The other "A" word

So forgive me!  I really didn't blog much when Greysen (Tbug) was in our home, since we were busy with a lot of medical stuff for both kids. 

We were placed with Greysen very shortly after Dalton's first birthday. Greysen was a 1 month old & yes I know... my kids are super close, yup i know.  We were told in broad strokes of what Greysen had medically wrong, but finite details were never covered.  We were only the foster parents & the interested relative was going to take him between 1-3 months from then...

G got really sick at about 3 months & even had a 2 night (ehm technically 3 if you count the fact we didn't get a room until 2am the next day after we came to the er.) hospital stay.  A crap load of tests were run. We were asked if he had brain abnormalities, we said yes, but we didn't know what, which is the worst things to say about your kid... but we really didn't know. Anyhow test after test came back normal, they did a sedation mri after tracking biomom down.  We got clearer info about his brain. Gotta say we were kinda scared for his future & we still are.  Bottom line, one area of his brain has more little ripples than it should. He has two other minor brain malformations that really shouldnt effect him. But he does have a higher than normal risk of seisures - so we are careful!

That same summer (last summer) we had questions about Dalton & our pediatrition was in disbelief of what I was thinking. But being the people who know our son best, we went and got him evaluated.  We had discussed a lot privately & even taken M-Chat test/evaul in our home before getting him evaluated.  Yep he came back with an autism dx. And a little higher on the spectrum than we thought.  We knew in our hearts he was autistic before we were told so.  While we "knew" it, it was pretty hard for someone to actually tell us as such. 

Many people think we are crazy. Many people do not see how he can have this diagnosis - he looks perfect after all!  Autism for some is a somewhat hidden disorder.  It effects the brain & if you don't know what you're looking for you don't see it. 

Some things that Dalton does is considered "stimming."  He flaps his arms while excited, lines things up, needs to kick/jump to wind himself down, and others.  He is a bolter, gets quiet & non verbal in somewhat loud environments (think a bday party), stripping clothes often because of the tag-is always irritated with tags. Refuses toothbrushing (unless it is on his terms ...doesnt work well)  Hates hair combing, prefers to avoid body contact w/ others & more.  With all that makes him unique, I wouldn't change him for the world, I love him dearly.

Our biggest challenge now with him is  getting him services.... We currently are waiting to wait....
So I will be trying some at home ideas to improve his speech & help him with sensory issues.  Our short term goal is to get his iep started in fall & hopefully get him enrolled in school in January.

Kinda jumping around.  After we got Dalton diagnosed we switched to a new (awesome) speech therapy program that we had finally gotten Greysen into.  The months kept ticking along. Birthmom was not involved in the case for Greysen at all, but she kept mentioning guardianship -that she is willing to give us gaurdianship.  That doesnt exactly work for her to do that for us as we didnt know her before his birh as i guess that is part of the rule of who can get gaurdianship.  Anyhow, we went to court in late 2013 with the hopes she would voluntarily give up her rights. It was highley thought she would.  She didn't.  We went back to court late january 2014 kind of unsure how the case was going to progress. Sure enough, she decided to put Greysen first & surrender her rights.  We were unsure if she would appeal, but she didn't. So we adopted our son Greysen in early april & life has continued ticking on!

Very shortly after we adopted Greysen we closed our home & license.  I have a different perspective going through this than I did when I started.  I personally think in 5-10 years from now, we will open our home again, but even if we don't I will volunteer or be involved somehow in the foster system.  It is one screwed up system, but I was blessed with two little boys.

Ok so were is this blog going? I started this about when we started the adoption journey & now I am done.  Well I hope to bring daily life to this blog. I hope to share some ideas we are using for the kids to help them learn. I hope to bring the ups & downs of life with 2 special needs kiddos!  Stay tuned :)

Adoption Day!

Ok, I told you all I'd be back... I am slowly back to blogging.  I have an active & mobile 9 month (seriously where did the time go??) who keeps me a little busy. But it is nap time now... so I may get a few spare minutes to write!

So D (I am still using an abbreviation for the most part for security for him) had a long adoption day!  We got to the court house on time, waited for a few family members to show up, and waited. Waited we did, for a long time, sigh... Our scheduled court hearing was at 10am, we did not get in the court room until a little after 11:30. The waiting room was PACKED when we got there. But slowly emptied. There were very few other people waiting by the time we got into the court room ( the judges break for lunch at like noon I think our CW was saying)  We all sit in our spots and the judge calls us up one at a time. First hubby, then me, then D's CW. When the Judge was ready to rule he called us all up to ring the gavel together as a family to symbolize that we are all now a family. It was a very joyous event for us, and emotional for me. A child that I had dreamt of for so long. I wanted a family for so long & here he was making us a family.

After the court hearing, we went out to lunch to celebrate with family that were at the hearing.  A few days later we had a big party with lots of guests to celebrate us becoming a family! It was a really nice party hosted at my parents house with about 65 or so people in attendance!

Here are a few Pictures of adoption day and two from the party of our thumbprint tree and one of the cakes.

Hope you enjoy the pictures! And yes his name is Dalton, his birth parents chose it and after much discussion between the hubs and I, we chose to keep it.