Isn't she just the sweetest!!!

As many adoptive parents that adopt children that aren't infants know, any baby or younger pictures of your child are a rare treasure. We did not meet Victoria until 10 days after she turned four. However, we are blessed with a few photos of her when she was younger.

The first one is the photo that was in her file at the SDA. This is the photo we were shown at our appt. We knew it was probably about 3 years old, but just looking at this picture melted out hearts. I think she is probably just over a year here. The SDA allowed us to take this picture from her file since we replaced it with a recent one.

The quality is bad because it is scanned from a picture that was printed on regular paper, but you can still see how cute she is.

This next picture was taken on 10/16/07, when Victoria was 2 years 2 1/2 months old. I found it when I googled the name of her orphanage. It is a picture of Victoria with Miss Universe, who was visiting the orphanage as part of an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign in Ukraine. There are a few other really cute pictures of Victoria from this same day that have a copyright watermark on them. I emailed the person whose website I found them on the other day to see if they would email me the images without the copyright. Hopefully I'll hear back from them. I am going to take these pictures somewhere and see if I can have something done with them so I can frame them and hang them up.

On more current news - it's only been one day, but so far so good! Victoria is her normal, happy, energetic self today. Hopefully it will continue this way.

Fingers crossed

Victoria took her first dose of her new medicine tonight at dinner. She swallowed both pills like it was nothing, so at least we don't have to worry about that part. Now it is just a waiting game to see if she has any side effects and how her body tolerates the new meds. So far, so good - but it hasn't been that long.

Fingers crossed...........

Awesome raffle - please take a look!

The White family is currently holding a raffle to raise money for the adoption of their two precious little girls. They are adopting two little girls with Down syndrome from the same orphanage Victoria was in. The prizes for this raffle are really, really great and tickets are only $10 each. Please visit their blog and purchase a ticket if you can. You can have a part in helping these girls get home. Here is their blog address - http://whitesadoptionjourney.blogspot.com

Next week

We will be starting Victoria's new medicine next Wednesday. I'm praying it goes well.

Victoria went back to the doctor on Monday and the antibiotics are doing their job. The bump on her face is all but gone and does not hurt her at all anymore. We are going to finish out the dose of antibiotics (this weekend) and then give her a few days before starting her new medicine on Wednesday. I talked to her about her medicine and that she will have to take it every day. I showed her the pills and explained to her that she would take them at dinner time. She is okay with it and told me she will just swallow them like a big girl. We'll see if that holds true when Wednesday comes around.

Well, I asked for direction....

and I got it.

We were not supposed to go to the doctor until Monday, but we ended up having to go see them today. Victoria developed a pretty big, swollen, hard lump right at the top of her jaw just in front of her left ear. She has no fever, no pain in her ears, in her mouth and is not complaining of anything except that it hurts when you touch it. She actually flinches when you touch it, so it must be pretty painful. The doctor can not be completely sure by just looking at it if it is a lymph node or her salivary gland, but either way it is inflammed and infected. So, she is on a course of antibiotics for 10 days.

So, this is my answer. We need to medicate. Victoria's body is showing us signs that exposure to this chronic virus is taking some affect on her. I am so thankful that it is something so, so minor but enough to tell me that medication is definitely the best choice.

We are going to keep a once a day medication regiment, but this time will give it to her at dinner time. I am hoping this way any side effects or ill feelings she has will be at bed time and she can sleep it off and feel good in the morning. I am praying that there will be no side effects this time, but we'll do whatever we can to make them as easy on her as possible. We are actually keeping one of the same meds that she was on before and just adding a new one. The new one she will start off at 1/2 tablet per day for 14 days and then go up to the full tablet. This tapering of the medicine will hopefully help her adjust slowly.

We are still going to the doctor's on Monday because they want to look at her face again and make sure the antibiotics are working. We will also talk about exactly when we will be starting this new course of medicine. I'm not sure if they will have us wait until she is done the antibiotics or start it right away.

I am thanking God tonight that He gave me an answer to my problem, but that He did it gently enough to not be too serious of a health issue for Victoria.

Back to the doctor

I made Victoria's next appt. for January 18. We will discuss our options about medication with the doctor at this visit.

I am so torn about what to do. Victoria is so healthy right now. Her CD4 counts are great and her viral load is very low. If we were following the adult treatment recommendations, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be starting treatment for a while. That is an option. The problem is that I have read that long term exposure to HIV left untreated can cause neurological damage. I have also read that the earlier treatment is started the less likely the chances the person will develop AIDS. I obviously want to give my little girl every chance to be as healthy as possible, but I am scared about what starting new meds will mean for her. She had such a rough time last time and I don't want to see her go through that again.

We are going to wait to talk to the doctors before we make a decision. It has just been on my mind a lot lately and now that the appt. is scheduled I know a decision will have to be made soon. I'm praying for clarity and direction and that we will make the decision that is best for Victoria.