all of the years that I did NOT get to hold this girl of mine. Google translate doesn't do that. She asked me that night why I was crying, and this morning, her psychologist was able to explain it to her. I wonder if some of her encouragement was part of Bogomila's more relaxed and involved afternoon. She was also MUCH freer with trying her English today! Last night she told me before bed that she was going to speak Bulgarian when she was in Bulgaria, and she would learn English when she was in America. I laughed and told her that was fair enough. And then today she was on it, trying new words, using old ones. Very good.

~~~

We still have plenty ahead of us - keeping Mira moving in the right direction and figuring out how to get her onto the airplane, and still waiting on the results of the last test for Bogomila.Thank you for praying! We are feeling utterly calm.

It's a long week. We're ready to go home.