Breathing, a quiet triumph

I realized that I have not mentioned how peaceful her sleep seems to be. Her first nap post-surgery, while we were in that treatment room, involved some loud snoring, but I'll take that any day over the gasping sounds of her struggling to breathe. The ENT told me that while her passageways are swollen, post-surgery, it may seem worse before it gets better. The nap and her sleep that night were quite snore-y. Since then, she's just been...breathing! As I was lying in bed last night, listening to the light sound of her breathing in and out, I was so thankful for a successful surgery, and hopeful that this will help her thrive.

Today was another good day. Good eating, no medicine except for the antibiotic that she'll take for 10 days (and she doesn't complain about that one), and we even had a few outings (maybe a bad idea so soon after surgery? but she's doing so well...) I got my car's oil changed and while we waited we walked to the library. After her nap we went to the zoo again, just for a couple hours. The giraffes were her first pick, and the largest, the male, was quite active, walking around, and then sitting down while we were watching. Not the easiest thing, from the look of it, and quite interesting to watch! We didn't see a multitude of animals, I just wanted an easy trip to get out and have a little fun. We spent some bench time in the sun, eating a snack and watching a peacock (and listening to him shriek - very loud!) and some ground squirrels (prairie dogs? it wasn't an exhibit, they're just everywhere on the grounds, along with the peacocks and pea hens).

She just woke up crying, about 45 minutes into her sleep tonight, which reminds me that the same thing happened at lunch too. Crying in great distress, her body shaking. When it happened during her nap, I asked if she had a bad dream and she said yes but couldn't tell me what it was. (Does she know what the word "dream" means? I can't imagine she does.) I had her sleep a bit more, after she was calm again, and when she woke up the second time, she was smiley. I asked her why she was crying before, what was wrong, and she got her impish grin and wouldn't answer. Or maybe she smiled and said, "Because" - I can't remember exactly. Not to imply that I think she faked it, but interesting that her first mood was totally gone and didn't linger into her second, happy wake-up mood. Just now, she was so upset again, she was shaking and her legs sometimes struck out into the air when I asked what was wrong, and she just cried more. I asked if anything hurt, any owies, and she said no, but was still crying. I asked if she was sad or scared and she said sad, but couldn't tell me any more than that. I rocked her until she fell asleep and put her back in bed, which woke her up but she was fine with it, just snuggled with kitty and went back to sleep. Weird - post-surgery distress? Regression to the stress over this life change, due to the surgery?

She also woke up at 3 something this morning, then again at 5. At 3 I sent her back to bed, at 5 she just cried and when I went in to see why, she said she needed to go to the bathroom (ok, let's go then!). I told her again that she can go to the bathroom anytime she needs to. Back to bed but she started crying again and I hugged her and told her it was still nighttime and she needed to still sleep. I think she slept after that, but woke again at 5:45. I sent her back to bed, but at 6:15 I decided to just get up as she was still unhappy and was not going back to sleep. I'm going back to work tomorrow (Aunt Cindy is watching Amanda on Thursday, and Babushka and Grandpa will be here Friday), so need to start getting up early, anyway. I was up until after 11pm last night - I'm slipping into such bad habits this week while I've been off work! Here's another bad habit - eating lots of Cindy's cookies! They're so good...

I get e-mails of postings from adoptive parents (post-adoption, pre-adoption, all stages of the process) specific to the region where I adopted Amanda (a Yahoo group), and lately, the posts have been concerning the freeze that the region has placed on referrals, preliminary visits, and court dates for international adoptions. Seems that at this point in the year, the region has either exceeded the accepted percentage of international vs. in-country adoptions, or it has granted more international adoptions than other regions and must wait and allow the other regions to catch up. Either way, it puts stress and distress on those waiting parents. Mostly, it's sad to think of the children that have to wait due to government quotas and political goings-on. It makes me feel very blessed that I was able to get Amanda home early in the year, and that she is not waiting still.

Back to the mundane - have I mentioned that since surgery, her breath really smells bad? I think it's reminiscent of how it smelled when I first got her from the orphanage. I thought that was due to infected tonsils. Maybe this is due to everything being disturbed in her nasal passage and throat. Another interesting aspect of her recovery.

Hmm, approx. 45 minutes later and she was crying again. I went in and she wasn't awake, so I rubbed her back and kissed her and held her hand. She woke up when I was holding her hand and gave me such a smile, then snuggled down into the pillow and fell back asleep. I wish I knew how to settle her down more deeply.