My dad

My dad died this afternoon after a long struggle with lung cancer and strokes. May he rest in peace. We are leaving today.

Touching

Melba had mentioned in a post that people want to touch baby Charlie all the time.

I have to admit that I am dealing with the same problem. People here don't seem to have a concept of personal space. When I am waiting in line at the supermarket for example some people come so close to me that I am getting very uncomfortable. With Lilli it is the same. All the time people come and touch her. Most of them just mean really well and don't know that you shouldn't just touch any child you see. I already joked about putting up a sign on her stroller that says "Don't touch!". I haven't learned how to tell those people to back off, yet.

Particularly when I go with her to the market all those people come and just touch her. Yesterday there was one incident was over the top. Out of nowhere comes this old creepy guy and touches her and kisses her hands. I wanted to move on and told him we needed to go and he just wouldn't stop. I felt very uncomfortable and I don't want to imagine what Lilli felt.

Please, my dear blog friends, tell me how I can tell those people to back off without offending them.

I also get the question "Tu hija?" (your daughter) a lot and when I say proudly "Si. Mi hija!" people shake their heads in disbelieve. I am close to asking people "Why do you want to know? to put them in their place...

Thyroid question

I don't know if I ever mentioned it here, but I had 90% of my thyroid removed due to a benign tumor 11 years ago. Since then I have been taking thyroxine every day. It is no problem in my daily life, but sometimes I wonder whether it effects my fertility.

Once a year I have to have my levels tested. Yesterday I finally went. TSH is 0.61, T3 is 3.09 and T4 is 1.79. I asked Dr. Google about it and it looks like only high TSH levels are causing problems with fertility. But what about low levels? Does anybody have some medical input?

Where does this question come from you might wonder. Dh and I have talked about having a second child. I know it is very early since Lilli isn't a year yet, but since I am already 35 (and we know it goes downhill from here), we should take a decision on what we are doing. We would both love to adopt again, but haven't paid for Lilli's adoption yet. Therefore we are not ready at this point to pursue adoption again. The legal aspect is also kind of complicated. Americans, living in Venezuela, trying to adopt from the US or internationally. Which law applies? I don't know. I only know that we would need to adopt after US law. But what about the law here? Getting a home study done would be another problem...

Another option would be fertility treatments. It is a little cheaper here than in the US, so this might be an option. But I don't know whether I want to get on that kind of rollercoaster again with my own eggs. I am more thinking about trying donor eggs this time. Hubby suggested to try one cycle with my own eggs. He really wants me to be able to have a biological connection to the child. While I would love one, I want to have a sucessfull cycle and pregnancy and given our history I just feel that donor eggs would be a better shot.

A garten eden in the middle of the jungle.

To celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary of our church wedding we went for a night to a nice posada here in the countryside. Posadas are like little hotels, mostly family-owned. We had a great time and really some time to relax. I enjoyed not having to cook and being spoiled by nice home-cooked food.

Here are some of our impressions and some updated Lilli pictures. I can't believe she will be one in two short weeks. Time to plan the birthday party...

11 months today

I can't believe our beautiful little girl is turning 11 months today. What happened to the tiny little baby we brought home from the hospital?

Lilli can nod her head now which is truly funny. If you put words in her mouth and then start to nod your head she will nod hers, too. She still is crab-crawling and cruising all over the place. Yesterday dh and I played a fun game with her. We were sitting on the floor with our legs open and let her walk between us. She did a pretty good job running from one person to the other, turning around and running back.

Lilli is very vocal. I thought her speech would be delayed since she is learning three languages at once. But she is babbling away. She can say: "Hola!" and "Aqua" in Spanish, "Baby", "Teddy", "Papi" "Wau wau" in German/English. She says "Mama", too. Lilli loves to say "Hola!" and she says it to everyone and everywhere. Sometimes she just repeats it for herself all the time.

I have been working quite a lot in the last couple of weeks. Lilli gets to spend a lot of time with our maid who is fantastic with her. But I think the consistent exposure to Spanish is very good for her language skills.

She is signing "All done" and "More", but we haven't been very consistent with the signing.

