Folks, we’re gettin’ close. Only 5 more weeks and we’ll have another little Johnson in the house! OMG. At 34+ weeks I’m at the stage in pregnancy when you are just ready to be DONE. My body is done. But, I’m also not quite ready for the baby to be out. Right now he/she is very easy to take care of and demands zero amount of my time. That’s convenient when I have six others that demand all my time and attention. So, as much as I’m ready to be done, I’m also not quite ready for a newborn. Make sense?

Lots of people have asked what the medical care has been like here in Ukraine, so far during this pregnancy, so I thought I’d share. It has been one gigantic learning curve that’s about to become reeeeeeeal steep here in a few weeks. I’ll start out right now by saying that nothing I’m writing here is meant to bash Ukrainian healthcare. I have felt very well taken care of over the past several months. I have zero doubt about the skill of the doctor I have been seeing. It’s not about that. This is all about the differences between my experiences in the US and my experiences here.  I’m not speaking to others’ experiences, only my own. I’ve birthed three biological kiddos in the US and am also an RN with many years of experience in postpartum and infant care and 13 years of hospital work experience. We’ve also been foster parents in the US to 10 newborns/young infants with special needs. In other words, I’ve been around this mountain before and am quite a nerd about it. I also have loads of opinions about it all…but I’ll try to spare you some of that. The differences between the cultures and medical systems here in Ukraine and the US are vast and the topic interests me endlessly. So, yeah, there is no bashing at the heart of this post- only interest combined with  some amusement, confusion and fascination. 🙂

In Ukraine the public healthcare is provided by the government. There are many free public clinics in our city. There are two free public maternity hospitals. The care is meant to be free, but the funding is sparse and the doctors are paid so little, it is expected that patients should tip as they are able. You also need to purchase many of your own supplies. I have a big ol’ list of supplies to buy and bring to he hospital for delivery. There are also private clinics here in our city, but no private hospitals.

The difference between private clinics and public clinics are vast. In a private clinic you make an appointment, come at the stated time, and with little wait you see the doctor you were meant to see, or get the test you were meant to receive. In the public clinic you just show up, ask who is the last in line, and then take your place behind them.  There are no appointments. So….as you can imagine, you can end up waiting a long time…but such is life. The waiting rooms are not what you would imagine if you have only been in US clinics. They are simply chairs in a hallway- bare minimum (or zero) lighting, concrete floors, no tv, no music, no magazines, no coffee machine, no nothing. Just people waiting. Fun times.

When I first discovered I was pregnant (Holy moly. The shock was intense.) I called a dear friend in our town who speaks great English and asked her to help me. I knew the system had to be so different and I had no idea even where to begin! Bless her heart, she said yes, and has been a big help to me ever since! Thank you, dear Olya! We first went to a private clinic for an early U/S, just to confirm the pregnancy because I’ve had a tubal pregnancy in the past and wanted to make sure we weren’t going to have a repeat of that sadness. That was a great experience and very similar to what you would experience in the US.

After that, around 10 weeks or so I needed to register with a doctor at a public clinic here in town. I decided to go with the doctor who Olya had seen during her pregnancy. In Ukraine you see one doctor throughout the pregnancy, and then when you near delivery (around 36/37 weeks) you choose where you will deliver and register at the hospital. A different doctor delivers the baby- not the doctor you have seen for the pregnancy.

The doctor has been very kind and pretty much laid back. At each appointment she weighs me, measures my belly, and listens to the baby’s heartbeat. Just like in the US. Major difference: the doctors here use Pinard Horns (a wooden horn thing) to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. I’d never even seen one of those in real life!  Think “Call the Midwife” and you’ll be spot on. Can you believe I’ve never heard my baby’s heartbeat? Only the person with the horn can hear the heartbeat. Old school. In fact, I’ve been watching a lot of Call the Midwife lately and feel like there are many similarities to the resources here and there.

I had an U/S at 12 weeks and then again at 19 weeks. I think that’s pretty similar to my experiences in the US. The 19 week U/S was much more brief here. It lasted maybe 10 minutes? I didn’t get to watch, but Jed did. 🙂 We requested to keep the gender a secret, so we’re still waiting on that big surprise! My doctor doesn’t do any ultrasounds but they’re done in an office right next to hers.

