Some News....

Well we were hoping today would be the day we would find out our court date....and we did.....sort of. How do you sort of get a court date you ask? Well that is just the adoption life over here :) Today we heard that our facilitator secured two spots for our family and The Woods family on Wednesday and Friday of next week :( Not exactly what we were hoping to hear for two reasons....the first being that the dates are further out than we had hoped, knowing other families here have gotten court a lot quicker, and the second being, it really screws up our plans of Anna and I staying through the 10 day wait together and finishing things out with the support of one another...because now one of us will be ahead of the other. We will know Friday which date is ours and which date is Anna and Jerad's, along with what time court will be on whichever day we get assigned.

Right now we are considering what the best plan of action will be trying to balance our needs here and at home, emotionally and financially.  Either way, Shawn has to go back to work (he has been unpaid this entire trip so far).  If I stay here, we will have the expense of child care for Zoya (and figuring out sitters), cost of apartment, food, transportation, the fact that I'd be here alone, but we wouldn't have to pay for an extra plane ticket and I'd get more Mila time.  If I went home, Zoya could get her Mommy and Daddy time before baby sister comes (she's still doing well but got sad on Skype last time we talked and is too sad to watch videos of us with her......wwwaaah!), we'd save money on living costs here, but we wouldn't see Mila....so you can see it's a tough decision. Financially it would cost just about the same to stay or to go.  Emotionally I'm torn between my girls, but not feeling so confident staying here alone for 12+ days. We are leaning toward both of us returning home and me making the 2nd trip alone.  We are hoping the 2nd trip will be fairly quick since this region offers one day passports. I can do it right??? (Looking for your boost of confidence and support here not taking a poll of opinions LOL). It will all work out and this stress will be worth the great gift we are receiving.

Speaking of gifts, our FSP went up over $600 since we got here! All of you who have donated, or who are participating in the $5/day blog challenge, we cannot thank you enough!!! THANK YOU, from us and Mila girl :)

We got an opportunity to share our photo album with the assistant director today (the director is still out of town until next week). She has been very kind to Mila since we have been there. She passes through and kisses her on the head. Today she came through and looked at us with Mila, smiled real big and said "Mila" (big smile) "Mama, Papa." She was saying Mila is happy to have her Mama and Papa....I'm hoping she has been able to see the changes we've seen in a short time.  She was so excited to look at the pictures and she saw Mila's bedroom and just smiled and said something to Mila, likely about how she is going to love her room. We showed her pictures of Zoya and she just shook her head in disbelief like so many others have. I don't think I ever shared the story of meeting with the social worker right before we met Mila. I know I shared about the SDA worker being in disbelief that Zoya still has DS "because she doesn't look like it anymore." But before meeting Mila we had to go and meet with the social worker and answer her questions in order to be granted permission to meet Mila and proceed with the adoption. She asked only one question, "Do you have any other children?" At that point I passed over our photo album and explained, through our translator, that we had adopted Zoya and I pointed out a before and after picture. She almost cried she was so happy. She just kept asking if it was truly the same child. She finished looking at the album and said, "I have no more questions, I see the love you have and I see she is well taken care of." A picture is worth a thousand words....so with that I'll share today's pictures.

Mila is getting stronger by the day and maybe it's wishful thinking but I see some chub on her cheeks that wasn't there a week ago. I wonder how much of her small size is due to lack of love....wouldn't it be beautiful if that's all she needed to start gaining weight? Wishful thinking again, but I really do believe love goes a long way. I have seen changes in her in a week that are not able to be explained by anything else except LOVE!

Chub-a-licious Cheekies :)

She was VERY tired this morning...poor babe. Notice her toadstool outfit again
(I happen to think she looks like the toadstool character from Mario when she wears this outfit, either that or maybe she's getting ready to go hunting??)

"Oh it's my hand again, I forgot I had one for a moment, this hand thing is pretty cool."

Helping Mommy hold the bottle (It took her only 20 minutes to eat today but she kept falling asleep again).

Barely made it to the end of her bottle and gave us one of her trucker burps and was O-U-T!

This is one of my FAVORITE PICS! Look at her working so hard to lift her head up to see her Daddy!
(Outfit change for afternoon visit LOL)

Big Blue Eyes :)

Snuggin' her mama :)

She is holding her head up all by herself :) She couldn't do this a week ago!

Look at that strength!

Mama gave her a mohawk!

It's an awfully cute mohawk if I do say so myself ;)

And a cute little face to go along with it :)

Here is a little video of Mila working on her head strength and control. You can see her head bobbing but she works so hard.  The power of love and attention.....Sweet, sweet girl :)

Some have asked about her name. I did explain on our metcha day but I'm sure you all just skipped to the pictures....tee hee. Mila Hope is the name we have given her. We decided not to keep her birth name, but did stick with a name from her culture. Mila means precious or miracle. She is a precious miracle and it fits her perfectly :)