Wyatt's MRI

PRAISE GOD!!!!!! We heard from both Doctors within the last hour and Wyatt's MRI read normal. These past 10 days have been very hard on me! I realized it is one thing when it is my own health, but completely different when it is my child's.

The MRI was no fun because we had to hold Wyatt down for the sedation needle. I am not sure who wanted to cry more? He did so good, and we were home resting by 11:00am this morning. He is still a little wobbly on his feet this afternoon, but they said to expect that for the rest of the day! Dr. Raley wants us to keep our specialist appointment in Oklahoma City for June, but is very encouraged by what was read on the MRI.

I had hoped we would have good news today because Wyatt has already had to endure so much in his young life, he is a fighter that is for sure.

Have a great week everyone, I know we will!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mid week Update

We have settled in very nicely!

My mother and father in law have been here since last Saturday, and they are bonding very nicely with Wyatt. He loves for Grandma to get down, and play with him, grandpa too, but Grandpa jokes it is not as easy to get up off the floor as it once was.

Wyatt has eaten out twice recently. On Saturday we all went for Mexican Food, Grandpa's favorite, the wait was 45 minutes and Wyatt did great just enjoying his snacks. Once, we got to the table I fed him a jar of meat/ vegetable combo and then he enjoyed some potatoes off my plate, and some soft flour tortillas. Yesterday, we went to lunch with Lucille, Becky, and Sandi and again he ate a jar of meat/ veggie combo, but also enjoyed more mashed potatoes of mine and a roll. I told Justin last night I should start losing weight because I am sharing my portions with Wyatt!

My mother in law and I are getting ready to take Wyatt and go to lunch today. He was only introduced to table foods last weekend, first with the scrambled eggs his dad made him, then the other stuff I mentioned. He is loving them!!!!!

If the weather is nice this weekend, we are going to take him into Jenks they are having a big truck event. Firetruck, Dump Truck, Trash Track, Semi Truck, all big trucks. The kids can get up in them, and ask questions and have their pictures made.

I will be doing a better job at posting new pictures more often, and we are going to try and have professional pictures made in the next week or so. If I do not update this weekend, I will for sure update after our MRI on Monday and let everyone know that the procedure went well, and that we are home resting. I do not expect that we will have any results on Monday.

Lastly, Jo Linda I am glad to know that Tim is a nice guy, I might decide to leave Wyatt with him and his family for a short visit, and would want to know if he wasn't on the up and up. I figured he was an excellent guy, talented for sure. You should see the paint job he helped Justin with in the nursery. He is one excellent cut-in guy! I love you, TIM........and Dionne you too.

Our week of First's

We had alot of first's going on this week, and we enjoyed most of them.

We had a first visit with the pediatric eye doctor, and with the pediatrician. We had our first meal in a restaurant with our friend Samantha Blue, and we had our first American haircut. He did so good at lunch, I did not realize that crackers were a fix all for everything, he enjoyed one after another. Also, he did so good getting his haircut. Those pictures will be posted this weekend so watch for them!

We learned at the pediatric eye doctor that Wyatt has some issues with his optic nerve. We will have an MRI on Monday, April 28th until then we will continue to pray for God's healing with Wyatt, and that Wyatt may see God's beautiful creations. I pray that he can clearly see the flowers, the trees, and the sun. Our pediatrician says that Wyatt looks good, and he gained 500 grams since we left the orphanage ( about 1/2 lb). We will continue to go see Dr. Raley monthly for a while, and we have decided to redo all of his immunization shots, poor Wyatt. Dr. Raley just thinks that you can never be certain about the administration of shots from a foreign country or someone from an orphanage. He does not want Wyatt to be a college student traveling through Europe, or Hong Kong and pick up some childhood illness!

Please continue your prayers for Wyatt, he needs them now more than ever!

Have a great weekend...

What a Monday........

Well lots of good and funny things happened today!

Good news is Wyatt slept through the night last night, and followed our schedule very close to plan. Thanks to everyone who has made suggestions of Do's and Don't about feedings, and schedules. I can tell you we have been very flexible in this house, but also sensitive to the fact that Wyatt's needs are different than the needs of a child born right here. We have had adjustments with time changes, food flavorings, over stimulation, and just things that one would not experience had they not spent the first year of their lives in an orphanage. But, he is doing GREAT.... Also, ate everything today!! I must tell you a little secret, until today Justin has changed every Poppy diaper, but two. He does not have a problem with poopy, and I agreed when the time came I would clean throw up!!! Nice trade off between the two, Right? Well, today Wyatt provided me with 6 poopy diapers (before anyone gets nervous, they were solid and within range, food adjustments I guess) What makes this funny is Justin went back to work today so I got them all, thanks Wyatt!

