03-26-2011

03-26-2011

Tessa has been at her new home since Monday evening. It seems to be going pretty well.

On Wednesday our niece Jori drove her kids past Tessa's new house as the kids hadn't seen it. On their way back they saw Tessa's bus coming back from school so they turned around to watch her. Tessa got off the bus and bounced into the house, seemingly happy to be "home".

Jori and her daughter Hallie burst into tears at the sight of Tessa 'all grown up'.

Thursday we had her annual review at her school. We did not see her, by design. It's not clear at this point if Tessa will be there after this school year. Tessa's teacher got teary eyed after her report and said that Tessa will be missed. Tessa's art teacher was emotional when presenting some of Tessa's paintings to us. She gave Julie some old pictures of Tessa from years past. That made Julie cry.

Everyone had nice things to say about our daughter. The school district special aide coordinator, who has a special needs child, got emotional discussing our decision to place Tessa and talked about her dilemma in considering placing her own daughter.

Everyone was supportive and gave very good reviews about Tessa. It has been extremely gratifying to know that people genuinely care about her and have prepared her well for her adult life.

Reports from the house have been very good. Tessa seems to be adjusting very well. It has occurred to me that maybe we needed her more than she needed us. The only real issue that there seems to be at this point is that Tessa's fluid intake is down due to her refusal to drink anything other than Diet Coke. I have no doubt that they will figure that out.

While it's been a heart breaking experience in many ways, I am encouraged to think that Tessa will do fine without us. She's got a lot of life left and her parents won't live forever. I am happy that Tessa can adjust to a new environment and carve out her own niche. That is what this whole exercise was about, after all.

Julie has been riding an emotional roller coaster. She's working on leveling out.

Today we plan to finally visit Tessa for a little while.

I ache to hug her.