One massive difference between Ukraine and the US during pregnancy is the PAPERWORK and TESTING. Holy smokes! So much paperwork and so many blood tests! Wow. I feel like I’ve been poked more times here than in all of my previous pregnancies combined! Basically every 3 weeks, before my appointment, I need to have some sort of test done. At my appointment my doctor will give me little slips of paper that are for the next round of tests. She writes my name on it, her name on it, the hours you can go for testing (normally like M-F 07:30-09:00) and the room number where the test is done. Before my next appointment I need to show up at the different little rooms, stand in line, and go in to do my test. It’s customary to give a few griven (Ukrainian money) to the lab person, along with the little orders slip. For some tests I need to buy my own syringe and needle and bring that along, but most blood tests have been finger sticks. The finger stick tests are done in one room and the blood draws from the vein are done in a different room. I have more than 3 kids, so technically, I don’t have to pay for any of the tests.

The next round of tests I need to do before my upcoming appointment.

In the room where you get your finger sticks there are several different women sitting at desks with a bunch of little glass vials sitting in front of them. They take a metal, almost needle thing, out of a manila envelope and prick the end of my finger. Then they use a glass pipet to collect the blood and smear it on a microscope slide. When I look in front of them at the rows and rows of collected blood in different vials I can’t understand their system at all. There are no patient labels, no lids, no plastic (all is glass)…how do they keep it all straight? How do they separate dirty from clean? How do they not always mess up people’s blood work? I have no idea. It’s so fascinating to me.

I also need to bring a urine sample from home every time I have an appointment. You can bring your urine in a jar of any kind, or you can buy little plastic specimen containers from the pharmacy. Urine needs to be dropped off the day before the appointment, so Jed usually does that for me, bless his heart. 🙂

Another MAJOR difference between here and the US is that everything is done on paper and there is not a computer to be seen (hence the lack of patient labels in the lab). Private clinics have computers, but public do not- at least not in our town. Everything is written on paper. My doctor has a shelf of active patient records in her office. Because there are no computer systems linked between different clinics and hospitals, and you have no electronic chart following you, your patient record literally needs to stay with you. Everything needs to be written twice. My doctor writes notes in her chart for me (like a notebook) and then writes them again in my own personal chart/notebook that I take home and bring back and forth to appointments. There are two copies of every lab result and one copy is stapled into her chart and one into mine. That way, when I change to the delivery doctor, I have my chart in my hands. At this point in pregnancy my little notebook is just jam packed with notes and results and such. The lab where they do blood draws has a big binder where they write patient information- just like the Call the Midwife logbook. 🙂 It’s really interesting.

My personal patient chart and one of the lists of things I need to buy at a pharmacy to bring to the hospital for delivery.

For me, the big looming decision was where to deliver the baby. I have to have a c-section (huge bummer) because I’ve had three previous c-sections. My babies all love to position themselves bottom or feet first. Grrr. Anyway, because of that, I felt really nervous about where the surgery would be done. My options were delivering here in our town, at one of the public maternity hospitals, or in Kyiv, at a private maternity hospital. It would cost about $4,000 to deliver at a private hospital. The main question wasn’t money, but where we felt safest and most comfortable.

Again, I’m not saying I think Ukrainian doctors lack skill. C-sections are done here every day and everything goes just fine. It’s not like my situation is so unique (except 4 c-sections is actually considered very unique here in Ukraine!) that I need some special treatment. It’s not that at all, it’s just that when you are in a situation where the system is totally new, you don’t understand everything (medical terminology and such in Russian and Ukrainian), and you know you’re already going to be stressed, you want to feel like you made the best decision for you and your baby. It was a difficult decision for us! I would say I understand 85-90% of what my doctor says to me. She speaks great Ukrainian and I’m super thankful for that. But, that is rare in our city. Most of the lab techs and others I encounter speak Russian to me and I don’t always understand them as well. I know when I’m stressed and in surgery my mind is not going to want to think in Ukrainian or Russian. I will need to be able to trust and know that I’m in good hands.

In the end, we decided to deliver at the public hospital here in our town. It’s 10 minutes from our house, as opposed to 2.5-3 hours away in Kyiv. Especially with having Boris home now, it’s important that we stay close to home. It’s convenient, for sure, but the biggest deciding factor was the doctor. One of our closest friend’s mom is one of the head doctors of labor and delivery at the maternity hospital near our house. She has over 20 years of experience and has agreed to do the c-section for us. I feel great about this decision. She knows us, she knows our family. We matter to her- we aren’t just random people. She speaks no English, but I know that she will do her best to make sure I understand what’s going on and that means the world to me. Also, she is very skilled at her job. I know she’ll watch over me closely and I need that reassurance, being so far away from everything that seems normal to me.

