Moving on...

I decided this tired old blog needs to be put to rest, it seems like a lifetime ago and there is so much more to look forward to as we go forward with our new son. Please feel free to continue with us in our journey at http://lifepostadoption.blogspot.com/. Thanks!

Happy New Year!

Hard to believe that another year has flown by. Even harder to believe is the fact that we started investigating adoption exactly a year ago! In talking to friends who adopted and reading adoption blogs, it never would have occurred to me how fortunate we would be to have adopted our son in under a year. God is good and truly had a hand in leading us to Csaba. Now we wonder if we will be led to adopt again..? Time will tell, right now it's quite far from our thoughts as we learn to live with a toddler and realize that freedom as we once knew it has ceased to exist. All worth it, of course! :)

Csaba started preschool this week. We were concerned that it might be a tad traumatic for him since this is the first time he has been apart from at least one of us for a long period of time. Alas, it went just fine. Too fine, I think. Tom and I secretly admit that we were hoping he would miss us...a lot. We neglected to think about the fact that preschool is fun! So many toys, jungle gyms, kids...it's a playground! Not to mention his teacher has taken him under her wing and he quickly developed a bond with her. We have to watch that, I think. We certainly don't want him coddled or favored...or forming bonds with teachers outside the normal boundaries. Casba is very affectionate, so we will need to be more in tune to his behavior and make sure he reserves certain behaviors, like kisses and hugs, for family only. We'll see. It's all so new and we are learning constantly about "typical" child behaviors. It's tougher with an adopted child, though, since we are still working towards his deepening attachment to us as his parents. With a biological child, we would have the chance to bond at birth; with an adopted child, we have to earn his trust and dependence on us...which definitely takes time!
All that said, we are thankful that he is enjoying preschool and is learning in a structured environment. It gives us piece of mind, as well as the chance to work and have productive days again!

Snow Day!

Today is what I fondly think of as a "snow day". The showroom where I work is closed due to snowy weather, so I'm home...still having to make up hours though. :( It is definitely a winter wonderland here...we got about 8 inches of snow Christmas day and another 4-8 expected today. I love it!
Anyway, Merry Post-Christmas everyone! Wow, this year it really snuck up on us, perhaps since we missed Thanksgiving and “black Friday” this year..? Of course, now that we are back home, we find time to be in short supply. This contrasts starkly with having way too much time on our hands in Hungary!

At any rate, it has been a whirlwind past (almost) 4 weeks. Csaba’s adjustment has been almost seamless. I am convinced that he trusts Tom and me so implicitly, that he will go anywhere with us. He loves being a family and you can tell he is just over the moon about his new life. Often we find him pointing at each of us, saying “Mommy, Daddy, me.” It warms our hearts to see him so content and happy. The language barrier is still a problem as Csaba’s comfort in speaking Hungarian clearly outweighs his desire to speak English. We know he understands us though, and for the most part we have no problems with communication. It just would be nice to understand him and his 3-year old babbling. Although, I’ve been told that someday we may wish we did NOT understand him! LOL
In an attempt to get him more up to speed, we are enrolling him in preschool, where he will go 3 days a week. We found a very nice school near our house, and were impressed that all the teachers there have at least their Bachelor degrees. They also have swimming lessons in the summer, so that will kill two birds with one stone. We just don’t know if he will freak being away from us for so long. We have been trying to prepare him by taking him to Sunday School at our church, but that only lasts 1-1/2 hours. He does ok there, though, so hopefully he’ll gain trust that we aren’t abandoning him and will be back to get him. I think he just has a little separation anxiety when he is away from either Tom or me. He seems to do well when he is at home all day with a Grandmother, though. We will see!

Csaba also enjoyed Christmas...I think. The concept is still fairly lost on him, as we had to explain to him that all those presents under the tree that we had been telling him not to touch, he could now open. He would open one, and if he liked it (ie, toys that make noise), he would not want to open another one. It was interesting, but luckily we kept his presents to a minimum and the ordeal wasn't too overwhelming. We also attended a Christmas Eve service at our church and Csaba did an amazing job sitting there. It's so important to us that he realize that Christmas is about Jesus' birth, not about presents and Santa. It can definitely be part of the tradition (after all, he got his picture taken with Santa), but it's not the reason.

