Holy Moly, I haven’t posted in a really long time!  I am making no excuses or apologies, the past 11 weeks have been the craziest 11 weeks of my life.  I am titling this post January, because let’s face it, it will probably be the only post in January 2012!  I will try to summarize what has happened since October 26th, but no words can do it justice!

After we brought out little (huge) bundle of joy home in October, things seemed great.   She was fairly calm, for an infant.  I remember her crying for awhile on like the second day home and I panicked, thinking, ‘oh no, she’s going to be a crier’.  But after a VERY large bowel movement her fussiness passed.  I’m not sure exactly when it began but shortly after that, our girl was upset.  She would nurse for 40-60 minutes when I would cut her off.  She would be content for 15, sometimes 20 minutes, then the crying would begin.  We would work so hard calming her down and eventually she would tire and fall asleep.  We had to hold her however when she slept, or she would wake up crying.  We repeated this cycle all day long.  At night the only way she would be content would be to lay right next to be in bed, something I have never done with my other kids.  The girl would not tolerate being put down.

My initial thoughts were that she had reflux (like her twin Ethan)!  So the doctor put her on reflux medicine that seemed to do nothing.  Thanksgiving was hard because my sisters were here and all they wanted to do was cuddle with my baby, but my baby was not cuddly.  She would cry and cry, and if I got her to sleep I wouldn’t even want to pass her off because it might wake her up!

This was exhausting enough without the fact that I have three other kiddos that were my responsibility wandering around this house.  One of which is a energetic, curious, adopted 2 year old that would demand my attention (good or bad).

On December 9th, a couple days after Ella turned 6 weeks old, I made an appointment with the doctor.  I had had it and wanted her to fix whatever was wrong!  At that appointment she changed Ella’s reflux medicine from Zantac to Prevacid and we decided we would also try supplementing her feedings with formula.  I had tried to supplement one other time and she didn’t seem interested and only took a very little bit, so I didn’t think this was the problem.

The evening of December 9th was the first evening that we didn’t have to walk with her for hours on end trying to comfort her.  I gave her the medicine and a bottle and the girl slept in her little chair for like 3 hours.  I couldn’t even believe my eyes!  We had people over that night and she was so calm and slept in my friend’s arms.  I cannot express how difficult those first 6 weeks were.  It was by the grace of God that we all came out on the other side!

We had no idea for a couple of weeks if it was the Prevacid or the supplementing that was really doing the trick.  We weren’t willing to take away either one.  But over Christmas weekend we forgot to give her the Prevacid and she was even calmer than when she was on it.  So we kept her off of it (after emailing the dr. and making sure that was recommended).

Since then we have a new baby.  She is so happy and content.  I don’t know what is wrong (if anything) with my milk supply.  I know that I wasn’t successful nursing the boys, but was so determined to make it work this time.  And it didn’t, at least not exclusively.  I am still nursing every feeding and then giving her a bottle, sometimes she doesn’t take any and sometimes she takes 4 ounces.  But I do believe it was the best decision for us to make at that point.  She is so much happier and so am I!

She currently is sleeping through the night and is very predictable throughout the day.  I am loving this stage in her development!

Emelia- she is doing great.  She has been home now for 10 months which is the same amount of time that she was in the orphanage.  I think that is quite a milestone for us!   Emelia (or Lia for short) loves her baby sister.  She is very gentle with her and wants to hold her all of the time.  Now, me on the other hand, she’s not too happy with.  The second I put Ella down Lia is right there wanting “up please”.  She is also always encouraging me to put Ella to sleep .  Right now she is sitting in my lap while I am typing this (yeah, its real easy)! She is a typical energetic, push the limits, adorable two year old.  I had forgotten how tough this stage can be.  Pray for us all!!

The boys- are doing great!  Fourth grade is proving challenging for Ethan, mainly b/c of all of the homework- but all his teacher does is rave about him!   Eli is loving first grade and doing so very well!  We couldn’t be prouder of these boys.  They are really into Ella and think she is the cutest little thing ever (they are right)!

Sean and I are just thankful for our kids and that he has a job.  We feel extremely blessed and are so very exhausted all of the time.

Now here are a bunch of pictures to catch you up on our lives: