Momma's Perspective

 Daddy and Joy

She's a sweetie!

AND she's spunky!  A true Homme Clan kiddo!

I am so thankful for my sweet and capable hubby! And I am so thankful for all of the prayer and support from all of you.  I experienced such peace during Jay's time away and felt so much love from my kids and friends.  Thank you!!

I wanted to take the opportunity to brag on my hubby a bit.  He tends to be so hard on himself (you can probably tell by his posts).  So I wanted to share the things I witnessed via phone calls, Face Time, etc.

One of the things I admire about my man is his ability to see a child- really see their heart- and put them at ease.  To draw them out of moods, fear, shyness and reassure them in their struggles and pain.      I got to be the fly on the wall so to speak and watch this happen with our daughter Joy.  We have been having regular phone calls and bonding with her on a weekly basis and we have seen her heart open up and connect with us more and more.  But it is a whole new ball game when you are trying to bond on foreign turf without any back up (and under the microscope- everyone is watching and evaluating you).  While it was so hard and at times exhausting and discouraging- I wanted to show you a glimpse of the wins!!  What I saw was a fragile child become more relaxed and confident in her caregiver, bonds of trust, and unconditional love- a child who grinned from ear to ear when she was connecting with us and with Jay.  We also got to do a lot of face- time and gave Joy bonding time with siblings (and me!) - having longer everyday, sometimes silly conversations(she and Andrew liked to eat meat at the same time and show each other their ABC food and show each other toys), seeing our house, her room, the cat, the dog (all highlights for her!).  Anyone who has watched the TBRI videos (Trust Based methods to connect with hurting/fragile children by Karen Purvis) knows that things that seem so little (making eye contact, holding hands, verbalizing needs, talking about past hurts, etc.) are really huge steps toward having a connected parent/child relationship. By the end of the few days she was conquering fears- even bravely touching the water in the pool! And shields came down emotionally We saw the real Joy emerging and flourishing.

Now for the fun- here are some great pictures so far (thank you iCloud!!!!)

 SO PROUD OF JOY- (she touched the water for the first time!  She has been talking about "Justo" and Andrew going in the pool with her, but has been super afraid of the water -a fire alarm sounded while we were near it last year)

She wants to touch the water but isn't too sure

Hmmm

She did it!!  So proud of my brave girl- and my awesome hubby for helping her through this fear.

My beautiful daughter!  Andrew say's she is better than a rose.  Yes she is!!

So thankful for you all!!
Becky

Saturday's Greeting from Ghana

Okay, you've created a monster.  So many of you have sent nice comments, words of encouragement and wisdom that I've developed a Pavlovian conditioned response to writing these updates.  In fact, I just had to wipe some saliva off the iPad (j/k).

I'll really go for brevity (if possible) but I realized today that as someone who has never been good at journaling these updates will likely serve me better than my memory often does as I think back on these days here in Ghana and especially the time with Joy.

I fell asleep full of optimism last night but awoke to a frowney-faced 4 year old at 5:40 and figured I was in for another day of walking on the edge of her emotions.

Much of the morning was dodging meltdowns or trying to console her through them.  I've the picture of her standing at the door crying and refusing to turn around etched in my mind (since it's poor form as a parent to actually take a picture at that time).  Eventually soft words and offers to hold her were accepted.

Things started to look up considerably after tummy's were full (her's first, then mine) and we went outside for some walks and to watch people play tennis.  For those who have a mental picture of what a trip to AFRICA is like that involves wild animals running around and the like, Accra (the Capitol city of Ghana) is several million strong and filled with traffic, loud noise, and friendly people (but no elephants as far as I can tell).

We enjoyed a short outing to a local market so I could quickly scoop up some trinkets for the family.  Having Joy in toe really sped up my shopping technique.  For those who have been to this particular market with me before (Becky, Jim, Dad, Malinda, and a few others I'm sure) you're constantly "encouraged" by the locals to come into their shop (basically a bunch of wooden shacks attached to each-other) and haggling is expected.  I like to look around for a while (and have become pretty immune to the barrage of shopkeepers) but today I got right to it and my Ghanian friend who accompanied us paid me the complement of saying that my bargaining prowess made me "more Ghanian than him."

SO MUCH FOR BREVITY .....

A big shout out to my lovely bride of nearing 20 years.  Today is Becky's 41st Birthday and she's more beautiful and precious to me than ever.  We figured that this is the first birthday of hers that we haven't spent together in over 22 years.  We were able to FaceTime twice and the first session was pretty early in the morning back home so Joy and I were actually the first to wish her Happy Birthday and sing to her.  Joy's disposition really took a nice upturn after speaking to and seeing Mommy for the first time today and stayed pretty solid through the second FaceTime session later in our afternoon.  We were blessed by technology to now actually have our first FULL FAMILY PICTURE (see attached below) as the screen capture capabilities of the iPad and iPhone allowed all 8 of us to have some portion of our faces viewable in one image (probably will be the Christmas card this year despite being a bit blurry).

