A big sigh of relieve

was breathed in the doctor's office today. So this is the 6th doctor looking at it, who was pretty sure that it is not Lupus. He thinks it is a scar caused by birth. I am not quite sure about that since we only noticed it a couple of months ago, but I am very relieved at least that it is not Lupus. The doctor took a picture of her ear and will post it on his homepage accessible for dermatologists worldwide to take a look at it. We will also do a blood test to be sure that her blood is o.k.

I am just grateful that for now she is safe and healthy. I can't stop worrying about her. Somehow since we suffered from infertility I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop. But today I am happy. I had a wonderful friend accompany me to the appointment. I didn't want to go alone since it was on the other side of town. I wanted a second person with me in case things didn't go so well. Dh is on a business trip to the beautiful La Isla Margarita. At least we had a driver take us there. The appointment was at 5 p.m. and rush-hour traffic in Caracas seems to be the worst. It took us only 30 minutes to get there, but one hour to come back home.

Sick baby

Lilli is already 15 months old. We have a new trick for the mornings. When Lilli wakes up around 6:30 a.m. hubby gets her bottle and puts some toys in her crib. That way she continues to play by herself until sometimes 9:00 a.m. on the week-ends. Really nice!!!

This week was a bad week for her. On Monday night she had a little run-in with her friend A. He is three years old and the most polite and nicest little boy you can think of. If Lilli is on a bout of independence (which she is a lot these days), I usually just ask A. to take Lilli's hand and she willingly gives him her hand (which she refuse to do with me). It is the cutest thing to see them toddle along together. They also like to hug and kiss each other. But on Monday night they had an accident, a full-blown collision. A.'s teeth got Lilli's eyebrow. It didn't look bad at first, but then I saw the blood. Her whole eye was swollen for two days. But this seems to be fine now.

Otherwise Lilli is sick these days. Poor little puppy. If you wouldn't know her you wouldn't notice. She is nearly her usual self. But yesterday at the Halloween party you could see she wasn't quite healthy. We went trick or treating inside dh's office building as we needed a safe place to do this here. Lilli was a little pumpkin fairy. She didn't want to be in her costume in the first place and was screaming bloody murder. When we finally managed to put it on, she seemed fine. So off we went with the other kids here. But Lilli didn't want to walk by herself, she wanted to be held all the time. After a couple of doors, we made it to the doctor's office (which happens to be in the same building). Lilli didn't like the doctor's prodding and looking at her. We needed four people to hold her down when he wanted to look in her ears. She was not a happy camper. Screaming as loud as she could. The doctor thought her lungs are doing great. But when he looked in her mouth, he could see that her tonsils were enlarged and with white stuff on it. So he assumed it is strep throat. Therefore we are on antibiotics now. Needless to say that we didn't do any more trick or treating and hope the other kids are fine. Sorry!

We also went this week to see another dermatologist. The fifth doctor to look at the lesions in her ears. This doctor wants another opinion as well, but she thinks it might be a kind of skin lupus. It sounded very scary when she said that she didn't like what she saw. We are going to see another doctor on Monday for this. I am trying not to worry, but it is very hard not to. I just want my baby to be healthy.

Another issue we are currently facing is the "hitting the Mommy or the Nanny" thing. It started a couple of months back in July, but she did it only occasionally. Now she is doing it all the time. Whenever she doesn't like something, she says "No!" and starts hitting. I have started putting her in time-out. Surprisingly she stays there 95% of the time. Most of the time she doesn't seem to mind at all sitting there for a minute. She is just chilling and waits for me to pick her up and give her a hug. I don't think she takes me seriously. Do you guys have any tips how to get her to stop hitting? I really would appreciate some advice.

Potty and Anniversary!

I am a very proud mommy today: Lilli has used the potty for the first time and peed in it. I had bought a potty a couple of weeks ago and had her just sit on it from time to time. This morning I had a lot of time and was reading to hear while she was sitting. And then - she peed!

I can't believe that she is already turning 15 months on Saturday. She is getting really sassy at time. She has started hitting me when I tell her "No" to something or she doesn't get her way. Any ideas on how to deal with this? I bought the 1-2-3 magic book and will start taking her to time-outs when she does it. She currently doesn't hit her dad, just me. It's very frustrating at times...

Tomorrow is our fifth wedding anniversary. Five years ago everything seemed so easy. We were going to get married, move to the U.S., and start a family right away. Then came the move, my dad's stroke, a crappy job, infertility, endometriosis, two surgeries, three IVFs, two miscarriages, my MIL's breast cancer, and my dad's lung cancer before we could actually realize that dream. And then my dad died.

The last five years have been the most difficult in my live and in a way the best because I have the man I love on my side to go through life with me. He is a fantastic husband and a great father. I don't know how I could have handled any of those things without him. I love him more than the day we got married, because he has been there for me all along the way.

Mammmiiii!!!!!

This is what I hear about 1000 times a day. When I answer the little lady, she just continues to say it. I love to hear it, but sometimes I wonder why she is saying it so often. Speaking of speaking: Lilli has now a vocabulary of about 45-50 words. It is impressive to see how easy she is picking up all three languages. She is using the language in which the word seems easiest for her: aqua, keys, prost (cheers), pee-boo (peckaboo), pita (pizza), pasta (works in all three languages), to just name a few...

