When we adopted Leana, on March 31, 2000, she was 38 inches tall, weighed 30 pounds and was 5 years old.  Her medical issued were mental delay, heart murmur, cross-eyes, small for her age and tonsillitis.  Upon returning to the USA,  Leana was taken to an optamologist for an eye evaluation.  She was given a full eye exam and fitted with new glasses.  She has seen this doctor on a regular basis to monitor her vision and cross-eyes issues.  It was determined in December 2000, her glasses are not straightening her eyes enough to correct the cross-eyes.  She was referred to a pediatric optamologist who specializes in eye surgery for children.  He refitted her with new glasses and requires her to wear a patch for 6 weeks on one eye.  If this does not correct the cross-eyes, we will have surgery to correct it.  He wants to try all options before recommending surgery.

Her pediatric visit was shortly after returning to the USA.  She was tested for all of the childhood immunizations and it was found she needed to have 2 of her vaccines repeated.  She has also received vaccines for Hepatitis.   Other than being small for her age, mentally delayed by about 1-½ years and anemic, she had a satisfactory physical.  She takes vitamins on a regular basis and eats balanced, nutritional meals everyday.  We took her to a specialist for her heart and tonsillitis issues.   The pediatric cardiologist acknowledged there is a heart murmur and stated a lot of children have this type of heart problem.  No medications are needed and she will live a normal life.  Her ear/nose/throat specialist recommended we remove her tonsils.  This was done in July of 2000.  She has not had any problems in this area since the surgery.  As of January 31, 2001, she was weighed 34 pounds and was 41 inches tall.

We kept her involved through out the summer with children her own age and older.  We enrolled her in a day school one day a week to give her an idea of how "school" works in America.  She loved going and being with other kids.  She had a fear of heights and water when we adopted her.  Her older brothers worked with her all summer, teaching her to swim in our pool, overcome her fear of heights and play American games.  She had other little girls in our family over to play or stay the night frequently.  This has helped her tremendously in developing emotionally and mentally.  She had her first birthday party with us in August 2000.   She did not speak any English when entering the U.S. and did not know how to interact and play in a group environment with children. She would always play singularly within a group.  She now group plays and shares her toys.  She now has a large English vocabulary and has sentence structure of 6-8 words.

She was enrolled in kindergarten in the public school system in August of 2000.  She had problems in the beginning sitting still, listening and following the rules.  Her teacher was very patient with her, and knew she had never experience "American" school before.  The other children in the class were also a big help in teaching her words and helping her with work. By the end of the December her English had improved greatly.  She was evaluated for speech impairment in early January 2001.  She will start special classes soon, to help her develop her words and sounds properly.  We attended a conference with her teacher on January 19, 2001.  She was very pleased with Leana?s progress since the first of the year.  She can sing her ABC's and know most of them by sight, upper and lower case.  She is learning the sounds they make and learning her colors. She can count to 20.  Her teacher was very pleased with her behavior improvement.  She now understands the rules and how to follow them. She still can get distracted easily, but has improved greatly.  Emotionally and mentally, she still hasn?t caught up with the kids her own age, but she is improving. She has made friends with several students in her class and plays good with others.  She is always polite and says, thank you.  She was very dependent on her older brother (Justin) when school started.  They would walk into the school together. He would help her find her room, pay her lunch money for her, go eat breakfast with her and walk her to the school bus in the afternoon.  She can now do all of these things by herself if needed.

Leana has adapted to the family environment very well in the 10 months we have had her.  Her papa  travels in his job.  She asks about him frequently throughout the week and always wants to talk to him on the phone when he calls. She loves her grandparents very much.  One grandma now lives next door.  Leana visits them often.  Her older brother Justin, is her buddy. They play together, watch cartoons and share snacks. He makes it a point to tuck her in at night and give her a kiss.  They both share a great love of animals.  Neither one can bear to see an animal mistreated.  They took in a lost puppy this winter and together have became his parents.  They have 3 cats and 2 dogs.  They are learning to ride horses as well.  Her other brother, Drew, has shown a lot of patience with her. He was instrumental in teaching her to swim and overcome her fear of heights this past summer.  He likes to teach her new skills.  She depends on her momma for all of the normal childhood things.  She comes to me when hurt or upset.  She's always very eager to show me something new she has learned. She helps me cook and get ready for dinner.   I have taught her to use a computer.  She has several teaching games for computers she plays all the time.  One night I found her printing coloring sheets on my printer.  I hadn't taught her to print yet, but she figured it out.  She loves sharing momma?s bed once in a while, when papa is away. We read books every night.  She has her own room and sleeps there most of the time.  Leana is very good at drawing.  Her favorite activity is to draw, color and cut out her work.  As her language skills increase, she surprises us more and more, with her humor and thoughts on various issues. She has always seemed to understand us more than we could understand her.  There was a lot of hand gestures and pointing in the beginning.  After being home about a month, she began speaking english words without being ask.  Little by little her vocabulary grew.  Attempts have been made to retain her Ukrainian language.  We have had Ukrainian tapes and people talk to her.  But she seems to have lost interest and wants to learn only English. She likes listening to the tapes, her music as she calls it, but says she doesn't understand what they are saying.  We will encourage her when she's older to re-learn her native language.

We have had Leana in our home for 10 months now and we can't imagine life without her.  She is very much a part of our family.   Everyone says she looks just like her momma.  No one would ever be able to guess she?s adopted.  We completed our Tennessee requirements for adoption in December 2000.   We are very thankful for our friends in Ukraine for making our dreams of having a daughter come true.  I have spoken often to friends who have an interest in adoption and have recommended Ukraine to them.  There are a lot of wonder kids over there.  Thank you again.

The Jeff Collins Family.

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