All About Mishell

I know those of you that followed our adoption journey have been wondering how Mishell is doing since she got home. I have had zero motivation to update the blog (see post below), but now it is time! So, here's how Mishell is doing and what she has been up to in the last 4+ months since she's been home (has it really been that long?!)

Overall, I would say that Mishell's adjustment has been incredibly good. It has been much smoother than Devin or I anticipated. We prepared ourselves for behavioral issues, sadness from the losses she had experienced, and attachment issues. I think aside from some minor (normal for her age) behavioral issues and occasional sadness, things have been really great adjustment wise. Mishell is not defiant and always responds well to correction (rarely does she make the same mistake again). She has shown a little sadness and honestly I wish she would show more. This is one of the areas she struggles in and a big reason why I want to get her some more therapy. She has a really hard time expressing emotions. That's not to say that she's a stoic, straight faced child. She is generally very happy and has no problem expressing happiness, laughter, fun, etc. It's the hard stuff that she has a hard time processing. She doesn't exhibit sadness very often nor does she react to situations where maybe she should be angry or a little fired up, you know? When we have had to have conversations about things, if she perceives anything to be confrontational at all, she shuts up like a clam and won't speak. For example, we had an incident shortly after she got home where she stole a toy from the DI (like a 50 cent toy). I knew that she likely didn't know any better and Devin and I went to talk to her about it in a non-accusatory way, and she wouldn't talk to us for hours, even when we reassured her that she was not in trouble, but that we just wanted to talk about right and wrong and how she could remedy the situation. Each time something like this comes up, it is like pulling teeth to get her to communicate. We recently had another situation where the kids fed a whole bottle of (previously un-opened) vitamins to themselves and some younger cousins at grandma and grandpa's house. When we went to talk to the kids about it, Hallie immediately started wailing and cried for hours because she knew that what she had done was wrong. Mishell, on the other hand, sat there and stared at us and wouldn't say a word for the entire night. Little by little, we are trying to get her to open up and see that we communicate about things in this family. I know that she is this way as a product of her upbringing. She has likely never had these types of conversations and doesn't know how to converse about things she perceives as difficult. So, we are working on it. :)

Mishell is a wonderful helper around the house. She is good at dishes and cleaning bathrooms, which are her chores. She does not complain about it, but just gets things done. She is a great sister to all the kids and especially cute with Flor (most of the time). She will often go get Flor in her pajamas or bathe her without us even asking. She likes to be praised and to be told that she is doing a good job, so we try to be mindful of this. We have discovered over time, more of what she likes. She loves riding her bike, coloring (and she is neat and careful about her art work), playing American Girl dolls with Hallie, and doing crafty like things. She really is a happy, helpful girl and really easy to be around. We enjoy her happy spirit.

School wise, we are having a bit of a struggle there getting Mishell the help she needs. This all ties in to medical stuff, so we will combine the two topics. Mishell met with an orthopedic doctor at Shriner's shortly after we got home in order to assess her leg length discrepancy (one leg is about an inch longer than the other, which contributes to her awkward type gait). The doctor wanted her to have an MRI of her brain because she also has an eye that is weaker than the other. The opthamologist explained that her brain just does not use this eye unless forced to do so. Instead, she uses only the other eye for her seeing. It is too late in her life to do a patch or anything like that. So, the orthopedic doctor was suspicious that something had occurred with one part of her brain, thus the leg issue and the eye issue. Therefore, the MRI to see what was going on. We then saw a neurologist for the results of the MRI and between her and our pediatrician, we have somewhat of an explanation of what may have happened to Mishell at birth that caused some of these issues. She likely was either born very prematurely, which caused some damage to her brain, or more likely according to the pediatrician is that she suffered some asphyxia at birth (oxygen deprivation). The pediatrician, after seeing the results (and not knowing Mishell well), said "She likely struggles with memory, concentration, and attention and this will continue throughout her life." These things are all true of Mishell. She had been on ADHD medication at the orphanage, but for some reason they took her off prior to our coming, so just within the last month she has started that up again here. It has made a HUGE difference in her ability to concentrate and to remember things. The other issue medically, the leg length discrepancy, is being addressed through surgery that is scheduled the 29th of this month. The orthopedist will go in and put a screw into her growth plate in her right leg (OUCH) to stop the growth there and allow the left leg to catch up. We hope that this will help Mishell with her walking and feeling more confident in herself.

So school wise. We knew that Mishell was behind when we adopted her, but we didn't know how far behind. She has been tested in Spanish and is significantly, significantly behind. We believe that this is not because she can't learn, but because she has not had the resources and help she needs to succeed in school to this point. She likely just skated by in Ecuador and they passed her from grade to grade so that she could be someone else's problem. Here, Devin and I put her right into 5th grade (grade level) and tried to help her keep up on the grade level homework. It quickly became exhausting and completely unrealistic. Not only did we have a language barrier, but it seemed like Mishell didn't have the basics she needed to be doing the work she was expected to do. We had her reading books in Spanish and writing a book report every two weeks  (per her class's schedule). We soon realized that even in Spanish, she had no idea what she was reading and writing was an absolute joke. It became not worth our time at all to have her remain doing anything in Spanish, so we switched her to just reading English books, but on kindergarten or first grade level. Instead of writing a book report once every two weeks, we have her writing one almost every day, but on "The Cat Sat on the Rug" type books. This way, she is learning English at a basic level and learning to write in English with correct grammar. This has been a good method so far and now that she is on the right meds, her ability to concentrate and remember the books has greatly improved. We have a tutor that comes over 2-3 times a week and works with her as well. This has been good because she works a lot harder for him than she does for us and it gives us a break. The amount of time spent on homework alone per day with her is exhausting.

