Monday, July 09, 2007

Four Weeks in Eureka and Respite

We've been in Eureka four weeks, today. We are definitely settling into a routine. Ali goes to physical therapy on Mondays and Thursdays. Several times a week, a speech therapist comes to the house and works with Ali. Ali is taking a pacifier dipped in food or ice water and is swallowing well. Twice a week, our main nurse comes and weighs Ali, gets her temperature, and spends time evaluating Ali's time between her visits and helps us to provide the best care possible.


Recently, we've started to have respite care visits from nurses. Three nurses will spend forty hours a month here at the house to help us and to provide relief for us or time to just get out of the house. Once we get the respite care nurses up and running with Ali's routine, the idea is to sneak away for a couple of hours or so. Today Susan and I got out of the house for about two hours leaving Ali in the care of Millie the Wonder Nurse. We went to Starbuck's, drove around Eureka, and then rode out to the beach. We had some serious respite goin' on.

Ali's biggest challenge--our biggest challenge--is napping and getting her to bed. She's tired, but she fights it until she works herself into a full-blown, red-in-the-face-snot-flingin' tantrum. So naps during the day are rare and short, and getting her to sleep at night is an intense hour to two hour event. Some day I'll be able to do seminars on putting baby night-night. All three of us (Ali, the charming and beautiful Susan, and me) are quite frazzled and exhausted by the time she goes down. The up-side of this is that Ali sleeps most of the night through. She wakes when she loses her pacifier (she can't move and put it back in her mouth herself), but once the Binky is popped back in, she goes right back to sleep picking up her dreams right where she left off.


I will say that Millie the Wonder Nurse is able to get Ali to relax. While the charming and beautiful Susan and I were out on our respite, she got Ali down for forty-five minutes.

On the custody front: Ali's case in California Child Protective Services has been kicked upstairs to the department that handles adoptions. That's a good thing, but does present us with a challenge or two: as non-residents of the state of California taking the baby across state lines, this process can take over a year--maybe two. If we're residents, then the case will be expedited but will still take a minimum of six months. We get our first visit from our new case worker at the end of the month.

So, if you're praying for us, could you please pray:

  1. for Ali's physical therapy and speech therapy
  2. that she'll surrender to sleep earlier
  3. that Susan I will get the down time we need
  4. for the adoption process
  5. for wisdom
  6. for peace
  7. for joy

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We keep on pryaing for all of you thanks for sharing this process not everybody would.
Is there anything else that we could help with? If so please let us know.

Sergio and Marny Sartor

Anonymous said...

Dear Pastor Bryon,
Thanks for the update...I need my darling Ali fix each day. You and Susan are amazing. I thank God for His loving-kindness and tender-mercies toward the Mondok family.

All About Jesus,
Jan Arant
Calvary Chapel Oceanside