We have also been making doctor rounds to figure out what to do about Csaba’s heart defect. We were told initially that he had a condition called Ebstein’s Anomaly, which, in a nutshell, is where his tricuspid valve is dislocated. He does have some abnormality there, but it’s minor. Good news, right? Not so fast, the big surprise was the discovery of a 2cm hole between his Right & Left Atriums. This, in addition to the slight Ebstein’s Anomaly, is putting stress on his right Atrium and pulmonic valve…so much so that, in an x-ray, the right side of his heart was clearly distended. We were very surprised that the Hungarian doctors didn’t find this, but then they never did an ultrasound of Csaba’s heart either. So, now we are investigating the best route to fix the hole. Ideally, the doctor would be able to patch it with a balloon catheter, but he is not optimistic since the hole is so big and lacks surrounding muscle with which to attach the “patch”. The other option is the obvious open-heart surgery, where they can then put in a Gore-Tex patch. This is not our first choice for obvious reasons…Csaba would have to be opened up and put on bypass, and then stay in the hospital for a few days afterwards. Scary!! We do have complete confidence in our doctors here at the Denver Children’s Hospital though. They really spend a lot of time with us and are very good with our amateur questions. We just pray that they find some way to do the procedure with the balloon catheter and that Csaba won’t be too traumatized. It breaks my heart to see such a small child put through all of this, but we know that, if all goes well, he will be in much better health and perhaps even play competitive sports someday. Luckily, Csaba’s health is not terribly affected by his heart defect. He is still very active and vibrant, pushing boundaries and making us laugh...all like any other 3 year-old I see. We are so blessed by his presence on our life, what a joy!

We hope all of you had a great Christmas! My hope for the new year is that many more needy children are adopted into forever families and that those families find the blessings that we are so fortunate to experience with Csaba.

We made it home!

Wow, hard to believe we are finally home in our own beds and with our own furniture again. It feels SO GOOD!

The flight home Friday was relatively unexciting. We got to the airport in plenty of time and said a sad good-bye to our wonderful translator. After customs, we had some time to spare so we showed Csaba the planes sitting outside on the tarmac. He got excited when I showed him a Lufthansa plane sitting at a gate. I said something like, "Csaba's going on a plane like that", but I think all he heard was, "Csaba's plane". What a mess when that plane left without him! He started crying like crazy and was just beside himself that his plane had left. Unfortunately we were now without Orsi and could not explain to him that another plane would be his plane. Tom was smart and took Csaba to a gift store to buy him a tiny toy plane and some gummy bears. That seemed to satiate Csaba and got him to stop crying.
Once on the plane, Csaba loved it. He sat by the window and watched everything (well, as much as he could...the seat belt frustrated him as he couldn't prop himself up for a better view). That plane trip to Frankfurt was just the perfect amount of time for Csaba to not get bored (1-1/2 hrs.). It was the flight from Frankfurt to Denver that got a little taxing at times. We had Tom's laptop with us so he could watch his DVD's, but the battery holds little charge and it only lasted for 2 hours or so (not good on a 10 hour flight!). We did put him down for his nap, which he cried about at first, before zonking out. He then fell asleep 2 hours before we landed since it was his bedtime. Just after we touched down, a groggy, half-asleep Csaba blew his lunch all over. I was in complete shock and it took a minute or two to get the barf bag from Tom and try to catch the second wave. It was largely unsuccessful and poor Csaba was covered in his puke. Naturally, since we were taxiing, no flight attendants were around and we had nothing to wipe up with. I started using the blankets and a nice gentleman from behind us started pulling off pillow cases and handing them to us. Csaba was crying hard..it is a scary thing to throw up and he literally was covered in it. Luckily we had a full change of clothes for him and I quickly started pulling off his clothes and putting the new ones on. Once the plane was empty of almost all the passengers, a flight (non-) attendant finally came to our rescue and gave us a garbage bag to carry the soiled clothes in, as well as some wet naps. I took Csaba to the plane bathroom and tried to calm him while Tom bagged the stuff . We washed our hands together and I wiped his face. He felt a little better but started to cry again when we got near his seat. It was awful.
So, after an hour at customs and an hour waiting at the Lufthansa lost & found to give our address as to where to deliver the suitcase they left in Frankfurt, we were finally headed home. Needless to say, we were not happy campers like I thought we'd be...we were exhausted and totally overwhelmed at that point.

Saturday was a good day home though. We all woke up at 4:30am and immediately started the day. Jet lag is hard to explain to a little boy, let alone a little boy who speaks very little English, so for this weekend we are in semi real-time. Csaba loves his room, is actually liking the dogs and willing to pet them, and is basically the good-natured kid he was in Hungary. The only set-back is his crabbiness when his Hungarian bedtime is long past and we won't let him sleep until a decent hour here. Not to mention, I have a killer head cold that is absolutely miserable. It started in Hungary and was made worse with all take-offs and landings during our flight. I have a very froggy voice too, so I'm sure Csaba wonders what happened to the mommy he knew in Hungary. Oh well, rather be sick here than anywhere else! :)

So that was our exciting journey home. We are so thankful to be home, and Tom's Mom and our next-door neighbor were absolutely terrific in taking care of our house and the dogs while we were gone. Thank you to them, we couldn't have had the worry-less trip we had without them!