Update Before Travel!

I haven't been very good at keeping up with blog posts this adoption, but we are coming so close to bringing Caroline and Hanna home! The financial aspect of it all makes it very stressful, I would give anything to be fully funded right now, but it's just not the way this adoption worked out (Gia's fundraising was a breeze!) BUT the joy of being so close to having the girls home far outweighs the stress! :) It looks like we will be traveling in November, thank goodness! Nick is leaving in January, so we want the girls home by then, so Gia is taken care of by her daddy while I'm in China, and Caroline and Hanna can have a little bonding time with him too!

Speaking of, I updated our timeline on the right side of our page, and we did things a little out of order this time. Back when we thought Nick would deploy this fall, we let our agency know, and they sent our I800 applications in early, so that the lockbox wait would be over when we received our Letters Seeking Confirmation from China. He is no longer deploying with his unit this fall (it was starting to look like it would be impossible to get the girls home in time, but prayers were answered!), but like I said, he'll be leaving in January to provide medical coverage to training in California, so it's still somewhat urgent, and we're very grateful for everything our agency did to scoot our timeline along! :) We have a couple more steps ahead of us, but they should go pretty quickly!

Everything at home is all set up for the girls! We have their bedroom done, clothes and jammies purchased, the bags are somewhat packed, and the siblings are super excited! Well, three out of four are excited...one appears to be excited but her anxiety has been peeking through more and more as we get closer! ;) It's going to be quite the adjustment for Gia (and the others too), but we know in the long run she'll have a special bond with them.

I'm anxious about going to China without Nick, he and I both are sad that he won't be there for those first days that the girls are in our family. However, I am less nervous about all the traveling than I was last year! I know what to expect as far as China itself goes, so hopefully the culture shock won't be such a, you know, SHOCK. :) With Gia's EB, we had NO IDEA what to expect, and man was it hard to manage her needs in China, but with Caroline and Hanna, I pretty much know what to pack and how to take care of them, and I hope they'll sense that they have a momma who knows her way around EB! And finally, I'll have my wonderful friend Stacie with me, an adoptive momma and China veteran herself, to help me out when I need some food, or a nap, or a hug! :)

Here are the newest pictures of our sweet girls, they both look great and we can't wait to have them home, safe and sound! <3

Hoffmann Baby #6!

As many of our friends and family know, we will officially be bringing home TWO girls from China during this adoption trip! The grand total for the Hoffmann clan will be six children: four girls, two boys; three adopted, three biological; three children with EB and three children with their own challenges: ages 9, 7, 5, 5, 4, and 3! However you hash it out, our family will be busy and blessed! :)

The newest daughter to our family is a five-year-old cutie with EB like her sisters. We have been following her since LAST year, when we were in the process of adopting Gia. At the time, she had a family in the process of adopting her too, but shortly after we had preapproval from China to adopt Hanna, we found out that this little lady was available for adoption again. Her file was with another agency, but we were in the middle of our home study, and decided to get the okay from our social worker to adopt two at once, JUST in case! :) Last month, the agency that had her file FINALLY agreed to transfer it to our agency (we had been pestering them since April!), and we got preapproval from China soon after! It will be surprisingly easy to add her to this adoption (logistics-wise, anyway)! Like I said, our home study was already written for two children, so our approval from USCIS was also for two children. And she lives in Guangdong province, so we'll be picking her up in Guangzhou, a stop we would have been making anyway to adopt Hanna, since that is where the US Consulate is located! Oh and there is one more seat available in the mini van, and one more space for a bed in our home. ;)

So WHO is this newest one?? :) We will be naming her Caroline Ling, and isn't she beautiful?? <3

LONG Overdue Update!