Today I was braiding her three little ponytails for the first time. Usually she doesn't like to sit still to have her hair done. But today she seemed fine with it. Parting the hair is the hardest thing. Of course my part looks terrible. But the braids look pretty cute on her.

Last week-end I was in the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Dh was upstairs on the terrace to get everything ready. Lilli was downstairs playing in the living room. When he came back downstairs, Lilli had climbed up 5 steps by herself. Very scary... We really need our gates up. We got two more last week-end, but the need drilling and I don't want dh to start drilling holes in our walls. So we have to wait for a craftsman to come...

An update on my dad. Thank for all your prayers. He is doing much better. Last week he came home from the hospital and seems very grateful being home. My mom has a care service that comes three times a day. At least she doesn't have to do it all by herself. He needs a much higher level of care than before. But at least he is home.

Let's do a raindance!

Thank you for your continued thoughts. First, and update on my dad. He is not doing well, but at least it doesn't look like he is dying today or tomorrow anymore. His mind is very clear and he is going back and forth between: "I want to die and the best thing is not to eat anything anymore" to wanting to come back home.

My mom asked me for my advice on this: what would be the best solution for my family? I don't know. I know that she has taken care of my grandmother first, then my grandfather and now for the past nearly 4 years for my dad. I know that she is emotionally and physically drained. But she has to decide whether she wants to take care of my dad at home or whether he needs to go to a nursing home. The level of care he needs now has definitely increased. He can't use either of his arms or hands, he can't get up any more. At least she needs a service to come to the house to help with washing, etc. Of course my dad wants to come home and not go to a nursing home. I told her that she needed to have at least a plan B if plan A (taking care of him at home) won't work out. I am concerned about my mom's health and about my dad's anger (his failing body) being offloaded on my mom again...

My mom has spent all her days in the last weeks sitting next to my dad's bed. He is sleeping a lot. I told her it is enough if she goes there once a day for two hours. She doesn't have to sit there all day long.

Now off to my other topics: I just learned today that a friend here has lost her baby at 18 weeks. There was no heartbeat when she went to the doctor. I am so incredibly sad for her. Last week-end we talked about infertility and adoption. She told me that she and her husband really have to take precautions in order not to get pregnant. They already have two sons and this baby was a girl. She said that she could understand if I hated her. But I don't hate anybody who has the luck of becoming pregnant without having to undergo infertility. I don't wish infertility on anyone. It is one of the worst things I have ever been through. But I can't even imagine what she must be going through. When I had my two chemical pregnancies at least it was so early that I never saw a heart beating. I never felt a baby move inside me. There was a huge pain, but I can't imagine how heavy her heart must be today.

Now the water rationing all over the city has also reached our house. We only have water from 6-9 a.m. and from 7-10 p.m. The rest of the time you only hear a gurgling noise when you turn on the water. As long as I can shower, I am o.k. with this. But it is scary. I wanted to water the flowers until I remembered that we don't have water. Then I wanted to clean the dishes until I remembered that there is no water.

At least we have drinking water as we can't drink the water from the tab. Normally the rain season starts in May and last until November. Last season they had tons of mudslides and houses collapsing. On Russian Hill named after the Russian embassy on there two parking spaces of the embassy just slid down the hill. In Santa Fe some buildings lost their bathrooms and you can still see the tiles and the broken sink.

This year we have had barely any rain. Please send some rain over if you have any in your neck of the woods. I will send you some sunshine in return. People told me that after a while you get sick of the sunshine. I won't. But we do need some rain now. Maybe we can do raindance together.

The newest strike of the government: the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has deemed Coke Zero to contain a hazardous substance and has banned Coke Zero from the shelves.

It's a roller coaster ride

This is starting to be a roller coaster ride like when we were waiting to be matched with a birthmother. After everything was stabilized my dad had another stroke. The third since 2005. While the last two strokes affected his left arm this one affected his right arm. So basically he can't use any of his arms anymore. He is now in the palliativ care of the hospital.

The good thing is that I finally got to talk to him. I told him I was sorry for the things I said when I was visiting. I told him how much I loved him and that it was o.k. to leave if he needed to. I promised him to take care of my mom. It doesn't look like he will be leaving this hospital any more.