The final post is here

Well everyone, the time has come.

This is the actual 100th post, and a symbol that one journey is finished and another is beginning!
I can't leave this blog, though, without telling you all what a very rich plan God has revealed in all of this. One of my friends has a great quote on her website:

"We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." -- C.S. Lewis (Thanks, Em)

Isn't that just about right? There is a lot of suffering and a lot of joy in life. And it's all so unpredictable. Without the Bible putting together the pieces for me - showing me how this all fits together, as confusing as it is - I would be lost. But instead I am found, knowing that God is trustworthy because he came down in my lostness and showed me a glimpse of what he was doing. It involves Jesus. Maybe this sounds a little cryptic, but if you are interested, just ask and you know I will be eager to talk. I would be a strange friend indeed who didn't long for her friends to get this same glimpse.

We have started a new blog to chronicle the continuing journey of our lives with Meredith. You can find it at:

www.magnificentmeredith.blogspot.com

(The explanation for the blog title is on that blog, in the sidebar on the right.)

There are more pics there, but here's another for your enjoyment! She is enjoying her three gifts from Grandma and Grandpa -- a special bracelet (given to Grandma when she was a baby), a music box with duckies that sings "Singin' in the Rain", and a "tag blanket" (because she loves the tags on everything!).


God bless you, my dear friends. It has been a wild ride and we thank you for sharing it with us.

Sarah and Rob

Videos of our Multi-Talented Daughter

And now what you've been waiting for - demonstrations of Meredith's incredible talent. Here are a couple of activities she has mastered. The ball activity is after much practice - it did not work like this the first week we were doing it with her :) The other one...well, that's a new discovery Rob and I each made independently this week. Who knows how long she's had that up her sleeve!

(Note to those not familiar with it: on the bottom of the YouTube windows below, the second button from the right will make the video full-screen if you want)

Meredith and the Ball



Meredith's Special Talent

life at home after the first shots

Meredith had her first pediatrician appointment on Tuesday morning. The good news is, the doctor thinks she is doing very well for a baby born about 3 months early. She clocks in at the 10-15th percentile for height and weight for her preemie-adjusted age of 9 months. This is not bad at all, especially since living in a baby home in Russia usually slows growth relative to living in a home with parents. So she is doing well. The only specialist we will probably see is an opthalmalogist, since her eyes will likely need some help due to her extreme prematurity (apparently they're one of the later things to develop in the womb, and early exposure to oxygen isn't good for them). As far as we can tell, her sight is very functional and she makes eye contact a lot, so we are hopeful that there won't be any extreme issues. However, it is possible she would start wearing glasses at a young age due to likely farsightedness. Good thing little tyke glasses are so cute!

The end of the doctor appointment was not so fun, as Meredith had to get 3 shots and a finger poke. She did what any kid would do and screamed her head off :( She calmed down OK afterward. But then she had the (apparently common) experience of a fever and irritability (soreness maybe?) for the next two days. A little longer than we expected, and it wasn't fun for anyone including Meredith. What happens when a little girl who used to take 3 two-hour naps instead takes - with considerable effort on her parents' part - 3 half-hour naps? Cranky, cranky, cranky! She was pretty exhausting all day Tuesday and Wednesday and part of Thursday.

Yesterday (Friday) I went back to work - without Meredith - for about 5 hours. I actually enjoyed it a lot - it was a good reminder that I have multiple callings in my life. I was also happy to leave her with Rob, both because I think their bonding is equally important and, honestly, because she had been so difficult the previous few days when I was with her almost all day. Also, Rob and I made a deal that whoever is going to work has the privilege of trying to sleep if Meredith wakes up at 3 in the morning and needs help getting back to sleep (which she does pretty much every night) since the person staying home can presumably get in a nap during one of Meredith's naps (again, HA!). So what do you suppose I heard when I got home at 1:30 yesterday afternoon?

Me: So Rob, how was it?

