Slowly making progress...

I have been trying to accomplish at least one of the "run-around" tasks each day this week. Monday was my psychological evaluation, which was three hours long! On Tuesday, Bryon and I met with a counselor with Bethany for our "Expectation Consultation". That was short and sweet! They just wanted to make sure that we weren't in love with the romantic idea of adoption and "saving" a child. Yesterday, I took the girls medical forms to their pediatrician to have them completed. Now all I need to do is have my own medical form completed and take my criminal clearance form to the police department. Today, I have to take a break from all of this running around and get busy tagging clothes for a couple of consignment sales. This is one way I am trying to raise money for the adoption. A friend from high school runs one of the sales and is allowing me to hold a bake sale fundraiser next Saturday on their 1/2 price day. I am brainstorming other ways I can raise money as well.

While I know that we are taking on some major hurdles with this child, it did make me think harder about the issues. Particularly, I am thinking more about how to handle his other genetic disorder, GCPS, otherwise known as Greig's Syndrome. This is a very rare disorder, much more so than PKU. Understanding Greig's is still in the beginning stages as well. I joined a support group on Facebook with families living with Greig's and learned that most have delays and require occupation, physical and speech therapy. Many of these children didn't start talking until 3-4 years old and have very limited vocabularies. While I feel that Paulius's GCPS is not severe, we have to be prepared for the unexpected challenges associated with Greig's and the typical delays associated with adopted children. Not to mention he still has to learn English and when he gets here, we will likely only have a year and a half to prepare him for kindergarten. So for the past couple of days, I have been just trying to wrap my head around all the possibilities.

Paulius had what I believe is an annual assessment on Tuesday. I am anxiously awaiting the results. They will share them with me once they are available. I have seen his previous assessment, which is probably from last year, so I am curious to see if he has improved since coming into the orphanage and receiving treatment for his issues, including PKU. While I do worry about what GCPS will present us with. His delays have been associated with PKU, and he is at a great age for overcoming his delays once we get him here and on the best diet possible. However, if we get him hear and learn that the delays are associated with Greig's, then overcoming them will no be so simple as adjusting his diet. If you want to see other children living with Greig's, check out the group on Facebook called "Greig's Syndrome GCPS Support". It was reassuring to me to see these children and learn how well they are all doing despite their struggles. So I though PKU would be the rarest thing our family would ever know, and now GCPS is much, much more rare and is a dominant trait, whereas PKU is recessive. Some people think we are crazy and others think we are saints! I know I'm not a saint, but if anyone can handle this, Bryon and I can!