Count Down to Gotcha Day: 1 month home and upcoming surgery

Wednesday marked 1 whole month since we have been home. I can honestly say it feels like he has always been with us. It is crazy to think that just 7 weeks ago I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to pack for China and now our little man has been home with us a whole month and is thriving!

We had an appt with the Pediatrician Wednesday for Konnor's pre-op physical. He is up to 18 lbs 4 oz!!!!!! That is crazy. He has gained exactly 2 pounds in the 4 weeks we have been home. The last few days he has started to give us the "all done" sign when he is finished eating, WhooHoo!!! It seems like such a small thing to some, but for us it just shows that he trusts us to feed him again when he gets hungry. Unfortunately his left ear is still infected so we started our 4th round of antibiotics last night. We will continue these until his surgery on Monday to ensure that the infection does not get worse and delay surgery. On that note.....Konnor's first surgery is tomorrow 6/25/12 so please keep him and all the Doctors/Nurses and staff at the hospital in your prayers this coming weekend. We should only be in the hospital overnight so hopefully we will be home in a familiar environment for him by Tuesday night. Even though his one ear is still infected and the other ear has fluid in it we have noticed a HUGE difference in him responding to us, so the meds are working enough so that he can at least hear a little bit better.

I know I talked about this before, but he is DEFINITELY a Baba's boy now. He still loves his Mama, but his little face lights up when Baba gets home from work and he wants to be wherever Mark is. We are still being very selective about holding to encourage his bonding and attachment to us. Mostly it is just very close family and friends holding him and then only for short periods. Most of the time he will tolerate it for a minute and then want to come back to Mama or Baba. Even when others are holding we stay very close and if there is any fussing he comes right back to us no questions asked. This will be the rule for the foreseeable future. I know many do not understand this, but he has to have us as a security. If he is upset about anything he needs to know that it is Mama and Baba he should turn to for whatever it is he needs. We just ask that you please respect these rules when you are around us. We are truly not trying to be rude, but we will do whatever we feel is best for him even if it means hurting some feelings in the process. The process of bonding and attachment is not an easy or a fast process. It can take months or years to develop a true attachment so please be respectful of the rules we put in place for our family. We do value everyone's parenting experience, but we have to do what we feel is best for our family based on our/Konnor's experiences.

Friday was Baba's birthday and Konnor decided to give us a couple "special" presents : ) Let's just say the first is a private child/tub/bodily function incident that will be forever remembered b/c of what he did right afterwards. Just 2 minutes later not only does he stand himself up from a sitting position without holding on to anything (he has been working really hard on this all week), but then he takes off walking 6 steps at a time across the room very steadily. Two day later and now he is just standing up like it is nothing at all and walking a good 8-10 steps like he has been doing it all along. I think we can officially say we have a walker in the house now.

Konnor has also definitely discovered his hands. He is clapping, playing patty cake, giving the "all done" sign and has learned how to push and pull his toys (mostly his cars).

For those of you not on my Facebook page you may have missed my psychotic break last week. Don't ask me what happened b/c I truly don't know, but somehow I accidentally deleted all the photos on our digital camera. This would not have been a big deal if it weren't for the fact that we hadn't downloaded the camera since about the 3rd day we were home, which means that all of our first month home pictures were on the camera. I don't think I have ever cried so hard in my life. All I could think is that here we only have 5 pictures of his first year of life and I go and delete all the pictures of his first month home with his forever family. When it happened I was so devastated that I needed a little quiet time so I took Konnor upstairs and put him in for what I thought would be a LONG bath while Mama sat next to the tub quietly sobbing. I found that he does not like it when Mama cries. He would splash and then stop and watch me with this very serious look on his face and then give me the biggest, cheesiest grin until I laughed. We did this over and over until finally Baba came up to see if the storm had calmed and it was decided that we had a happy and healthy little boy and the real thing is so much better than pictures anyway. Luckily I was able to take the camera to a professional photography place and they were able to recover about 25 of my pictures (better than losing them all!).

Needless to say we have a new camera now and have been picture taking fools the last few days. We wanted to make sure we had plenty of pictures b/c we absolutely LOVE HIS SMILE JUST THE WAY IT IS!!!! Tomorrow our little man is having the first of at least 3 surgeries in the next year to repair his cleft and he will look totally different. I am happy that we can provide this surgery for him, but you really can't beat the smile of a cleft affected baby. When they smile their whole face just lights up and I haven't seen a person yet who can't help but smile back. So if you would please keep Konnor and all of his medical staff in your prayers in the coming days. I will try to get an update on here after his surgery, but we will just have to see how it goes. Until then please enjoy our trip to the park this weekend........