Interview/1st Visit To G'ma G'pa Kochersperger/Another Miracle

Time goes so fast! I can hardly believe I'm going back to work next week and I'm already missing my little boy! I can rest assured however, that he will be in good hands with his grandma and papa Joe that love him so much! I am amazed by how much he is learning and by what he accomplishes daily! He is now choosing to walk, rather than crawl everywhere! He is doing great, but is still a bit "off balance." His falls are always controlled and he can easily stand up again without holding onto anything! Yeah BJ! Keep up the good work! He is also very independent when it comes to feeding time. He will insist on a fork or a spoon and uses them with ease! The spoon is a little trickier as sometimes the food just slides off before he gets it too his mouth. His expressions are priceless! He is talking more, but usually just babbles. He imitates us quite a bit, especially when it comes to voice inflections and tones. He recently started counting 1,2,3 with daddy as he would get ready to throw him in the air. You can almost here the word "one" but the rest are just tones. It is very adorable and I'm still trying to capture it on video!

The interview with the paper went very well! The photographer took some excellent pictures of BJ and I was really wanting to ask him for some copies. BJ played well and was consistently trying to get the reporter to hold him! He finally got a hug at the end! She asked us some basic questions primarily about the process, being in the country, and the costs. I was able to tell her about our agencies and the organizations that helped us out with some grants. I was a little nervous as I didn't want to leave anything of importance out. There are a lot of adopting couples in our city and I wanted our story to hold the same key principles as theirs. Hopefully we did okay. They are going to run the article either at the end of October or the beginning of November. The article will include adoption statistics from around the world some other interesting adoption facts all in time for National Adoption Month! We are thrilled and honored to be featured!

This past weekend BJ visited his grandma and grandpa Kochersperger in Jeffersonville, IN (across from Louisville). He of course loved them and and all the attention they gave to him. He also enjoyed his grandma's cooking! He ate like a horse! We also visited their church (James' church before we were married) where grandma whisked him away to introduce him to everyone! He of course got showered with more attention! The church has been following our journey and were anxious to see him live and in person! I would certainly say that BJ is lucky little boy! One thing we noticed, was that when we returned home, BJ went crazy! It was almost like he new he was "home." We thought that while in Poland, he was never in the same place twice. So leaving and then coming back to the same place, might have helped him realize that his is 'home" and is were he belongs!

Finally, the MIRACLE I have been excited to tell you about! As some of you know, BJ was a sickly little boy during his first year of life. One reason we didn't get his referral until after 15 months of age was due to his recovery and treatment. However, his referral gave him a clean bill of health with only some minor things to watch. So at his first pediatrician appointment we were referred to several specialist to follow-up with all the medical findings from his Poland records which were of course written in Polish. Our pediatrician was also concerned about his head shape and recommended we see a craniologist. This made us quite scared and we were wishing even more that we could read those Polish records. BJ had contracted the CMV virus at 2 months of age. Although he was treated, there are still some things that needed to be monitored. His head shape was something the doctors in Poland looked at carefully with an Ultrasonography and a CAT scan. It all came back normal, but of course the results are written in Polish. Becasue BJ was also diagnosed with a PFO and and a slight atrial fibrillation (just like his daddy), we were also recommended to visit a pediatric cardiologist. So here is the miracle! Knowing that we needed to read these record, we were getting geared up to find a translator and pay the big bucks to get all (50-60 pages) of his medical records translated. However, Praise God, He had other plans. It turns out our Pediatric Cardiologists just moved here from Poland last July! She absolutely loved BJ and not only wanted to read his records, but wanted to translate them "all" for us! I told her that we of course didn't expect her to do that and that we would be grateful if she could just point out the reports on his CAT and ultrasonogrpahy. She said that it wouldn't be any trouble and the she would prefer to do it, because the translator might not know "medical terms." We were completely overjoyed a couldn't believe what a blessing this was. We don't believe in luck, we believe in MIRACLES from GOD! If we had any doubts about whether or not GOD was going to take care of our little boy, they are now all out the window! This is definitely a GOD THING! You guessed it. Dr. Kulikowska in Peoria is getting a great recommendation from us! As it turns out, everything so far is great and BJ is still a very healthy little boy. It seems we really do have nothing to worry about. Now we just have to get him "plumped up!