Notice Anything New?!?

That's right people... we're riding the rollercoaster. And by "we" I mean that this time I have pending new sister Makeda on my waiting team. C'mom l'il sister! We're excited already!

Crappy Croup Update

Thanks for the emails - here's a brief update before I dash to catch sleep while it's available. I think we're in week 7 now. That must be a new record. Not inspiring are the words of her (more than 1) ENT specialists who have all declared they've never seen anything like this and don't know how to fix it. Basically, the 'roids help, but never completely solve the problem. So, life is comprised of trips to the ER for a quick fix and, more recently, a bigger dose followed by 2 weeks on a puffer. The last big dose does seem to have successfully diminished (but not eliminated) the cough, making longer stretches of sleep possible for both mommy and baby. It's only over the past 3 days or so that her breathing has stabilized at night sufficiently that I'm not waking up every hour or more. Sadly, the additional sleep seems to mean I'm off my adrenaline rush, and so I seem to be more tired now than when I waking up 8 or so times a night! The point of all this is that there is an underlying cause - something is causing the endless croup encores, but no one knows what it is. The only way to find out for sure is to scope her. But she can't be scoped until her breathing is back to normal, since she can't be anesthetized while there's any swelling in her throat. So, we have a catch 22, which is hopefully what 2 weeks of puffer will resolve. We're wrapping up week 1, however, and while she's much improved, it ain't over. Without making myself crazy from a bunch of googling worse case scenarios, the throat xray has confirmed there's no tumour, so we appear to be waiting for confirmation of either a cyst, a natural abnormal narrowness to her throat (which she'll have to grow out of), or something to do with her adenoids. Time will tell. In the meantime, she continues to be my good natured little angel, albeit one that wakes up at 4am from a cough, and then proceeds to sing loudly in her crib for a full hour while I lie awake in bed alternating between thankfulness that if she can sing, she can breathe, and a desire to [fill in the blank - you know you all can - you've been there too], so I can get some sleep.

Makedaversary Part Deux

Well, of the 3 parties planned, eventually one of them came about, mostly to ensure that the party dress actually made an appearance. Here's my little princess in all her pink glory, and another one with the rest of the kids playing on the bed with minimal adult supervision while the rest of us partied...

IAMASLUT Part Deux

Just got around to downloading some of our lovely pics from our recent conference and thought I'd share...

IAMASLUT Inaugural Convention

I am a little remiss in my posting but yes, Miss M did recover sufficiently for me to escape to San Fransisco with these lovely ladies...














and we had a BLAST! A number of topics were covered, none of which by any stretch would enable any of us to write off the trip, convention or not. However, since all topics could not be adequately covered to our satisfaction, we have tentatively scheduled IAMASLUT* Part deux in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics. Any wannabee members out there - get your applications in quickly - the number of available rooms in my home is dwindling quickly and we need to reserve our speedskating tickets. Plus, you have to be screened and approved by our founding member, the lovely Tasha and, as you her followers well know, that likely entails a full rectal examination. Be quick.

Miss M's recovery continues, slowly and painfully. The cooler air at her grandparents' place last weekend helped speed the recovery, which was promptly set back again by the suffocating air in her own bedroom, once I was back home. Temperatures are supposed to decrease a bit over the next few days, so hopefully that would help.

AND, on a completely different topic, my Baby A file has successfully transferred from Beautiful BC to the bailout capital of Canada, aka Toronto, where it awaits some final stamps and will begin its journey to Addis in approximately 10 days. Stay tuned and watch out for another lilypie baby to make an appearance.

*International Adoption Mothers Association - Single Lovely Unique Talented