I'd like to say that I've figured out the keys to success with Joy but alas I'm sure that will take more time and devotion.  A few milestones today included actually getting close enough to the swimming pool to touch the water with one hand (she's been very afraid in the past), a silly face session (see attached example), finding someone else to take a photo of us (rather than every duo picture being only from the distance of my arm's length (we thought Joy's arm length would be too short), and my sweet girl snuggling up next to me and falling asleep with my arm around her as I read her the first chapter from Winne-the-Pooh (brilliant writing in my view as a father and Pediatrician, truly captures what I imagine the mind of a young child thinks -- read it slowly if you somehow haven't yet).

I'm saddened that Joy will be heading back to Cape Coast tomorrow- I will miss her immensely and we'll have to go back to our FaceTime-less weekly phone calls (which we treasure but just aren't the same).  I am happy that I'll be heading home as I miss you all (especially my crew).  I look forward to seeing everyone and I'll have more stories, pictures, etc... to share so feel free to pretend to not see me if I'm heading in your direction and make a quick escape.

If all goes well in the courts (I guess that would be a first for us, sorry, a little cynicism just slipped out there) we may have the necessary document by the end of this month such that I can make a quick return trip to file everything with the U.S. Embassy to start that (long) process for getting Joy a Visa/passport to bring her home at long last.  More to come on that front........

Again, a sincere thanks to all of you as you either processed this multifaceted journey with me or possibly just learned how to set your auto-delete e-mail functionality ;-).

For the residents - I guess it will soon be back to my typical boring program director e-mails -- but they have to be better than the stuff MSGME is always sending out (don't tell).

For the rest following us on this adoption journey I will relinquish the rightful post of updater back to the blog queen Becky Homme.

Signing off,
-Jay

Friday's Greeting from Ghana

I promise to make this one short and sweet and will attach a couple pictures.

The day started out early (about 5:30) with Joy tapping me and indicating that she "had to go wee-wee" - which seemed like a very reasonable request.  We were up for good by 6:15(sleeping in for me by home standards but remember that Ghana is currently 5 hours ahead so that feels a lot like getting up at 1:15 which is early even for me).

Much of the day Joy was quite somber and I think her four year old brain was vacillating between being upset with me because I wasn't taking her home and looking to me as her source for comfort (which I suspect for her was odd because as best I can gather she doesn't spend time around men).  My wife gave me some very good encouragement and also reminded me that this was an opportunity for Joy to learn that she could express to me any feeling and it would be returned with love and compassion - laying more groundwork for the future.

We (or mostly I) enjoyed a short afternoon distraction in the form of visiting the dental clinic of a friend here in Ghana (a very nice place with modern equipment and high levels of customer service).  This was the clinic that sent most of their staff for BLS training this week so we had a nice group photo that will show up in their next newsletter.

The highlight of the day came toward the end when, in our new room with substantially better wifi signal strength, we had some good FaceTime sessions with family back home (Aunt/Uncle/Cousins; Mommy, and siblings).  It was with Becky and the kids that Joy finally caved and let out many smiles and hammed it up for them in the way I knew she could.  She's sleeping peacefully now and I'm praying for even more steps forward tomorrow.  I'm definitely strengthening my bonds with this spunky, determined, wonderful little girl (even is she's not consistently fond of me right now -- probably a preview of the teenage years ;-) ).

One more thing, I'll admit that I stooped to some classical American parenting tactics today -- using the iPad for a few games and yes we watched Frozen together.  I don't think Joy knew what to make of all that white stuff on the ground everywhere -- she better get used to it since she'll be a Minnesotan.

So much for short..............

You are all important to me and I appreciate you taking the time to read my ramblings.

Jay

Thursday's Greeting from Ghana

Greetings again from Ghana,

As I write this note my little girl Joy is sound asleep here next to me.  This is a big change from her tear filled eyes prior to drifting off to sleep.  I can only imagine how it must be for her as four year old to be in an unfamiliar setting even if she does know me from the past year of phone calls and pictures.  She is away from the home she knows and I suspect I haven't heard the last of the pleas to return there soon (she's scheduled to go back mid-day Sunday).

I'll admit, I was hoping/praying that she'd be overjoyed to see me and we'd have several days of fun and bonding together before I head home.  Reality quickly trumped that type of wishful thinking but it is still a blessing to be able to have this time with her (even if it may be difficult) because she's to be our child for the rest of our lives and there are greater transitions ahead for everyone involved.

I'll admit that not having my wife Becky with me here (she was a wonderful comforter for Joy last year when we had her with us for a week) makes this a bigger challenge but heck, I'm a pediatrician so I shouldn't be intimidated by this beautiful, skinny, determined four year old who is already missing a few teeth in the front of her face -- should I?? We were able to have a short FaceTime session, when I could locate a strong enough signal down a hallway, with the crew back home and Joy clearly wanted Becky to either be here or for us to go to her (she was even stroking Becky's hair on the iPad screen).

