The walk of shame, and AMAZING friends :)

We are so humbled to share a huge gift that our sweet friend Tisha has given our family. I met Tisha thru our adoption of Baby girl. We used the same agency for Ethiopia. She has 3 beautiful little boys and beautiful twin girls :) She has decided to help us out by asking for small donations to make a big difference in our diaper and formula costs. We are stunned and humbled by her sweet heart. She also has a heart for orphans and understands the costs once home, can be staggering especially with a special needs little one like sweet Taya :) please check out her blog to read or if you feel moved to please re post. Thank you to all our friends for your thoughts and prayers :):) Bottom line-we are all saving  orphans one child at a time. Or well 2 at a time :)
Tisha's blog :)

After we had custody of the children, Taya was sick with a cold and seemed more reserved and sorta out of it. We had our Embassy apt and the Dr. apt and the Dr cleared her as fine ? That night we took the train back to the capitol city. Oh my. The train from hell ;) my husband thought it couldn't be worse to be dragged BEHIND the train. It is bumpy and creaky and hot and smells like fuel...I am sure we hit a few locals or large animals the way the train slammed forward then creaked to the side quickly! Seriously sucked. We did have a first class car, which gave us 2 small cots and a normal , although metal freezing cold toilet :) Oh and my sweet Benji didn't sleep a wink-which means mama didn't sleep. He was terrified, and kept patting my face saying "mama kaca" which mean -potty.again.and again. :) Taya slept fine :) even rolled off after one big lurch and landed on the floor. ASLEEP! :(

~We had a horrible apartment in the capitol , the bed smelled like mildew and felt like laying on wet lumpy cotton balls. Gross. And all the outlets were hanging out of the walls which thrilled Benji :( 220 volts ..dangerous.
~We woke up at 2am to head to the airport at 3. As soon I as woke Taya up I realized she had vomited in her sleep. Quick change, a bit of ibuprofen and tried to give her a bottle of apple juice/water. She drank about 3 oz which thrilled me since she didn't take one the night before. Quickly she vomited it up. ALL OVER US BOTH. Change again. Threw my pj's away. Well the vomiting continued for the next hour. We got in the car w Nicko and told him. He said "it will be fine" luckily she didn't vomit in his car :) got to the airport and waiting in the LONG SLOW line to check in, she vomited about 4 times...no one even noticed or offered a paper towel :( even the workers walked by. My hubby gave me his coat to keep the vomit off me and clean Taya up. She was in the Ergo front carrier, so it was tricky NOT to wear it. Each time she vomited, my heart sank and the dread became thicker. I was getting scared. Scared for my baby who I could tell was in trouble. Scared to be so far from home with a sick baby. Scared knowing in my gut, that we were not going home today. Scared for my kids at home, who were so excited we were coming home.
~Long story short we make it on the plane and Taya is lethargic and now vomiting bile or just gagging. The flight attendant asks if she is OK? I said she is dehydrating I think, and might need electrolytes. Taya gagged again, nothing comes out. A nice flight attendant asks if we want some coke and salt to drip on her tongue...the other flight attendant comes back and says

" I have talked to the captain and due to the small size of your child and her illness which could infect all our other passengers he thinks it would be best if you departed the plane at this time"

I am stunned and scared. She is saying what I am thinking. Oh my word. Please Lord let my baby be OK ! I am freaking out too afraid my husband is going to be mad. He has to go to work. But I know he is scared for Taya too. We don't even say a word to each other, just gather up the kids and walk THE WALK OF SHAME...off the plane with my very sick vomiting baby, covered in vomit myself, with a little boy who is stealing all the in flight magazines, while everyone stares, worried about their OWN health. not.fun.
~They walk us out of the terminal where a Dr from the airport is waiting. She tells us that Taya is fine, no temperature and she can ride the plane. What?? She is clearly very sick. And our plane has left! I lost it now. I start to cry. Hard.

