June 2011...

Here we are in June and things continue to move forward. Emily has not been hospitalized since February after our trip. She has been in rare form and just as happy as can be. She loves having fun although most of that has been inside due to the extremely hot weather.

On June 13th we had a Family Team Conference with the state. Emily's case has now been changed from Foster Care to Adoption. We met our new adoption case worker Melinda Miller and her supervisor Phyllis Jones and said goodbye to our foster care case worker and supervisor Victor Akamin and Annette Jefferson. We signed 4 copies of our agreement to adopt Em. We would have signed a million more if they had wanted us to. This precious girl has become part of our hearts and family already. Melinda made her first official visit to our house that Friday the 17th. We will see her at least once a month until adoption is final but she says from here until adoption day it's basically just a waiting game for paperwork to be compiled, completed and presented. We will wait patiently. Melinda says the adoption should be completed by December if not sooner.

On June 30th Em had her final evaluation with the school board. They said what we already knew and that was just that she was a very smart little girl. She was evaluated as average to above average in her knowledge based screening. They found no reason for any motor skills therapy. They did say that her ability to stay on task needed work and they will do just that, as she HAS been approved for in-home teaching sessions through the school board. From here they will turn it over to the teachers who will assess her areas of need and set up a plan for her. We will have one more appointment prior to school starting this year. She is excited about having school at home and we are excited for her. We just can't take the chance of anything happening with her line or the chance of infection, when we know that being pulled off the transplant list for 3 months is the result of that sort of complication. We know she is smart, but we don't know exactly what the schools are teaching, so we don't want her to fall behind.

Theresa