I’ll for sure write about our delivery and hospital experience after the baby comes, but I can tell you now some things that I already know will be very different. I’m slowly coming to grips with these differences, even though I don’t like them one bit! For one, Jed doesn’t get to be in the operating room. This one absolutely kills me. He’s always been present for the births of our babies and I can’t imagine being in the OR without him! I know I’ll be an emotional wreck. But, we have no choice in the matter. They told me that he’ll be in a room next door and as soon as the baby is born and they show him/her to me they’ll take him/her straight to Jed and he will have the baby with him while they finish me up and take me to the recovery room. I can’t believe we won’t be together when we find out if it’s a boy or girl! I’m so sad about it. 🙁

The doctor told me it will be about two hours before the baby gets to be with me again, and during those two hours, he/she will be with Jed. The first day and night I will stay in a special post-op area with the baby and Jed doesn’t get to stay. But the next morning, if everything is going well, they will transfer me to a regular room, and then Jed will stay with me the rest of the time. We will pay for a private room so we can be by ourselves, as opposed to a ward room. No thanks!  Eek! The doctor reassured me that the baby will be with either me or Jed 100% of the time. At no point will they take him/her away. I’m really glad about that. They do a TB vaccination here while the baby is still in the hospital, so we need to decide if we will do that or not. I’m not big on newborn vaccinations, but I also know that TB is a real threat here and I want to be wise. We need to do our homework on that one.

The maternity hospital

Another big difference here is that the kids will not be able to visit us in the hospital.  They don’t allow children to visit at all. I have to stay for 5 days, so that will be brutal. Thank goodness for FaceTime! I’m certain the hospital has no wifi, but we recently got 3G in our fine city (woohoo!), so I should be able to connect, at least briefly. And Jed will be able to go back and forth and check on everyone. My in-laws are coming from Montana to stay with us and help out when the baby comes, so they can be at home with the kids. I’m so thankful they’ll be here. I don’t know what we would do if they couldn’t come! I’d probably be even more of an emotional wreck. Ha!

That’s my experience so far. It’s been different, for sure, but definitely fine. I’m blessed to have very straightforward pregnancies, so far so good. I’ve enjoyed learning another part of Ukrainian culture- especially as a nurse. We are getting so very excited to meet our little treasure in less than 5 weeks. We sure do appreciate your prayers for a safe and speedy delivery and recovery. Thank you, Friends! 🙂

Happy Fall!

The trees are so so beautiful here right now and the weather is unseasonably  mild. The day before yesterday I roasted a pumpkin and made a pumpkin cheesecake treat and then yesterday cooked up some pumpkin soup. Fall has officially made it’s way to the Homestead. Bring on the cozy!

Hava, school friends, and pretty fall colors

I always love to make a cozy home, but this year I have even more reason to create coziness. If you follow us on Instagram or our personal Facebook you already heard, but yes, our family is growing. We’re havin’ a baby!

I know, I know. We were rather shocked too. (to put it mildly)

In the middle of the crazy month of June when teams were coming and going and we could barely keep our heads on straight we found out the news. I remember the shock and the overwhelming feeling of “How in the world are we going to do this?”  We decided to keep our little surprise a secret until we could really wrap our brains around it.

We thought the baby days were long gone for us. Seven-year-old Seth was the last baby we had in our home, and after 7 years straight of newborns- bio and foster– we were more than ready to say goodbye to diapers, bottles, bouncy seats, and sleepless nights. We had moved into the magical season when no one needs to nap, everyone can potty independently and get their own drinks of water. And then BAM! The bomb dropped. 🙂

After the initial shock wore off and the crazy summer slowed down a bit we were able to think straight. It didn’t take long for us to see the joy in our unexpected gift. How precious it will be to witness new life once again. Our lives here and our work here is surrounded by brokenness. Our boys are so broken. They have endured years upon years of abuse and neglect. The nurturing they missed out on as little babies is visible in their bodies even today. Our Vladik has come so far, yet every day we work with him to repair the brokenness inside.  It’s a hard and painful road, but one we are called to walk down and we do, with joy and sadness mixed. We pray that this baby will be like a healing balm to our family and to our boys. How amazing it will be to have the opportunity to nurture this little one, to meet his or her needs, and to watch him or her grow- surrounded by love- the way God intended. How encouraging it will be to not have to fight against years of neglect, and how joyful it will be for our other kiddos to be a part of the process.

We are so happy and we are so thankful. God truly does know what we need.

So it is with great joy that we share our wonderful gift of new life.