Rob: It was great! She was up from 3:00 to 3:30, but then she slept until 8:00 and was so happy! She didn't cry with a diaper change, didn't whine when I put the bib on her (note: unprecedented), ate lots of her breakfast, and then she was all cheerful and talkative and we played for a while and then she started getting tired so I brought her in for a nap at 10:30 and she woke up at 1:00 and just had her lunch. And now she's here just playing happily.

Me: (moment of silence...) You stink!

Of course, I was happy that she was doing better and so I don't begrudge Rob his great day with her. Hopefully today will be great too - we are heading to an adoption group picnic at Blue Springs Park. I will be sure to get a photo of Meredith in her amazingly adorable bathing suit. You really won't believe how cute she is! We are so excited to finally end our spell as the eternally "expecting" adoptive parents in the group - we've been attending for 2 years and very often were the only people at the meetings without kids. Luckily, we've made such good friends there and learned so much that we managed to keep attending all that time. It's a great group, with several types of adoption situations - international, domestic, interracial, foster-to-adopt, you name it. We are glad that Meredith will have other friends who are adopted so that she does not feel like she is unusual in her situation growing up adopted.

I have some videos I want to post but I will need Rob to help with that, so for now you get a few more photos. Our friend Nate took some amazing shots the other night.

enjoying life at home

I don't have time to write anything tonight, but wanted to post a few pics for you to enjoy!

Trying out the new high chair - it's a hit! Well, as long as she has a spoon to play with.


Trying out the snail rocker - not so sure about it yet....we'll try again later!



Dressed for our first day all together at church.


Asleep. Notice the effectiveness of the crib bumper.

Home Safe and Sound!

We are home and life is good! And actually this doesn't have to be my last post because my friend Matthew discovered that the blog "post counter" that I saw was not quite right - it apparently included a couple of old drafts that were never posted, so I have a few more to go before I reach 100.

Before anything else, I forgot to mention something about the links on the last post. Rob and I noticed when we looked at them that they seemed to emphasize "the mother". If you look at it, please substitute "the parents" there. We are both working hard on bonding well with her.

Our flight from Moscow to Atlanta was not too bad - it was about 11 hours. In the first hour and half on the plane, Meredith got her diaper changed and ate some lunch, and then slept for 2 hours. Wow! We figured this would be a breeze if she kept this up. Well, she didn't. But it was okay...there was just no sleeping again until about an hour and a half before the flight landed. (Sleeping for her that is... for us?... ha!). During the latter part of the flight, she started getting pretty cranky because she was tired and she couldn't quite fall asleep. We were next to the bathroom, which was great for the 7 or 8 diaper changes we needed to do (they actually had a very decent fold-out changing table), and nice because it was near the galley where we could walk a bit. But of course it was also not so nice, because obviously there was a lot of foot traffic, and because the sound of the flushing toilet was unnerving for our sweet girl. It didn't quite make her cry but it seemed to startle her pretty regularly.

Our pattern of trying to get Meredith to sleep went something like this....she's clearly tired, so we rock her or carry her around a big, she starts sort of falling asleep, but then keeps whining and can't seem to calm down all the way. We take a sniff and smell a wet diaper, so we change her diaper. Now she'll surely fall asleep. But then after a while, when she still isn't sleeping, we think, hey, she'd probably like something to eat. So we give her a bottle of formula, which she loves. Surely she'll fall asleep. A little while later, still no sleep, but what do you think? We smell pee again. Basically, we created a cycle by which the twin comforts of feeding and diaper changing were showing their relationship very clearly! But aside from some whining it wasn't too bad - and she made a couple of friends on the plane. One old Russian lady would talk to her when she walked by and one older man would give her a finger to grab. We were also blessed that the guy in the seat next to us (no, we didn't get all three in the middle row) was a young guy - probably our age - who is Russian but spoke English really well and told us he has a 3 year old and that Meredith's age is a good age for flying. He started making faces at her and she was delighted! The flight attendants were also crazy about her, and one of them would always whisper to me if she was delivering drinks and saw that Meredith was sleeping on me. (It wouldn't really have mattered - when she's actually asleep, voices of reasonable volume don't usually wake her).

