It's Official!!!

We are now the parents of HENRY AUGUSTIN DOBROVITS!!!

Henry was Paul's mom's dad's name...

and his middle name is in honor of the Augustinian order of priests who educated Paul (and my Dad and 3 of my brothers!) at St. Rita High School here in Chicago!

We have been "paper-chasing" like crazy yesterday after court and again today to get Henry's birth certificate and passport and court documents translated... because Paul will go home soon and I will stay until all the legalities are completed to bring Henry back (in about another week).

This might be your last "fix" of Henry pics for the week...I do not know how to upload the pics from Paul's camera, so while I will still be TAKING them as we complete our time here in Henry's country, you will have to wait to SEE them until we get home!!!

We can all work on developing the virtue of patience this coming week ;-)

Outside!!

The weather has been amazingly beautiful every single day here in Henry's country.

Except for the first day. For the first minutes where we had to walk down OUTDOOR steps from the airplane and then sprint ACROSS the runway into a bus while it was POURING rain!!

Really, since then it has been sunny with blue skies and between 70 and 80 degrees every day.

We have been cooped-up indoors with Henry for all of his visits...here they do not believe in little children being outdoors too much...especially little ones with health problems like our Henry - before this last 10 day hospitalization for bronchitis he has had at least one other hospitalization for pneumonia and one for chicken pox in his first year of life...

but today we asked and today we got the OK to bring Henry outside for some sun...

and a stroll....

my, but he LOVES the stroller!!!

The minutes daddy would stop, little insistent sounds that could be translated as "keep it moving" would start...

so move we did!

Can't wait to stroll him all over the south suburbs of Chicago!!

Please pray we get the call Monday that court is scheduled for Tuesday!!!

Do you think he likes me?

Last visit in hospital....

Henry was released back to the orphanage this afternoon, a few hours after our morning visit.

Now we get to visit him twice a day...and maybe even go for a walk outside....

or maybe we will just sit and cuddle and read...

*sigh*

it's all good.

Best. Birthday. Present. Ever.

Details!!!

God is good, we were able to meet our sweet boy on Friday in the hospital! First we had a meeting with the orphanage director and pediatrician and some of the staff with our lawyer Natasha and translator Kate...they gave us his medical history (he had chicken pox a few months ago and pneumonia in the past as well)...they said all his caregivers love him, he knows who they are and who are strangers and he understands what they tell him...they said he loves toys and is very "active" (which should fit in very well with my other 6 children!)....they were so very glad he was going to have a family and a chance at a good life, one nurse asked if it is really true that doctors here in America could help him walk someday, we explained through the interpreter what the orthopedic doc told us about treatment and she welled up with tears, Kate said she was so happy we could get him help.... we were then allowed to go visit him at the nearby hospital with a nurse from the orphanage...

we went into a hospital (older brick buildings, we would not even considering someplace that looks like that for our medical treatment here in the US) and it was clean and sunny inside...in a small room with one bench by a window and one small changing table they brought him in...he was awakened to see us and was clearly a bit upset, making "mewing" kinds of sounds...

he had a pacifier in....and the biggest grey-blue eyes (very like my oldest son's!) I have ever seen, they take up his whole face!! He is so very tiny, probably only about 10 pounds (he just turned 1 on July 24)...he can roll over but he cannot sit up...he can grab things with his hands (like my hair!) and takes his pacifier out and holds it and then tries to put it back in....he blows raspberries and he smiled and giggled a bit when I blew them on his neck...his eyes tracked everything but it seemed to tire him out...he got very overstimulated after a bit and instead of snuggling into me he wanted to be put down...he had sores on his right thumb (looks like he sucks on it for comfort) and 2 teeth on the top and 4 on the bottom...he needed to lay and look at the wall for a bit to calm down...then after a while he looked back at me and would make eye contact and I rewarded him with kisses on his cheeks, which he seemed to like...

his legs/hips are VERY affected by the arthrogryposis, he can move them but they "flail" about...his chest muscles are probably also involved as it is like he is permanently arching back (although that could also be because of his larger head on the tiny body and lack of muscle tone)...his fingers and hands are also involved but not as severely as he can reach and grab VERY well and seems to have very good hand-eye coordination...

I am in love.

No words.