I’m 23 weeks pregnant now (more than halfway!), and baby is due to make its appearance right around Valentine’s Day. We never find out the gender beforehand, so we’re keeping it a surprise this time around too. We already have boys and girls, so it doesn’t really matter- although our girls feel pretty strongly that they need a sister to even things out. It’s been 9 years since my body has done the whole growing a baby thing, but so far so good, even if I am considered “advanced maternal age”. 😉 I definitely feel it more this time around, the discomfort and all that, but my body is generally pretty good at being pregnant, so I don’t have many complaints.

Baby and me at the halfway point

Navigating a pregnancy here in Ukraine is definitely an adventure I never expected to have!  Of course, the whole system is vastly different than what I’ve been used to in the past, but so far so good. I’ve mostly encountered a bazillion blood tests and a bazillion documents. I go to one doctor now and then will switch to a “delivery doctor” when we are closer to the due date. Many people have asked if we will fly to the US for the birth, but that’s really not practical, for a number of reasons. Ukrainian women have babies here every day and do fine. I don’t see why it should be any different for me.

So I’m cozying up the house, taking advantage of quiet moments when the kids are at school (soon the quiet will disappear again!), and trying to be kind to my advanced maternal-age body by putting my feet up when I need to (not easy to do when dishes pile up and boxes need unpacking STILL and 5 kids need me, but I’m trying). I know soon everything will change again, so I’m attempting to not rush this time but to treasure the moments we have as a family of 7. Hopefully, it won’t be long before our first Romaniv friend joins our family, and the baby soon after, so living in today is becoming an important skill to develop. It’s so interesting how the physical and spiritual align themselves. As we have been preparing the home for our boys and expecting them, things around us have changed. We have long compared the building of the Homestead and now the legal process of gaining guardianship as a kind of “pregnancy”. Now we also have a physical pregnancy. We are joyfully “expecting” in more ways than one.

Thank you to all who have shared our joy. Your encouraging words have blessed our family. We will be so excited to introduce our new baby to you in just a few short months! Yay for seasons of growth! (literally!) 😉

I think it’s about time for an update on Vladik, don’t you?  I know many of you love him very much, and have prayed for him for many years.  It is our joy to share his journey with you.  Some things I won’t share, just to protect Vladik’s privacy, but there is a lot I will share, because Vladik’s story is a great story of redemption and we just can’t keep it to ourselves!

General Transition: Vladik is doing unbelievably well.  He is a walking miracle in every way.  He sucks the marrow out of life more than anyone I’ve ever known.  He is also still the happiest person I’ve ever known.  He almost NEVER stops smiling!  And if he does stop smiling, or if he starts to cry, you know you better pay attention.  His cry is the most pitiful thing!  Maybe it’s because it’s so rare to see him unhappy, but when he starts to cry we can’t even handle it.  So so sad!!  He generally only cries when he is in pain (shots, blood draws, IV’s…) or when he is overwhelmed.  Like yesterday, at the end of a loooooong day of doctor’s appointments, we were sitting, waiting for the nurse to come back in the room and he just leaned into me and started crying.  It was so unexpected, and so sad!  He just really wanted to go home.

Vladik loves home.  He always wants to know which direction is home and when are we going home.  He calls our house “The Red Tomato” in Ukrainian, because it’s red. 🙂  He’s always gotta check in about where The Red Tomato is, and if that’s where we’re going next.  I love that he loves home, and I also know he always checks in about it because he’s still not quite sure that he will always be with us.  That’s okay buddy, keep on checking in as long as you need to. You’re stuck with us!

We still speak only Ukrainian to Vladik and have not really taught him any English yet.  But, we just decided this week to begin speaking to Vladik in English and Ukrainian.  We don’t want him to be on the fringes of our family in any way, and not having English excludes him from many conversations unless one of us translates.  It’s time.  This should be fun!  Ha!

Family: Seth and Vladik are still best buds.  Vladik calls Seth “Seppa” and Seth calls Vladik “Vladchik”.  They play together, fight together, laugh together and cry together (well, Seth does the crying…haha).  They are always hugging each other.  It is the cutest thing.  Seth is the leader, for sure, and can kind of take advantage of it, but Vladik is learning to stand his ground a bit better too.  He actually knows how to push Seth’s buttons, so yeah, typical brother stuff going on there. 🙂  Havalah is doing great with Vladik.  They don’t play together much, since Vladik doesn’t share a common love for Barbies, but Hava is always coming up to Vladik and giving him little loves.  She really loves him.