~Then the young lady who speaks no English walks us back thru the airport to the front door where we came in. Are ya kidding? Now what? I ask for a taxi to a hospital and they say there are no hospitals in the capital city. Seriously?
~The serious situation we are in, sinks in. I start to cry the ugly cry. I am so scared for my baby. So scared to have her treated here where no one blinks at a 4 1/2 little girl who weighs 21 pds and can not walk. Where 2 doctors say she is fine. Fine?Really?
~I have no phone numbers they  are in my luggage which the airline cant find...
~I scan my iPhone and find Nancy's number in Florida. I risk it and call her :) love her! She answers ! She gives me all the facilitators numbers and a hug over the phone :)
~I call Marina who is a doll, she answers and goes into action. She says do not worry we will get you to a Dr asap.
~Nicko comes back for us in 1 1/2 hours and takes us to a clinic for foreigners. We have to wait until 9:30 for a Dr. They decided she should be hospitalized. They do not speak English so Nicko translates. It is scary. I am numb. Taya is laying on the table like a zombie in and out of it. Her eyes are rolling around and her lips are chapped and dry. No cute tongue clicking :( we head to the hospital for foreigners IN THE CAPITAL btw. Very nice place, clean, new and not crowded. Everyone pays in cash so it isn't busy. After a bit we are admitted. For a 3 day stay.

~Diagnoses is bacterial infection, severe dehydration, severe constipation and inflamed organs. Not sure what the last one was? They were very nice and I even had one nurse who spoke English :) My husband and Benji could not visit, so it was lonely and surreal to be away from my husband when our baby was so sick.  Taya was on IV fluids constantly and antibiotics. She had an enema to clear her out :(  She would not eat or drink at all.

~Yulia came to visit us and Marina and Serge called and made sure the doctors knew to take very good care of Taya and that we were comfortable. The facilitators were AMAZING. Truly made us feel so much safer. Yulia would speak to the nurses for me which helped so much.
~ Nicko put Michael and Benji in another apartment. It wasn't very nice, but hey we hoped they wouldn't be there long, so they made due. Daddy did a great job parenting all alone.

~After 3 days we were picked up at 2am to go to the airport. We got to travel with Ashley's hubby to the airport. Super nice guy :) Our hospital stay cost us *8500 grivna which isn't too bad for 3 days :) but that was the last of our money :( 

~When we finally sat down on the plane heading to Germany on the 20th we were so afraid to move for fear of jinxing it Lol :) Taya and Benji did AMAZING on the flights, they mostly slept or stared at Cars the movie while it played on the in flight screen.  Taya was still dehydrated a bit, the Dr wanted her to stay longer but I knew we needed to get her HOME. So armed with packets of electrolytes, and an antibiotic and a dropper we made it. She refused all drink so every 15 Min's or so I would slowly put a full dropper full in her mouth little by little. She had a close call at one point , she started gagging after a long nap so I pushed fluids for about a half hour then she was better.

~She is drinking her bottles and eating baby food or blended foods wonderfully now :) Gretchen was sweet and sent me a Rival mini food processor. LOVE IT. I blend a lot of the foods the kids are eating for Taya then add a jar of baby food or fruits. I put a whole breakfast oat round with cream cheese and jelly, piece of apple and yogurt then blend. Yum :)

If you read all that whew ! Thank you :) now enjoy the pictures .
shoot-all my pictures are on my hubbys computer. I will add more later these are from when we first arrived at the hospital from my iPhone.

HUGS !!

My 6 little beauties :)

From left~
Baby girl-2 yrs
Bug- 9 yrs
Peanut-almost 12
Taya-4 1/2
Boo-4
Benji- 5

= A VERY HAPPY MAMA :)

Catch up

Our view out the window from our room at the church.

 The church home we were blessed to stay with. They were so kind and just funny and wonderful :)

 This little sweetie stole my heart the last few days. She is in Benji's OLD groupa ;) and I thought she was a boy, due to the clothes and hair until I started playing with her close up on this day and realized she is a GIRL FULL of smiles and joy :) She stole my heart. Not sure if she has CP or what, but she is so sweet and loving. A caregive took her back to the room while we were playing and she began to cry really hard. Broke my heart. So I walked right in, and went up and dried her tears and rubbed her cheek. What a beauty. Then a sweet nurse brought me an apple to give her and she calmed down :) She deserves a family. I wonder if she is adoptable? I will try to find out. so very sweet.

 Tayas old room :( way too many cribs with little orphans in them. How I wish I could make them ALL understand they are valuable and loved and should never ever give up. How can we do that? I had to walk away and not even pick them up....I made no difference in their lives. I couldnt. And it makes me sick.

 Benji and his BFF sharing a last hug. How we loved this little guy.

 My sweet girl when we first arrived back at the church. She was having a major flipping backward meltdown so I plopped her right down on the floor :)

 Benji entering our room at the church :) Home away from home !

