Story of the Cake....and other events

Like I said in a previous post, my brother and sister-in-law brought a birthday cake over on Saturday. We have had opportunities to eat cake with Karla before and she has never touched it or shown interest in it. After everyone sang "Happy Birthday", Karla just kind of looked at the cake. Her cousins were waiting for her to dive in. So they asked if they could start "tasting" the cake. So they all poked their fingers in the icing to get a taste. Now that I know Karla, I knew she probably didn't want to get her fingers messy touching the cake. So I poked my finger in the cake and got some icing - Karla ate it right off of my finger!! She then ate many bites off my fingers and off of a fork that Jason was holding. It was funny! She likes cake - just not when it gets on her. Also, when the girls were poking their fingers in the cake they were each making "eyeballs" (2 holes next to each other) in the cake. After my 2 year old niece made eyeballs and said "eyeball", Karla finally got brave enough and poked her finger in the cake and SAID "eyeball". We all started laughing! I was excited to see Karla likes cake.

Today we went to Jason's office and Karla met his coworkers. She was walking around and being friendly! One guy had a ball in his office that he brought out for Karla so she played with him and "knocked him over" with the ball several times. Good thing he had the ball because Karla initially wanted the globe to kick and throw.

We also went to the doctor. It was a good experience, the doctor and social worker were very nice. I have heard them both speak before about adoption but it was nice to have individual time with them. We were with each of them for about an hour! Karla only fussed at the beginning when she had to get weighed and measured and then at the end when she had to get a shot. Otherwise she was an angel. :) We talked about some bonding and transition issues and got some new ideas. We discussed a few minor medical questions that we had. Her ears looked "perfect" and her lungs sounded fine!! Yeah!! So we reduced her inhaler use to two times today and then we'll just do one dose tomorrow morning. Then we'll see how she does. We go back for a follow-up appointment in 2 months but we've decided that, even though the office is not convenient, we are going to use this doctor as our pediatrician for a while. They have hours 7 days a week and someone on-call 24/7. Based on how our 2 weeks at home has gone, I think this is important. :)

Karla is doing remarkably well for only being home 2 weeks and part of that time was spent in a hospital. The doctor said we are doing well with the transition. That is what I wanted to hear! Karla is between the 50th-75th percentile for height and at the 25th percentile for weight (according to U.S. charts). So that is good! She has lost a pound or so since the beginning of October but, we attributing that to being sick and all the changes that have occurred. The way she has been eating the past 3 days...she'll gain it back in no time.

Warning: the following contains emotions. :)
The farthest I have been from Karla since Oct. 14 was when I went to Wendy's across the street from the hospital the last day Karla was hospitalized. Karla slept the whole time and Jason was with her. I still had to be persuaded to eat at Wendy's with my mom rather than take it back to the hospital room. So, based on some things we discussed this morning with the doctor and social worker, we decided that I would go to the chiropractor and Target this afternoon - ALONE! I of course planned to text Jason after my chiropractic appointment and make sure I didn't need to come home. When I sent the text he said they were fine and to go ahead to Target. Well, I was near crying when I left the house for some reason, I guess I felt bad about leaving Karla and I knew I would miss her. At the same time, I haven't driven anywhere or been alone in quite sometime. So, I didn't cry when I left because I didn't want her to see me or get worried. I quickly put on my coat and said good-bye to her and Jason. After my two stops I started to drive home, I started crying!! It was happy tears though. I felt such relief. I realized that the heavy cloud that had been hanging over me for almost 3 years is gone. I realized I was going home and Jason was going to be happy when I got home because he was playing with his little girl. I realized I had just gone to Target and not felt a stab of pain every time I saw a baby. I just thought "oh, I gotta hurry so I can get home to Karla". We have been so stressed for so long - I almost forgot what "normal" feels like. I wasn't dreading going to our house, full of reminders of what wasn't there. I was excited! I started thinking about all of my answered prayers...and it was a bit overwhelming.

When I got home Karla gave me a big hug and kiss but she had been just fine without me here. Jason said she mentioned my name a few times and he just told her I would be back in a little while.

I started telling Jason about my drive home and started crying again. Karla walked up to me (I was on the floor), hugged me and patted my back. It was so sweet. So I quickly dried my eyes and started playing again!! :)

Tomorrow Jason returns to work. Karla and I will miss him tomorrow! I can't believe his 3 weeks went by so fast!

I've caught up with pictures on flickr if you are interested.