Other funny thing is that Wyatt and I decided to go for a walk after lunch and before nap time. I had him in the stroller, and I had a bag of poopy diapers for the outside trash bin. We rolled up to the bin, and as I was putting the diapers in ( took a minute because I did not want them to be on top, and fall out, and a dog chew them up, ya know), and when I turned away from the trash and towards Wyatt he was clear down the driveway. He went for a ride across the drive, over the grass, over the sidewalk, and was to the street. I was RUNNING to catch him ( which I did), and the neighbor saw it all. He came out and we both LAUGHED, and he introduced himself to Wyatt, and said your mommy is new at this give her a break! Wyatt never knew what happened, and we continued on our walk.

I am headed to bed because for me last night was short. Asleep by 10:00pm Awake at 1:00 am, and fell back asleep at 6:00 am, for 2 more hours before Wyatt woke up.

Have a great Tuesday, everyone........

Still working towards a schedule..

The last 2 days and nights have been rough for everyone.

Wyatt, I believe has his days and nights mixed up, and for that matter I guess so do Justin and I. As you can tell from the time I am posting this blog it was another very short night for me! The last 2 nights Wyatt has been asleep somewhere around 7:30 pm, his usual bed time in Russia was always 8:00pm, and he would wake between 8:00 and 8:30 am the next morning in a great mood. Each night around 10:30-11:00 pm he would wake and I could hear him playing in the crib, I never went to check on him until he would start to cry. Both nights that happened about an hour after the playing started! Both nights I rocked him for about an hour in a very quiet room, and last night I managed to fall asleep twice while doing this, the rocking was at least working for one of us!

Then something new also happened last night at dinner time. Wyatt has never been a picky eater, but last night we fed him Gerber green beans, and Gerber chicken noodle casserole and he had about 10 bites of each one and then decided he was finished eating. ( he has never left any food behind, and will sometimes beg for more.) Up until dinner we still had Russian baby food, and only at dinner did we have to switch to American baby food, was it the food he did not like ( I would have thought 10 bites of something meant it was okay), or again was he super tired by dinner and just did not feel it was worth it?

Baths he always enjoyed in Russia, not so much here!

I am hoping in the days ahead that we get this worked out because I feel so bad for Wyatt. Not that he is crying all the time or anything, but because what we knew as a schedule for a few short weeks is a thing of the past, at least for now. I can promise you, Wyatt can not afford to skip any meals AT ALL. He weighed 6330 grams the day we left the orphanage, ( approx. 15lbs) and I was hoping for some BIG improvements in that dept, we have our first doctors appointment next Thursday and I was hoping for a gain of 1-2 lbs.

We hope everyone has a great weekend!!!! Get some extra rest for the Meacham household.

A little sleep later...

Getting home from Russia was an adventure in itself as I had mentioned yesterday. We were on Korean Air from Vladivostok to LA, and were changing to American Airlines once we arrived State side. To our surprise when we landed to learn of all the problems with American... As with our last trip to Russia our bags were last off the flight and that left us very little time to make our connection so we did not even know about the problem until after we grabbed bags, cleared customs, and went to a different terminal to check in. By then we had been stressed out for close to an 1 1/2 (that is how long it takes to unload an international flight and clear customs.) We got to our gate just to learn that it was not departing on time because they were waiting on the flight crew, this automatically caused a problem for our connection in Dallas, and that was the last flight of the evening to Tulsa. My Uncle Wayne (from Dallas) who was originally coming to Tulsa to meet us decided he would be more useful in Dallas because of all the problems with American and the weather that was happening in the area, he figured we might miss our connector and need a place to stay. When we got to Dallas they said on flight that the Tulsa plane had not left, and for us and several others going to Tulsa to run to the gate! We did just that, and when we got to the gate the plane was there, but the gate/ flight had been closed. It was sitting out there waiting for the FAA to sign off on the plane because it was a MD 80, we looked around, we called, I tried paging from their system at the desk, we asked passersby, anyone to please HELP. A ramp guy called for help, and someone came. After serious consideration they decided to put the gate back out and load the 4 passengers plus baby (Wyatt) on to the plane. Yippee I thought... We sat out there for close to 2 hours waiting for the FAA to sign off on the plane. So what was our original scheduled time in to Tulsa of 11:50 pm became 2:00am. MY, MY how plans had not gone as I had hoped, and I had friends that had been waiting at the airport for hours to greet us and meet the newest addition of our family! My uncle told me later that he was on the other side of the glass when we got off the plane, and he saw us run for it, so he did not want to knock on the glass, and have us stop and miss our connection. He was the first to see Wyatt, even though we did not see him. Uncle Wayne, Thank you for being there and ready to take us home with you!