We've discovered that there are many ways in which Meredith's adoption comes up early in conversation. People say "how old is she?" and we say "she just turned one" and they look a little confused because she's so small. So we say "she was a preemie" and that usually handles it somewhat. But after I told the flight attendant that she had just turned one, she said to Meredith "Did you have a nice birthday? Did you celebrate? I bet you had a cake!" and I just couldn't take it so I said, "Well, we don't really know, we actually didn't have her yet - we just adopted her 8 days ago." Then she was all the more excited - I heard her telling the other flight attendants and everything! So even if adoption comes up pretty often, I don't mind because people are usually really supportive. I think the weird thing that comes up pretty regularly, though, is people then telling Meredith how lucky she is - good gracious, do they not realize how lucky WE are? People sometimes think we are selfless orphan rescuers rather than people who longed to be parents. So I say, "We are all really blessed to be a family."

Our landing in Atlanta was uneventful, but the time it took to get through immigration - which involved a special separate stop for turning in adoption documents - brought us extremely close to missing our plane. Good thing that Meredith likes the stroller and doesn't mind a fast ride because Rob took off with her at full speed to try to catch the plane for us. And he did! They were just about to close the door. Phew! God's grace to some weary travelers.

We were met at the airport by a few very close friends, and then met at home by two more who had a hot meal ready for us. So wonderful!!! And they had bought us milk and juice for the morning too! We ate our dinner after feeding Meredith and laying her on a blanket on the dining room floor (didn't want to put her in a strange crib without us there yet). When I picked her up to bring her to bed (we have a co-sleeper bed that sits right next to our bed) I had never felt her little body so completely limp. She was exhausted! Not a peep - she just kept sleeping. We all were in bed by a little after 10:00. Around 3:30 Meredith woke up and we brought her in bed with us and played (to the extent we could, half asleep!) and gave her a bottle. A little after 4:00 she was drowsy again, thank goodness, so we laid her back down. Then we all woke up at 10:00 this morning. Wow! What a great night that was. Meredith tried out her new high chair for her morning kasha (oatmeal) and then we played for a couple of hours before putting her down for a nap around 12:30. She is being an absolute angel!

Photos will be forthcoming - just wanted you all to know we are home and doing wonderfully well.

the penultimate post!

Rob recently pointed out that this blog keeps track of how many posts I have made. There have been 98 so far. We've decided that it would be perfect for us to end the blog at 100 posts and replace it with a regular baby blog about daily life with Meredith, since the "Hamersma Adoption" will be complete!

That means I've got this post, and then one more after we get home to let you know that we got there safely.

I want to use this post for something important, and that is to provide a couple of links to our family and friends regarding the transition that Meredith is making into our family. In the psychology literature this is called "attachment" and for most babies it is a natural process in which they learn very early on that their parents will always meet their needs. This allows for healthy brain development - especially emotional development. They learn that there are a couple of particular people who are "theirs" and it allows them to feel safe as they make discoveries in their world. When a child hasn't had this experience early on with her parents (or any parents) she usually has some catching up to do, which can mean that adoptive parents need to provide a more intense nurturing experience than might be typical of a child her age and need to be somewhat "jealous" of her attention. It can appear to others like spoiling or coddling, but it's an essential step in building those bonds that every parent and child need to have.

Rob and I found a nice website with some helpful ideas and info for friends and family related to attachment. We hope that Meredith will have a smooth path of bonding with us and won't run into the problems that this website in some ways anticipates - but that is really the key: anticipation. We want to make wise decisions early to prevent later regrets. This will mean things like carrying her around, feeding her, diapering her, and comforting her when she's crying need to be exclusive Mommy and Daddy territory (sorry for all of those longing to change a diaper). The most helpful seem to be these two pages:

Sample Letter to Friends and Family

Dos and Don'ts for Friends and Family

There are other interesting links in the left panel on the website if you find yourself fascinated. We haven't checked them all out but the site seems pretty good and corresponds to the more detailed reading we have done on this topic.

We can't wait to leave tomorrow for home! Please pray for a safe and peaceful (?) journey for us on the long flight from Moscow to Atlanta and the shorter one from there to Gainesville. We'll post again when we are home and awake (in other words, not right away!).