I read over my last post and laughed a little! :) I was anticipating it being hard, and it has been SO much harder than I ever anticipated, but so much more rewarding than I anticipated as well!  We adopted Georgia Mei Hoffmann on November 11, 2014, nearly six months ago now!  Our trip to China was memorable but difficult.  Taking care of a child with epidermolysis bullosa is a very steep learning curve, so it was incredibly stressful but we got the hang of it quickly.  China was beautiful, but we were both pretty homesick (we're homebodies and our other three kids were back home with my parents), and I told myself if I never went back to China again, that would be A-OK with me!  I checked the entire Asian continent off my travel list!  More on that later! ;)

After we brought Gia home to Savannah, it got very crazy very fast.  We were quickly feeling overwhelmed with Gia's medical needs.  She was in much worse shape than we thought she would be, we were running short on supplies, we took her to several doctors, all of which either shrugged or gave us very dismal prognoses.  Not only that, but Nick had orders to move to Fort Drum, New York and the movers were coming to our house THE FOLLOWING MONDAY (we arrived home from China on a Friday!)  We realized right away that Gia NEEDED a doctor who was familiar with EB, and that was nowhere near us in Savannah, GA or in Watertown, NY, so Nick called and cancelled the movers, and started the process of getting her enrolled in the military's exceptional family member program, so that the Army would have to station us where she could get the appropriate medical care!  Unfortunately, because Nick's job is so specialized (he's a Flight Paramedic) and there are only a handful of clinics that specialize in the treatment of EB, it took the Army several months to even find a spot for us, at Fort Carson, Colorado!

 

So we finally moved to Fountain, CO in March!  Gia's behavior among all that chaos and moving (we also had to move homes in Savannah because our landlord wouldn't extend our lease) was challenging, to sugarcoat it! :) We can't really blame her, she was used to having some say in her life in China (or at least, that's how she perceived it), and then she was kidnapped, put on airplanes for about 20 hours, had everything packed up and moved homes twice in four months...and had mean old mom and dad expecting her to do as we ask and treat her new family kindly! ;) However, she has bonded with us and her siblings, she loves her new home here in Fountain, and we are slowly getting her used to the new normal!

We took her to the EB clinic at Colorado Children's Hospital in Denver on April 1st, and it gave us the answers that we've needed!  They were very happy with her current condition:  her weight, her wounds, and her outgoing personality!  She saw several doctors in the span of a couple hours, and it was all very overwhelming for both Gia and Mommy, but by the end of the day we had a plan and a diagnosis:  Recessive Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (RDEB).  It's one of the most severe types of EB, and with this type she will have a lot of severe scarring and will undergo many procedures to battle the scar tissue.  This summer she will be put under anesthesia to have an esophageal dilatation, because she already has scar tissue in her esophagus causing strictures.  But it was very reassuring to get the "keep doing what you're doing" from her doctor, because the previous five months of going it on our own had been very worrisome!

Now that you're up to speed on Miss Gia and the rest of the Hoffmanns, rewind back to February!  That was when a friend of mine showed me the picture of a sweet two-year-old in China with EB, waiting for a family.  Nick had been teasing me for months that we needed to adopt again.  We were at Gia's home in China for two days getting to know her and her medical needs before we adopted her, and I think it's no exaggeration to say that Little Flower is the BEST place for orphans with severe medical needs in China!  But it's still so haunting to see so many babies with such extensive needs and no families to take care of them.  Even Gia, who was getting dressing changes every day and was doted on like a princess, has improved SO much since we've brought her home.  So, like I said, Nick was ready to hop on a plane back to China right away! :) I was a little more reserved, especially during the time when we didn't know when or where we would be moving next (and we still hadn't met a doctor to treat Gia).  But when I saw this little girl's picture, and then showed it to Nick, we agreed that we needed to make her a Hoffmann!  Now that we are settled in Colorado, we've completed our home study, and we're hoping to have her home this winter!  We're naming her Hanna Xiu Hoffmann, she's about 18 months younger than Gia, and she has EB like her big sister (although we suspect not the same type).  Yes, it's fast, but the most joyful parts of life go by in a blink! ;)