Thank you to the Rykers, Dionne Kizziar, Samantha Blue, Rebecca Brown, and The Scotts for making such an effort to meet our newest addition, and for those of you who were coming, but the time delay on a work night allowed for a different outcome we really appreciate each of you. Our families live so far away that each of you have become like family to us, and mean a lot to both Justin and I.

So I know during all the craziness you are wondering, How did Wyatt do? He was such a great traveler, and only fussed for less than an hour total start to finish during the entire 28 hours of travel. He was even in a good mood for the crowd that was waiting for us at the airport, all though a little quiet. The car ride home was a different story, he did not like his car seat. He had never been in one, and does not like to be restrained backwards. He does enjoy a forward facing position, but because of his weight he will have to be this direction for several months I would guess. Once we got home we gave him a bath because he loves a bath, it is calming, and part of his bedtime routine ( we thought it would help get him ready for a good night sleep). He did not particular enjoy his bath (I really think by this point he was over tired.) the dogs were wanting to meet him, and he wanted no part of that.I closed the baby gate with him upstairs, and the dogs on the downstairs side. Justin said, "he will have to get use to them". I said, " not tonight after we have traveled all day and night, and not when he is over tired." So, finally I put him down at 3:30 am, and hoped for the best. He slept until 1:30 pm on Thursday as did I because I went to sleep at 5:30 am after taking Tylenol PM to get me to sleep.

On Thursday it seemed a short day because of the time we got up, and the things that had to get done, but we tried to ease the schedule back in. By 7:00 pm he had his bath, and we were going to play until he was ready for bed, normal bedtime is 8:00 pm but because of the time we got up I did not know how it would work out. He was asleep in my arms by 7:50 pm so off to bed he went. Justin was concerned that he might think that was nap time, and he was right because at 11:00pm he was awake, and playing in the crib. By midnight he was crying so I went to get him and rocked him until about 1:30 am when he was back asleep, so back to bed I went. Justin has been up since 3:30 am, and I have been up since 5:30 am so we will see how today goes. Justin and I each got less than 5 hours of sleep because of the time we we went to bed!!! I am considering taking a nap about 9:00am....

Have a good day, and I will continue to post on this blog every few days for at least a few weeks to let everyone know about our adjustments, all of our first's, and any other good Wyatt stuff.

We're Home.....

I wanted to very quickly let everyone know we have made it home. I will update more tomorrow about our adventure home, and we had lots of adventure!

Wyatt was great the entire trip, and it is 4:20am local time, and he has been in bed less than an hour!

Thanks for all the prayers, calls, and thoughtful gestures.

More tomorrow....

Good Night

Last Night....

We have just come from Katie and Sam's room, we had a champagne celebration. Each one of us gave a toast, and said what we most enjoyed about the trip, and our experience. It was a very nice evening shared with friends! Katie, Leslie, and I are going to share a glass of wine while the men watch the kids.

About tomorrow we will be leaving the hotel at 2:45 pm local time for the airport, and we will begin our journey for home. We are scheduled to go from Vladivostok to Seoul, and from Seoul to LA, and LA to Dallas. Then we will arrive in Tulsa at 11:50pm if all goes as planned. Our flight from Dallas is on American Airlines, and the flight # is AA 1410! Wyatt will officially be an American boy once we land in LA. Our expected travel time tomorrow is 24 hours if all goes as planned.

I will update tomorrow prior to leaving the VLAD Inn, and then once we return home! I have pep in my step, and in my typing in case you can not tell. We are excited to be heading for home.

Love you guys!!!!

Our time here is coming to an End!!!

We will soon be leaving Vladivostok, and I must say I have mixed emotions about leaving. On one hand it is hard to believe we have been away from home, our friends, and family for so long, but on the other hand we came to pick up our son, and fell head over hills in love with this precious boy who has already begun to change our lives. For days I have been thinking if I were to write a note to Wyatt today what would it say? It would probably say something like.....

My Dearest Wyatt

From the moment that your dad and I met you, we knew that God had something special planned for all of our lives. We were so thankful that he brought us all together as a family. You have already had to fight so many battles in your young little life, but you have done so with such grace. The caretakers of your home where you spent the first year of your life, and Irina always say that you are a such a smart boy, and you are going to do great things in your life, and we believe that as well. We want you to know that your daddy and I want you to do and be everything you want, dream big son and know that we will always embrace you. Live everyday to the fullest, and if you fall we will be there to catch you. You may not have been born under my heart, but you were born in it. Thank you Wyatt for being our son, and giving your daddy and I such happiness. We love you very much!