 Taya starting to look a bit tired. Although she was thrilled with her ball and monkey :)

This is another one of the little cutie. Look at those eyes! Beautiful child who deserves a family. She is lucky to be in Benjis old groupa , they are kind and take great care of the kids-but what happens when it is time to be transfered? To an institution? How long will she last?

This is us at the sda, Serge took it for us. If I posted it already, sorry. Wanted you to see what it looks like. No biggie at all. Actually the lady we had never even spoke to us or really looked at us.

I am so behind I dont know if I should just keep going in order or for those of you that arent facebook  friends, share the bumps we had? For now I will just go in order , because cute pics make everything better :)

The kids are doing AMAZING. TRULY, I know it may be a honeymoon phase but so far things are just so smooth I am shocked :) heehee. Really I look at my 6 kiddos and just smile :) THIS is what my life is supposed to be. Taking care of my littles :) I love seeing my 3 (hopefully 4) small ones running and playing together . Love making 3 breakfast plates and a few jars of baby food then big kid food . Happy mama :)

Next post- being removed from the airplane (nice) and rushing to a clinic then the hospital for a 3 day stay for my very sick baby :( so very scary.
Hugs!!

Free Baby FREE :)

Some seriously happy, giddy parents of 6 !!

This is the amazing beautiful room that we received our new birth certificate for Taya. The sweet lady played music and presented her new bc to us :) it was so sweet and touching.

    

Benji's favorite caregiver and his best friend :)

Bundled up and walking out to a life with a forever family :)

Taya was NOT happy to be changed :( she wanted me to hold

 her.

Mama and Taya in the car finally and never to see that HOT SAD, ROOM again! She was highly stressed and was doing alot of clicking and rocking. She worked herself up a bit getting changed . My heart broke walking out and past all the kids in her room I would never see again. I felt so sick and defeated like I had let them down by just walking out of their lives....and leaving them there. To fight to matter to someone everyday. To fight to survive , to fight to smile. To fight to be loved.

Hugs.

I won!

The worst blogger ever award that is ;) thank you Jodi and Gretchen,you  meanies :)

I know my blogging has well....sucked. I admit it :) but its not as easy as you think to keep up, with sketchy internet moving from trains to apartments then hospitals then planes then home to a flood. Yup that ALL happened , got alot to catch you up on :)

Right now Taya seems to be having an allergic reaction to something so more later, see told ya I am hopping!

Proud mama and Papa

Of 6 kiddos ! We became Benji's and Taya's official parents on October 12 ! SO happy. Our 10 day waiting period was waived, so we ran like crazy ALL DAY yesterday to finish every piece of paper so we can spring the kids today, and take the train to Kyiv tonite :):)
What an amazing journey. oh AND Benji's best friend IS adoptable ! His only sn is mild mental delay :) Marina promised me she would get him on Reeces Rainbow and I promised to advocate like crazy for this little sweetie and find him a family of his own!! He is an amazing little boy :)

Hugs!!

Cheeky kids :)

 Looks like our boy is left handed . That is a first for our family. As soon as I handed him the pen and notebook he was thrilled ! He picked it up right and after a bit of practice was scribbling away :)

 We also bought some playdoh to spice things up a bit :) He loved to cut it into pieces. It was fun for about 20 mins until that evil little laugh came out and he started shoving it in his mouth! eek ;) we put it away after that ...

 How beautiful is this little boy of ours ?? We are so in love with him. (that is Taya's blankie btw)

Love my little Taya baby :) I HATE sitting in this dingy room , sweating, but HAPPILY endure to spend some quality with my baby girl :) She smiles when she sees us and reaches for me ! Makes it all worth it , to give her a bright spot in her day out of the crib. She eats potatoes, beets and some odd blended food each meal. She doesnt chew yet or drink from a cup, but thats ok..we will take it slow and like a new baby she will learn everything in time. She has had a bit of bad luck but God has been watching her and keeping her safe :)

Notice the fire/burn marks on the wall behind me? oye. That is scary to think about.

 Benji lovs to open the little backpack bags and discover the toys of the day :)

 I would love to buy crib toys for all the kids in Tayas group. I dont know if they would use them but it would be so wonderful for the children. They have nothing in their cribs to occupy them all day.....

 Mama sweating on the lumpy , old couch. Wish we could buy them a new one ....I had to crack a window!

Beets :) yummy. She actually seems to like them. The mystery blended food -not so much.

COURT DATE IS TUESDAY !!!!! :):) SO happy.

Hugs!