ABOUT MINA:

Mina is a precious little girl recently rescued from an orphanage in Eastern Europe who is now finally home with her forever family! She had been without a mother or father to love her & care for her each day. No one to rock her, kiss her gently or tell her she's loved. She is blessed with an extra chromosome known as Down syndrome, which for her that meant a life of being viewed as worthless in the country she was born into & a life without hope. Because of this her parents gave her up at the age of 6 months when they found out the diagnosis & from there her life progressivly went down hill. We are the Gower family residing in OKC who recently adopted this little angel. She was extremely malnourished and unable to do just about anything when we first met her. She will be 2 in January & is the size of a 3-6 month old weighing 14lbs. She continues to amaze us at how quickly she is progressing with love and nutrition. She has learned to sit up, roll over, feed herself finger foods, hold her own bottle and loves to interact with toys and other children. Her life has changed so much in such a short period of time and will forever be changed! Thank you Lord for putting a burden on our hearts to rescue this little blessing and making her apart of our family!

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Feeling Better today & Anniversary!

I apologize in advance for all the skipping around.

Thank you all for your many prayers and sweet words! I am definitely feeling much better today but still mostly just staying around the apartment & resting.  We did get out and grab a bite to eat by our apartment today but that's about as much walking as I felt up to.  My fever is completely gone and my throat is feeling much better, still minor aches and back pains but not near as bad as it was and most my migraines have gone away.  Now I've basically just been dealing with lack of energy & dizziness at times... but so much better than I was!  So thank you all for your prayers... and sorry about the lack of posts. I haven't really felt up to it. 

Mina is doing wonderful! She is such a little doll! A precious little angel and we just absolutely adore her.  She is eating great & loving it!  She actually gets upset at us when her bowl of food is gone and starts to cry and throw a little fit and give us a pouty lip... I feel bad but her little belly will be buldging and we don't want to feed her so much she is sick.  We have been feeding her lots of smaller meals a day to try to make it easier on her tummy.  She absolutely loves Gerber Puffs and does extremely well feeding herself them.  She also got a Gerber toddler biscuit and that kept her happy for a long time until she got down to the last bit where it started to break off in chunks & she tried shoving them all in her mouth & made herself start choking so mommy & daddy took the last big chunks out of her mouth.  She wasn't happy with us for that but we definitely didn't want her choking and hurting herself. She doesn't like milk at all (not warm or cold) she just spits it out.  She doesn't like water... just juice (cause that's all she ever had in the orphanage.)  She wasn't a big drinker of the juices we bought from the store and watered down so I boiled some fruit and water on the stove and made her juice like they do in the orphanage and she drinks that much better. I may have to do that for a little bit until we can get her to like other things and ween her on them.

We are so glad she is finally with us and we are able to feed her, love her, bathe her, snuggle her, kiss her, rock her, sing lullabies and tell her each day how much we love her.  You can just see her world brighten up more and more each day.

Yesterday Morning Mina woke up around 6:30 and cried and woke Myla up. Today Myla walked in our room and woke Mina up.  Myla is so excited to see her sister she wants to lay with her on her pallet, snuggle, kiss her, and help feed her, get her what she needs, whatever it may be.  It is to cute. This morning when she came in our room she said Mina up and ready to play with Myla :)  LOL She keeps talking about flying back on an airplane to take her sister home. 

Nap times & bed times~
Well Mina is the busiest most moviest child I have ever seen in their sleep.  She moves all over the place even with 4 pillows proped around all sides of her (can't wait to get home to the crib.)  She also wakes up off and on lots of times in the night. Seems every hour or 2 she will wake up cry, moan, make babbling noises and then in a few minutes she will fall back to sleep. The girl will be turned all kinds of crazy ways several times in the night and many times I've gotten up to move her back on her comfy pallet or to get her head away from a wall. 

So Yesterday Jim took Myla out in the afternoon for a daddy- daughter date.  They got to go get Pizza and ice cream and daddy took her to drive her very first car and let her play in the play areas. She had such a blast with her dad and it was good for her to get out of the aparement. Mina hung out with Mommy and we rested and played on the couch and I tried not to do to much. 

Tomorrow I promise I will try to get some pics posted since we've gotten her out of that place. Most the newer pics are on Jim's phone so we need to go where there is wifi so he can email me the pics so that  I will have them on my phone to update through our blog app.

Last thing today is our 6 year anniversary so i just wanted to say Happy Anniversary to my dear sweet husband! Thank you for taking care of all your girls and for always loving us. So sorry we didn't get to celebrate and that I didn't feel up to doing much! You are an amazing husband! xoxo.

And my best friend - brother of over 10 years is getting married today! I am so so happy for him and his wife and wish so badly we could be there! If you're reading this congrats to the both of you, have the greatest time & make wonderful memories. We love you both!
Sorry for the spiraticness to the post and jumping all over... I keep starting to doze as I type this... off to sleep! Thank you all once again!

3 comments:

Liz said...

yay! so glad to hear you are feeling better. i have been praying for you.
i read every day and love seeing her blossom! and congratulations big time on the pregnancy!!!!

AddingOn said...

Happy Anniversary!! I've been following your blog, but I cannot remember if I have commented. Congratulations on your pregnancy. Your blog is one of my favorites. BOTH of YOUR girls are precious. The pictures and videos of tiny little Mina just make me melt. I am sorry you had to go through that horrible DR ordeal, my goodness.

Tracey Sharp said...

First of all.....Happy 6th Anniversary Jim and Melissa!!!! Thats so awesome!!!!

So glad you are feeling better Melissa....still sending prayers!!!

I am also glad to hear all the sweet moments you guys are having. I cannot wait to be snugglin and loving my lil Kullen

Cant wait for updated pics of Mina and Myla!!! Sisters at last!!! What a sweet bond they will have!