Busy, Busy Week!

We had a very busy, yet highly productive week here. Little Sister (LS) was readopted on Wednesday morning in a Chicago courthouse. Now, we will wait 4-6 months for her IL birth certificate to come through. Then, we can get her a social security card and obtain permanent citizenship here in the U.S. The procedure was expensive ($1,000), but relatively quick and easy. During the week, our social worker also finished the six-month post-placement report as required by China, and Early Intervention finally came to our house to evaluate LS. The good news is that we qualified for services! I am very excited because I believe in their program and really need help with LS's frequent temper tantrums.

The assessment outcomes revealed that LS is a very bright little girl. Cognitively, she is exactly where a 19-20 month old baby should be. Her speech is delayed which is to be expected since she has only been living in the U.S. for a short time, but they feel that speech therapy would help with her behavior problems. As I mentioned in an earlier post, LS exhibited strong behavioral problems in China. She did not sleep more than 3-5 hours each night and only napped approximately 30 minutes each day, foregoing sleep in place of screaming. When I tell people that she screamed, they don't really understand. It's not a baby crying out of grief scream. It was a 'my body's on fire' scream, one that would last for 4-5 hours!!

Our pediatrician quickly helped me solve the sleeping problem and LS now sleeps 12-13 hours each night with a 2-3 hour nap during the day. No problem there! Yet still, we have screaming, anger, rage and frequent temper tantrums. The stuff that those attachment books warn you about, but you never think it will happen to you.
Well folks, it happened to me! My baby girl is hurting deep inside and we are finally getting help!!

The E.I. team was very nice and professional during their assessment. The are committed to helping us heal LS so that she can have the quality of life that her family desires her to have. Adopting our babies is only the first step. The goal is for them to grow up loved, happy and successful! Some babies need a little early intervention to help them get there and move on from the difficult traumas of their early life.