Ez and Addy have had a bit of a harder transition, which was to be expected.  It’s difficult to know how to navigate having a new brother that is physically your same size, but developmentally like a toddler. There are some habits that a toddler might display that are cute,  but when done by a toddler in a 10 year old body…not so cute, more just annoying…and LOUD.  Ha!  We have all had to remember often that Vladik has never been parented at all.  He has never had a family to teach him what is appropriate.  He has never had good social modeling.  He has never had any healthy relationship modeling.  He likes attention and will try to get it however he can- negative or positive- he’ll take what he can get, much to Addy and Ezra’s chagrin.  BUT, I will say that they have many sweet moments and over the past few weeks the positive moments have far outweighed the annoying, make-him-be-quiet-and-stop-touching-me-moments.  Yay!  Vladik is learning better how to relate to his siblings, and his siblings are growing in their love for him.  When you love someone you can accept a lot of behaviors that would have made you crazy before.  We talk a lot about choosing love, even when you don’t necessarily feel it at the time. Also, Vladik’s sense of humor is coming out more and more and he is making us laugh more all the time!  That helps those sibling relationships for sure.

Slowly but surely, he is becoming just one of the bunch.  They have all come so far!

Vladik does great with mommy and daddy. He loves us both and seems to be attaching appropriately. He doesn’t play us against each other like he used to when he was stressed.  He listens and obeys eagerly, 90% of the time.  Usually the other 10% of the time he needs only a firm voice and a reminder that it’s important to listen and obey.  We have done a couple “time-outs” and that has been super effective.  It’s really only “Okay, you didn’t listen so now you have to sit in this chair for 3 minutes.”  But, it is enough to get him to stop and pay attention.  He generally desires to obey.  When he is stressed we have to be a bit more firm with him to draw those boundaries in nice and tight, and he responds really well.

Medical: Oh my, have we been busy in this department!  Vladik came to us as a big mystery puzzle and we are slowly fitting all the pieces together.  Vladik is miraculously healthy.  Praise God!  Let’s start with the head and move down.

Head: We just had an appointment this week with the craniofacial surgeon and the neurosurgeon to discuss the results of Vladik’s head CT.  Boy was I surprised to hear their thoughts!  They both agreed that Vladik does not need any skull surgery.  What????  I was all prepared to hear a plan and instead heard, “He’s dismissed from our service!”

I guess I’m not yet sure if we should be relieved or if we should seek a second opinion.  I have an email to an expert on Apert Syndrome and am waiting to hear his thoughts.  Right now we are choosing to trust the doctors and be thankful. 🙂  This is their rationale: the CT showed that all of his cranial sutures are already closed.  Because he is 15, his head is done growing and his brain is done growing.  His dilated eye exam showed there is no pressure on his optic nerves, and he does not show any signs or symptoms of intracranial pressure.  Because of this, there is no need to expand his skull.  They said that if he doesn’t have intracranial pressure now, there is no reason for him to develop it later because his head is done growing.  It all makes great sense.  I guess we just really want to make sure we get this one right, which is why we are considering a second opinion.  Prayer for wisdom about that would be appreciated!

We are unsure how much of Vladik’s delay in development is because of restricted brain growth in his earlier years.  If he had been born here he would have had skull expansion surgery as an infant.  The doctor said that unfortunately, because he was not treated, that damage is already done and now it is too late for treatment.  So, we are glad we don’t have to deal with skull surgery, but we also mourn a bit for what might have been if we had gotten to him earlier.

Eyes:  Vladik’s eyes have many of the typical traits of Apert Syndrome.  They are placed in a different position on his head and even the eyeballs are rotated out a bit.  He has good vision and does not need glasses…yay!  But he does not use his eyes together and they are often crossed.  He will have eye surgery this spring to adjust the muscle position a bit and help him to use his eyes together.

Teeth: Vladik’s teeth are actually not in horrible shape!  Sure they are funky, and he could really use some braces, but health-wise, they are not bad at all!  He had two old fillings with decay underneath that we have had replaced and he got two crowns.  He did amazing.  We won’t be able to tackle orthodontics until we get to Ukraine. It’s too long of a process for us to undertake here in the US.  Because of that, we can’t really do any mid-face surgeries, as those must be coupled with orthodontics.  Midface surgery, in Vladik’s case, is not a medical necessity.  It would be more cosmetic, I guess, and honestly for a child with Apert Syndrome, Vladik’s midface is actually not in a bad position!  It doesn’t seem to affect his airways at all.  Because of that, we have opted out of those surgeries.  It just isn’t possible, with our living situation, to couple anything with orthodontics.