I feel so blessed to have this beautiful and incredibly smart girl. There is not a day where I don't think about her birthmother. I am wondering what she is doing, how she is. I hope that one day our little girl will have a chance to meet this amazing woman that has given her life and us the biggest present of our lives.

We went to the dermatologist on Wednesday. For quite some time now Lilli has some lesions in her ears. We don't know when it actually started, but it has been a couple of months at least. It doesn't look bad or anything and doesn't seem to be malignant, but it comes and goes which is weird. It doesn't seem to bother her either. But we don't know what it is. Well, the dermatologist who by the way was the third doctor that looked at this, didn't know either. She asked her colleague, who didn't have a clue either. The only way to find out would be a biopsy, but that would mean general anesthesia. And there is no way we are doing this if it isn't necessary. We now have a recommendation for yet another doctor and I'll try to schedule something with her next week.

Visit to the school for the blind

I am sorry I am so bad with updating. My days are just running by me. Between working, taking care of Lilli, and the household there doesn't seem to be a lot of time left. But I also didn't have to say anything interesting.

Today I went to visit a school for the blind here in Caracas. They currently have 69 children, 23 of whom are in preschool. They have to turn away additional children because they just don't have the room as the school is in a house, not a school building.

They gave us a little tour through the school and seeing those children made me realize all over again how blessed we are to have such a healthy little girl.

The children in preschool are on the top of the building. In order to get there they have to climb up a long metal staircase. I can't even imagine two or three year olds doing that. There were even blind twins who seemed to be neglected or something because they were doing this rhythmic banging of their heads. Poor kids.

I talked to a little girl in on class. She was 11 years old and has been attending the school for 5 years.

I asked about seeing eye dogs, but that doesn't seem to be something that many people can afford here. Wouldn't that be fantastic if the children had a dog to play with that would also help them in their daily life?

I believe the school is very good, but they don't have the equipment that any school for the blind in the U.S. would have. They have a hard time finding braille paper. They don't have any English braille books, so they can't teach any English. We are trying to organize some donations to see how we can help them.

1 year doctor's visit - hold, make that 13 months

Since we were traveling we didn't make it for Lilli's 12 months doctor's appointment. Because she seemed healthy I didn't really care to wait. Today I finally went to see a new doctor. I liked my old doctor, but didn't really have the idea that he asked a lot of questions and took a lot of time to spend with us.

The new doctor is fantastic. I really like him. He took a lot of time to spend with us. He measured and weighed Lilli himself. She weighs 23 pounds (10.5 kilograms) now and is 83 cms long. She actually grew out of the curve. She is taller than the 100th percentile of all other children. I guess she will be a basketball player...

She signs "All done", "More", "tired", "Sleep", "down", "eat", "milk", "diaper change", etc. It is amazing how she is able to communicate with us. And fascinating to see every day.

I also told the doctor that we were looking to adopt again. He hears of babies that are given up for adoption occasionally. I told him to call me... The only problem is going to be the legal side. Would be very complicated.

In the meantime we will try it the good old way. We practise a lot... We have also discussed a potential donor egg cycle. I will have to go to the "clinic that can do miracles" here to see what the doctors say.

Back in Caracistan!

I am sorry I haven't updated before, but I just got back from Europe last Saturday. Thank you all for your condolences and prayers. I have to say that they really helped a lot and often I just felt carried by you all.

Hubby's grandfather died as well. He had to go to the States and took the laptop. I felt lost without connection to the internet and was very sorry Lilli and I couldn't attend the funeral.

It was a very difficult, but also very rewarding trip back. Before the funeral I got to say my private goodbye to my dad. He was laying in his coffin all cold, but he looked so peaceful. When I touched him I realized that we were burying his body, but that his soul was gone to another place. The tears come and go, but mostly I am o.k. Having my own family helps a lot. I am so glad that my dad got to experience being a grandfather and that he had a chance to meet Lilli.

For the funeral I met a lot of relatives that I hadn't seen in many years. The weeks after that we did a lot of things as a family, a thing we weren't able to do in the last couple of years.

Lilli turned one while we were there. She started walking the day we were leaving and hasn't stopped since. She is all over the place. Fortunately my mom was able to celebrate the first birthday party with us. We also invited some neighbors and family and friends. It turned out to be a great party. Lilli enjoyed all the attention she got and of course all the presents.

She is giving real hugs now and real kisses. She says when she doesn't want to be put on the floor. She has a huge vocabularly for a one-year-old. I made a list and it had more than 20 words on it. Since she has learned even more. The newest being: "Bien!" when asked "Como estas?" Our nanny taught her that. I am amazed daily by the amount of interaction I can have with this little person now.

The flight back was not so much fun. We used miles to upgrade to Business. But traveling by yourself with a mobile one-year-old is not such a fun experience when there is a 10 hour flight ahead of you. I felt really bad when she screamed and didn't let her scream for long. She noticed that and slept only 45 minutes during the whole flight. I was defeated after 8,5 hours when the stewardess took her finally away for a while. So Lilli got to see the cockpit and spend some time there. I was really jealous. I have never been in the cockpit and I have no pictures from her being there.

But hey, we are back and life is back to normal. I am glad we are reunited as a family. Now we see what the future holds for us.