Final Post

With a heavy heart I am starting my final post. Have I really been writing this for more than 5 months already?? I have enjoyed recording our journey through this process and from all the comments I have heard, it sounds like many people enjoyed following it. We are fully settling into our new life as a family of 5 and the everyday living is more time consuming that I would have imagined. Its amazing how you adjust and take it all in stride. I was thinking that the other night as I fed Kariana some baby food in the high chair and was helping Kaleb do homework at the kitchen table while overseeing Cohen practise writing his name.

Tomorrow I go back to work for 1/2 days for the next 2 weeks so my maternity leave is officially over today. I cannot believe how my time at home has just flown by. I suppose that is to be expected given how much of my leave was spent in Colombia.

We are back into the mode of diaper bags and baby gear again. When the kids get older, you forget how much stuff you have to take with you to take out a baby! There is baby equipment in every room of the house now and I finally got all the girl clothes donated to us organized and boxed up. Everyone has been so generous once they found out she was coming. I don't think I will have to buy a stitch of clothing for her until she is a teenager!

The boys are still doing great and still lovin' their little sister. We keep waiting for the jealousy to show but so far nothing (knock on wood). I think they are so happy just to have us home again after being apart for so long that they are just to happy to be jealous. Plus, they waited for her to join our family as long as we did so they have been primed for a long time for a little sister. They love seeing her do new things and really like making her smile. They are really proud of her too. They are always telling someone about their new sister from Colombia. Its so cute!

We took Kariana to her doctor's appointment last Friday. Everything went really well although its never fun to see a baby get shots. She got caught up on her 6 month shots that we hadn't gotten in Colombia but the rest of them were all fine (we brought back her immunization chart that showed she had received all the same shots she would have in the states). Since we got her at just over 5 months and didn't get any more shots while we were down there, she hadn't gotten her 6 month shots yet so she got them a few weeks late. They also made a appointment for next week to take a blood draw and get a stool sample to run a series of test to verify that she is truly healthy. They are going to run the newborn screening tests and some other tests just to make sure. I'm going to hate to see my baby in pain from the blood drawn but I know its for the best. She weighed in at 15 lbs, 6 oz (16th percentile), just over 26 inches long (32nd percentile) and she is in the 72nd percentile for head circumference! So I guess she really is a Melcher and she fits right into the rest of the family with her big head! The doctor wasn't worried about any of those stats and is happy with her progress. We discussed her acid reflux and she confirmed it is very common for babies to grow out of that so we are keeping our fingers crossed that is the case and it doesn't rear its head again. We haven't given her medicine in weeks and she is doing great although we do have her on sensitive formula just in case. She finally poked through 2 teeth this week. Of course, I have been thinking they were coming for the last 2 months so I am happy they finally showed up. She may have been a little more fussy than normal but nothing we couldn't handle or even really noticed much so she handled it like a champ. This past week she has really gotten the sitting up thing down really good. She isn't showing any interest in crawling yet but the doctor isn't worried about that so we are enjoying a little more time of immobility. She really seems to be settling in nicely and adjusting well. We are so relieved about that!

Once again, Kerry and I want to thank everyone for their support. We really felt the thoughts and prayers directed towards us and we look forward towards the coming years now that the adoption process is complete.

Thank you!

Signing off,
The Melcher's