Ear, nose, throat:  We have yet to see the ENT doctor (grrrr), but we have been pushed up in the priority list as of yesterday.  Vladik had a sleep study and it showed he has obstructive sleep apnea.  He snores and gags and chokes and coughs all night long.  The craniofacial team is recommending a modified tonsillectomy (can’t do a full one because of his cleft palate).  Hopefully taking part of the tonsils would help his apnea enough for him not to need CPAP.  All the other surgeons agree that if a tonsillectomy is going to happen, then that needs to happen before any other surgeries.  Simply because airway management during anesthesia will be much easier if his airway is more clear. So, we are looking forward to that appointment. The ENT will also order hearing testing, as recommended by the cranio docs.  Vladik’s speech is still pretty hard to understand and they want to rule out hearing loss.

Hands: Can you believe the physical issue that has caused the most angst so far has been fingernails????  OMG.  Vladik’s fingernails are so difficult to manage!! They are fused, like his fingers, and just a pain.  We have been dealing with an ingrown fingernail since November that eventually led us to the ER because everyone is afraid to touch him. We FINALLY saw a hand surgeon yesterday (as a follow-up for the nail) and he was awesome!  He would like to give Vladik a thumb!!  He is suggesting starting with a thumb and seeing how well Vladik can learn to use it before trying for anything more.  Because of his age, it looks like from the x-rays that it would be very difficult to separate the other fingers, plus, we then run the risk of him not gaining great use of them because of his age and the lateness of a surgery like this.  We agree.  Having thumbs will absolutely change his life.  We told him last night that the doctor wants to give him a thumb and he was flipping out!!  He was pounding the table and shrieking and laughing.  Ha!  It will be amazing. The doctor suggested just doing one hand at a time, so as to not incapacitate him, but honestly, he needs both hands to do everything anyway, so we are going to ask for both thumbs to happen at once.  We’ll see!

We already have been waiting for months for an appointment with the hand surgeon at Shriners and our appointment is finally coming up at the end of the month.  We’ll go and see what that surgeon has to say and then make our decision. It’s so exciting to hear that Vladik could have thumbs.  That is what we hoped for.  SO SO EXCITING!!!

Feet:  We saw a foot surgeon at Shriners in November and he saw right away that Vladik would greatly benefit from surgery on his feet. Vladik’s feet are so funky.  They are almost impossible to fit for shoes and they always look so painful.  They are very misshapen and there are sores on the bottom of his feet where all the pressure lies.  The doctor wants to basically reconstruct his feet- lengthening some bones and shortening some others. This will help him so much as he grows and (hopefully) gains some weight.  The downside is that the surgery will land him in a wheelchair for 8 weeks.  OUCH. Trying not to think about that one too hard.  Wheelchairs are very traumatizing for Vladik.  I can’t imagine how he will react to not being able to walk.  I’ll let you know when that surgery comes up so you can be praying!

Vladik talks often about his old life.  He is faithful to tell us daily he doesn’t want to go back to his old house.  Just in case we should forget!  🙂  He talks about sad things that happen there and whenever he talks about it he uses the word “thunder” in Ukrainian. He talks about how there was a lot of thunder there and covers his ears.  These days it’s hard for us to even imagine Vladik there.  I feel like the Vladik I knew at Romaniv was a scared shadow of the Vladik I know now.  He was always scared, always in fight or flight mode, pinging from one thing to another.  He even stands differently now.  Before, he was hunched over like a cowering little boy.  Now he walks straight and tall.

He has a wonderful sense of humor and loves to make us laugh.  He is loving and kind.  He teases his sisters and is obsessed with microwaves.  He loves all things Lightening McQueen, and calls any kind of case with a handle a “businessman”.  He likes cheese and apple juice and Reeces Peanut Butter Cups.  If he doesn’t have borscht every few days he’ll let me know it’s time. He likes to do laundry and even cleans out the vent and adds a dryer sheet before starting the dryer!  He is such a special, quirky little character.  To know him is to love him.

The more we meet with doctors and tell his story, the more I am in awe of God’s protection over Vladik’s life.  That he survived living where he lived, without any surgical interventions, is unbelievable. He is so smart. He is so independent.  Everyone who meets him falls in love almost instantly.  I’m actually crying as I type this.  How did we get to be the ones to win this lottery?  I can’t even wait to see how he continues to grow and change as he gains confidence in the fact that he is loved and he will never ever go back to his old life.

Thank you Jesus for our sweet boy!