The wifi connection in my room is strong enough for basic e-mail but too weak to send decent photos so I'm going to move rooms tomorrow to try and get more consistent service (we're currently at the end of a long hallway and must be a ways from the routers) so I hope to send some pictures in the near future.

The last two days of training sessions went well.  We had a power outage yesterday afternoon but it worked out okay because I was teaching Helping Babies Breathe and that can be done with a flip chart and non-technology dependent equipment (as it's geared for teaching in resource limited locations).  Today went off without a hitch.

Four of the eight potential new trainers emerged to be well suited and today they were a great asset in teaching and testing basic life support.  Friday they'll have an even greater role and I think they will do well.

One of the neat aspects of this training trip was that there were several individuals who I'd consider non-health care workers in the traditional sense who came to the training and did quite well.  There is a local dental office that decided to send several of their staff, including their accounts manager, handyman, and front desk person to learn basic life support and I was very pleased with the energy, enthusiasm, and ability to demonstrate proficiency with the core skills.   We even had the 17 year old son of the clinic office manager come to training and he also did great.  I have pictures of me handing him his certificate of completion and we both have big grins on or faces.  Joy and I are going to visit their clinic tomorrow so hopefully that will be a nice outing for us.

I will be looking for other ways to fill our time together and suspect that further updates will only come after she's asleep at night.  Thankfully she's pretty early to bed and hopefully will sleep well through the night.

I suppose I'll wrap up this stream of consciousness update.

You are all missed and I look forward to returning home soon.  Thanks for the nice notes I've received as well as for the thoughts and prayers -- they are all greatly needed and appreciated.

Will "talk" again soon.

Jay


PS (from Becky)- Jay asked me to attach this song from Chris Tomlin- "Sovereign"   - the words really speak to where we are right now.  The Lord is Sovereign- and for that we are so thankful!  His love truly is never failing!!!

Greetings from Ghana

Hello everyone,

I arrived safely in Ghana yesterday (Monday) and today was the first day of training sessions.  This morning I taught Basic Life Support to a (mostly) engaged group of both health care workers and a couple of non-health care workers (including an accountant - who did a great job by the way).

The afternoon group was Helping Babies Breathe (a simplified form of newborn resuscitation for more resource limited settings).  Thanks Malinda Harris for use of your slides from when you were with along last year.  For those who may not know, both Malinda Harris (neonatal fellow extraordinaire) and Jim Homme were critical in helping to establish these training programs when we traveled together to Ghana in July 2013 (along with my wife Becky who also pitched in and helped) for the first training of trainers sessions and brought along thousands of dollars worth of equipment (much donated or purchased through generous donations) to lay the groundwork for ongoing training in both Basic Life Support and HBB.

Some of today's trainees also intend on becoming trainers themselves to expand the pool so they can continue training sessions year round.  Some seem promising, others may need quite a bit more work themselves before they are ready to teach/train others.

It's a great pleasure working with members of Africa Partners Medical Ghana (the group who hosts the training sessions).  They really work hard to help realize the primary mission of Africa Partners Medical - to prevent unnecessary illness and deaths in West Africa.

Tomorrow we will repeat BLS in the morning and HBB in the afternoon.  Those intent on becoming trainers will start to take a more active role in helping facilitate the classes and by Thursday (in theory) I should be watching them train and giving feedback.

I am thankful that the air conditioning in the main training hall was working today and that we didn't have any problems with the electricity or the equipment (other than a couple of the HBB mannequins deflating since they are actually filled with air).  The water to the toilets wasn't running but a large garbage can with a bucket to scoop water into the back of the toilet (to allow flushing) did the trick.

Ebola hasn't hit Ghana (thankfully) but even in the short time I've been back there is obviously a much bigger push for good hand hygiene then I'd previously encountered (I'm not the only one carrying hand sanitizer around in my pocket and using it regularly).

Closer to the equator it gets darker much earlier than I'm accustomed to with my beloved Minnesota summer days but I was able to get out for a walk around my hotel for a while this evening (not much to see other than traffic and focusing on the sidewalk irregularities so as not to trip and fall).

At this time I'm planning on having our little girl Joy come to stay with me from Thursday evening through Sunday morning before I start the journey home (she actually lives in a community about three hours from where I am now so I have to wait longer to see her).

I was a bit disappointed to learn yesterday that there will not be a court hearing for us this week but maybe next week (fairly typical story but I'm still optimistic that we are actually going to make some progress soon).  I am not needed at this particular hearing but was hoping to put in appearance if it overlapped with my stay.  I will be sure to send some pictures of Joy and me together once I have some.

I hope all is well with you all.  I will try to send more updates as the week progresses.  I did not intentionally leave anyone off the distribution list so please forward if you can think of anyone who might be interested.

Take care,
-Jay