Mom

So I guess I now have the beginning to my note. I will be packing tomorrow, and tomorrow night we are going to have a champagne celebration with the other families. I think we leave for the airport about 2:00pm local time on Wednesday, which is Tuesday night for you all. I will update everyone tomorrow on exact travel for Wednesday.

Have a great day.......

Sunday...

Today was much like yesterday, except that Wyatt seemed more fussy today and he of course has more bumps, and blisters. Gavin the other little boy has them BAD, and is running a pretty high fever. He has them in places that would hurt any grown man! Samantha, again I can not thank you enough for having the insight to mail this care package, it has been a real life saver and thank heavens we are next door to Gavin because we run the medicine back and forth between the rooms.

Last night Katie, Melissa, and I had a great time visiting after we put our kids to bed. Towards the end of the night I kept saying to the girls it is after 1:00am, and they kept saying No Way, Can't Be. When our night finally ended it was 1:22 am, and I must say it was just what we all needed after being here for weeks, but it again made for a very short night because Wyatt did not care that I went to bed after 1:30am he still got up at the same time, and I was the one to feed his breakfast, Justin said I did that because I felt guilty for staying up so late, maybe I did. :) Katie's husband thought maybe somebody took us, but he came up to where we were, and said he could tell we were good, and he went back to his room, we did not know he did that until today. Also, I want you to know I have put a link on my blog to Katie, Sam, and Anastiya blog page, if anything go and look at the photos, they have captured some amazing shots of this area. The link is http://ohtheplacesyouwillgo3.googlepages.com/, you can find it next to the blog site for russianmunchkin on the right side of my page. This is an amazing family, and we have really enjoyed our time together.

Also, I wanted to say it was good to hear from Jimmy, and Brandi. Jimmy, I did not mention this earlier when you posted but of course I remember you. For everyone else Jimmy and I went to highschool together, or has it been since middleschool? That I can't remember. Brandi, Wyatt will need his 1st haircut when I come in, or maybe I should say "1st American haircut" you should see the stragglers. Diane & Joe thanks for all the kind words you have said on here the past couple of months, I will make sure that Justin and I get to Apache Junction this next year so that you can meet this adorable little guy in person.

Off to bed, and I am fully aware that this is 3 nights and counting left here in VLAD. I told Justin I wanted to start packing tomorrow, he told me to hold off one more day.

Good Night...

Last Saturday in VLAD

The countdown has officially begun.

Today was long, and last night was short because Wyatt has not been sleeping well. After, I put him down last night he was not interested in falling asleep so I put him in bed with me for a while. We had the best bonding experience, we kissed on each other, he kept putting his hands on my face, and then we also played a game that involved pulling the covers over our head. At 10:00pm I realized he was showing no sign of being tired so I put him in his crib, and went into the living room to visit with Justin. It was there that I sat and cried in my orange juice. I am not even sure what I was crying for.... Maybe because I did not feel well, maybe because of the bonding that had just occured, maybe because we are so homesick, who knows... But, we ended it by laughing and laughing. As much as I am homesick I would not want to be anywhere else in the world right now. We have the most precious little boy, and we have really enjoyed taking this time, with no distractions to get to know him!

We are posting two new pictures that were taken today. One was us at the Bay, we snuck Wyatt and Gavin out the backdoor of the hotel so as not to see or expose any other children. It was a very good outing! The other picture is of Justin doctoring Wyatt after his oatmeal bath. We were concerned about giving him a bath because Irina said no baths for 8 days, but I decided if it was going to cause the bumps to blister, then lets get the show on the road. He currently has about 70 spots, and only about 10 have blistered to this point.

I wanted to say Thanks to each of you for your continued posts, we love reading them, and anytime a new person writes a note, that is always sweet. Laura, I will read your families story very soon, thanks for sharing. Carole, I hope you and the others travel safe.

4 more nights in this hotel room then we are headed for home. I am headed to meet Katie and Melissa right now we are going to sit in the stairwell and share a glass of wine!

P.S I want you each to know if there are misspelled words on this blog please forgive me. When I type remotely it does not allow for spellcheck which drives me crazy!

Chicken Pox are here........