I had parent teacher conferences with the kids' teachers in January and went in thinking that I needed to get Mishell an IEP (individualized education plan). I talked to my brother-in-law before hand, who is a vice principal, to get tips. He told me that the school would try to deter me and that they would want to do other things first because IEPs are a lot of work and effort. So, I went in ready for battle. But at the very mention of the IEP, Mishell's teacher was like "I COMPLETELY agree!" I wondered why it took me coming to parent teacher conferences for her to mention this. She then showed me the results of Mishell's testing in Spanish, which had happened in EARLY DECEMBER...that showed that she was far, far behind, even in her own language. I was shocked that no one had contacted me when they'd had those results for so long. I also found out that she spends her days pretty much on a computer the whole time doing some learning program. I understand, I really do, because her teacher has a class full of other kids that she has to teach and she can't cater to Mishell all day, but I was super disappointed that the school seemed to know that Mishell needed an IEP and they had done nothing to initiate that process until I brought it up. I'm upset about all the wasted time that we could have been working on this. I am frustrated that she goes to school all day to play the computer.

I spoke with the principal that day to get the IEP started. He told me that the district has 45 days to get the testing done and it would likely take the full 45 days. THUS, it would have been nice to start back in December, you know what I mean? Wasted time. It frustrates me. I know that Mishell is capable of learning and she has progressed already a ton with our help and with her tutor. But, imagine what she could be doing if she was in a specialized program every day at school too. She could be leaps and bounds ahead of where she is now. So, she still has no IEP. The school called me a few weeks ago to say that the district had done some testing, but they wanted to hold off a year on the IEP because they thought A) maybe it's still a language issue only (which their testing showed IT IS NOT) or B) Mishell probably didn't ever go to school in Ecuador so that's why she is behind (nice assumption. She did go to school. Every day.) I brought a copy of all her report cards into the principal that day. I also went to the pediatrician to get a copy of his notes from our conversation about the MRI and he told me he'd to better than that and wrote an awesome letter that very day explaining that Mishell needs accommodations NOW. So things are back on track now, but I am assuming it will take the full 45 days and by then, we will be at the end of the school year. Nice eh? I called the special education coordinator for the district this week just to see if he can help speed things up any and he told me that he cannot. So. Here we wait. In the meantime, Mishell gets a lot of computer time at school and has a reading specialist come in and work with her. The pediatrician was not thrilled about the computer thing, saying that Mishell's ADHD like symptoms are going to be exponentially increased with screen time compared to a normal child. He said to essentially use electronics as a very rare treat. So, fun that that's what she does all day. And, don't even mention me homeschooling. No, thanks. Things would be even worse with me as a homeschooler. The good news is that we are moving (oh yeah, we are moving) soon and I hope that the new school has more resources in place. It appears to be a big school and from people I have talked to, it sounds like it has a great special education program. So we can hope and pray that they are a little more proactive than this school has been. I will likely keep the kids at this school through the end of the school year, just because I don't want to change them for a month. But let's pray next year is a positive, progressive experience!

So lest you just think Mishell is dumb, she is not. I just think that she has not had the resources she needs AT ALL to this point in her life. We are barely beginning to understand how to help her learn best and to succeed in school. I have confidence that she can catch up with the right help. The good news is that Mishell loves school. She has many friends there and comes home happy every day. I am thrilled that the kids have embraced her and that no one has made fun of her or bullied her (that I know of). She has been so well accepted and I am so thankful.

Language--that's coming along. We perhaps had some unrealistic expectations of how fast Mishell would learn English. Some people told us that she would be fluent in six months. Well, she is by no means fluent. She can get her point across and uses basic sentences. She cannot converse in complex speech to this point, though. She is learning more and more all the time and we are happy with that. We like to encourage her to just try to use words because a lot of time, she clams up, probably thinking she is going to say it wrong, so she doesn't want to say anything at all. I think it helps that she has so many younger siblings to converse with. She and Hallie are two peas in a pod-- they are best buddies most days, but have their occasional spats as sisters do.

I mentioned that Mishell is in equine (horse) therapy and this has been a really wonderful thing for her. She loves going so much. It has taught her a lot of interpersonal skills as she interacts with the horse-- she was deathly afraid of the horse at first, and now she confidently leads him around and rides him like she has been doing it forever. She gets to be the leader and the boss of the horse and she has to be assertive to get him to do what she wants. She has to learn to trust him and vice versa and these types of skills were completely foreign to Mishell in building relationships with people. It has been really fun to see her blossom with the therapy. We will definitely continue this for some time. As mentioned, we are working on finding her an individual therapist as well to help her with some of the emotional stuff. I think she will make great progress having this type of therapy in addition to the equine therapy.

So let's see-- I think that about covers it. We are grateful that Mishell is in our family and for the joy she brings. I hope you see can see through these posts this type of adoption for what it is-- it is complex and difficult in many ways, but such a blessing. I really feel such gratitude that Mishell is adjusting so well and has no major issues. Nothing we are facing with her did she have any control over- just sad circumstances that led to her not having the upbringing she deserved and the services she needed from the time she was very young.

We have a sealing date scheduled for Mishell in April and we are so thrilled. I know that she is part of our eternal family and taking the sacred step to make it final is exciting. :)