Well we woke up this morning to learn that Wyatt has his first bumps, so we officially have Chicken Pox. He seems to be doing pretty well, was running a fever this morning, but we have given him tylenol and are keeping an eye on his fever. He continues to eat so at this point not a lot that can be done, and we also learned that Gavin ( Sam & Melissa's son) got bumps today as well. So together we will get through this, and only hope that the troublesome family does not make a stink. But, I am wanting to do what is right for everyone because this is very personal to me and my family. When my mom was pregnant with my oldest brother she contracted German Measles in her 2nd trimester, and that is the reason that my oldest brother, Mike is deaf. I would not want to expose any pregnant women to this virus during our travel if she has not had the vaccination or the pox/ measles. We will wait and see how this progesses and then make a decision on Monday. On top of all this I woke up with a very sore throat today, and only hope it starts to get better and not worse in the coming days. Justin was sick earlier in the week, and is finally feeling better today!

Thursday.....

Hey Guys........ Sorry you did not get an update yesterday, but at this point there is not really anything going on.

Same schedule as most other days, we get up have our breakfast, play, take a walk, then we do lunch at noon and by 1:15 Wyatt is down for an afternoon nap. At his nap is when I get a shower if I am lucky!!! After nap time we go to the White Rabbit at 4:00pm for our daily playtime with the other families, and about 5:30 we head to our room to prepare for dinner. After we get Wyatt fed Justin gives him his bath, which he LOVES and then we have some playtime, a bed time story then to bed at 8:00. Only then can Justin and I decide what we might want for dinner. Last night it was weiners, with cheese and tomato paste. Tonight was fried wieners, with french fries, you get the picture not much fancy food happening here.

We did change the schedule up a little today because we had to go to the US Embassy to sign some paperwork, and the man that helped us was from Tennessee. I was asking him all kinds of questions about his family, his career, how long he has been here, how long he plans to stay? He was really nice, he guessed right off the bat that I was from Texas, he asked Justin where he was from. His wife is back in the states, but comes for long visits, his son is in college, he was on a work assignement and spent the first year in Moscow, and will be here until August. Then back to the states to regroup then he is headed to Africa. He is an attorney by trade, retired and then decided to do this..... You know as I am telling this story I realize I did not catch his name?!?!? Tomorrow, Irina is taking us to a nice lunch, and then souvenior shopping. We had planned to do this today, but we have two other families with another agency that have been completing the same things, Irina's son and daughter in law are there translators so they come with us. Well, one of the other families does not want their daughter around the boys that have been exposed to chicken pox, so they made Melissa and her kids (Gavin was with Wyatt at the orphanage) come with us, and Sam and Katie had to go with them. That family has been a real pain in my ?!>!, and has not been invited to playtime at the White Rabbit. That is my only negative thought of the day, it's just if I never hear the word CHICKEN POX again, it would be okay with me. The Meacham's have created a problem for everyone with this chicken pox exposure, who would have known.

Only 6 more nights then we will be on our way to getting home so that we can sleep in our own bed, and Wyatt will get to sleep in his very own room, with his very own toys!

More soon........

Tuesday........

Justin and Sam went with Irina to the vital statistic office today, and the passport office, all things that need to be done for us to leave this country on time next week. While, the men were gone Katie and I walked with the kids, and on our walk we saw a motorcade that was escorting the Governor. The first car was police, then his limo with the curtains in the back seat drawn, and then a last car. It was interesting, and a nice distraction! We were told that the VLAD Inn is located next to his house so this was bound to happen......

I also want to send a big THANK YOU out to Samantha Blue who sent me a care package that I received today. It contains all things need to relieve the chickenpox, and also some peanut butter crackers, I was the hit at play time today because I shared crackers. I have to say I hope we do not need the medicine because if we can make it to Thursday with no bumps they will let us leave on time next week, supposedly. Funny thing about the care package is that it came UPS, and when UPS got here the front desk called and said I needed to come sign for the package. I went up to the desk and the UPS guy looked just like my good friend Erik Link ( he works for UPS Tulsa), same uniform, same jacket, same build, same look.. I thought maybe Erik had hand delivered it, right?!?!? Erik , do you have ancestors in Russia? I did not peek at the truck outside to see if it looked like the ones back home... It made me really miss my friends back home, and we can not wait to be back with you guys.

Lastly, I feel the need to share that in the past week I have yet to feel full, nothing is hitting the spot, and I mean nothing. So today we broke down and ordered from the restaurant and had them bring it to the room because Wyatt was already in bed. We ordered a Ribeye steak, and paid 970 rubles($44.00), and I must say it was worth every ruble.

That was it for our Tuesday, Justin and Sam will go back out with Irina tomorrow for more paperwork, and then on Thursday the wives, and kids get to go along, yippeeee...

We hope each of you have a terrific Tuesday!!!!!!!!1