Going to go back to Private

Okay so when we received our referral I put the blog on private so I could talk about it. Once we passed court I decided to go back to being public, but after much consideration I feel that the best thing for our family is to go back to private. I'm pretty sure that this blog is not that popular with people that I don't know so I don't think I am going to be cutting anyone out of reading it. I only started this blog to record the journey to our children and to let family and friends know what was going on in our adoption without having to call each and every one of them every time something substational happened. So starting Monday I am going to go back to being a private blog. If you would like an invite you can either leave a comment or if we are facebook friends leave me a message there. If you were on the private list before do not worry you will be on there again. Thanks for the understanding.

Just some words (long)

Eight years after endometriosis caused me to have to have a hysterectomy I have become a mother. I only mention the hysterectomy due to the fact that some women out there may be feeling that the only way to become a mother is to give birth to a child. Well I am here to say that that just isn't true. Just look at the pictures of these precious children, MY precious children. God has blessed us twice and I do believe that they are why I cannot conceive a child. Now I am not going to say that I didn’t have my doubts because believe me I had many, many doubts that I would ever become a mother, but I never gave up hope that someday I would be a mom.
When I first heard that I would have to have a hysterectomy I tried to stay positive, I mean what could I do? I was in so much pain that all I cared about was that after the surgery that pain would be gone. I was single and wasn’t even thinking about motherhood or what this surgery meant for my future. I had always wanted to adopt; the thought of pushing a watermelon through a hole the size of a pea did not appeal to me at all! LOL! So when the surgery was over and I found out that they were able to save my ovaries I only thought about the fact that I wouldn’t be going through early menopause. Later I thought about being able to use a surrogate. In fact when Matt and I discussed starting a family this is what he would think of while my thoughts turned to adoption. Matt and I started seriously talking about starting our family in April of 2008, just a few short months after buying our home. I started researching adoption and surrogacy. I only did the surrogate research to appease Matt, I knew with utmost certainty that I wanted to adopt, but since we both had a hand in the decision I looked at all of our options. After researching we realized that surrogacy is very expensive and you are not at all guaranteed to have a child at the end of the journey, whereas adoption there is a guarantee. So then my research turned to what type of adoption would best fit us; International or Domestic. I did a lot of research on all the countries we could adopt from and I also got a lot of information regarding domestic adoption. Then on November 16, 2008, on our way to a domestic adoption seminar in Glen Ellyn, IL Matt announced to me that he was ready to start the adoption process and he wanted to adopt from Ethiopia!! YAY! See after many months of researching domestic and international adoption I had my heart set on adopting from Ethiopia. I’ll admit it was the last country I had researched due to the fact that the children would be black and Matt and I are both blond with fair skin. I wondered; How would our family react? or How would the public react? Soon I realized that I didn’t care, this was where are children were, I could feel it my bones, but most importantly I felt it in my heart. I knew God had placed this feeling in me and soon he placed it in Matt’s heart too. So since we no longer needed to go to a domestic adoption seminar, we turned around and headed home to tell our parents and Matt’s sister that we were going to be parents to a child from Ethiopia!! (Not until we started the adoption process did we decide to adopt two at once.) By the way are families were and still are thrilled for us. They could really care less about the race of our children; their only concern is our happiness.
We officially started the process in March of 2009 and now 1 year, 2 months, 3 weeks and 6 days later we are officially parents to 11 month old twins.
So you see just because you can’t give birth to children doesn’t mean you can’t be a parent. Parenting is so much more than giving birth. No it’s not the “normal” way to have children but what is “normal” anyways. These babies are my babies whether I gave birth to them or not they are my children in every other way possible!!! Forever! I hope that this gives other women and men hope and understanding that their children are out there somewhere. Sometimes you just have to look a little harder.
We would like to thank all of you that have supported us thus far on our journey to our children. We know we couldn’t have done any of this without the support of our family and friends. We are forever grateful for each and every one of you. The best is still yet to come. We hope to be bringing our children home in August.
Love,
Matt, Jennifer, Avery and Isabelle Barbee

Introducing....

Avery David Hayder and Isabelle Jane Heyriya Barbee

While we were sleeping last night the courts in Ethiopia granted us the privelage to be the parents to these two precious souls. They were born on June 29, 2009 in Shewarobit. We have been doubly blessed and couldn't be any happier. We hope to be traveling to pick them up to bring them home forever in August. For now we wait, yet again. But soon so soon we will have them in our arms and all this waiting will be behind us and we can begin our life as a family of four (six if you count Capone and Rocco).

Pictures

This is my friend Debbie's little girl Naomi. Isn't she precious! Naomi is 2 weeks older than the twins and came home from Ethiopia a couple of days after we received our referral. I see a great friendship in the near future for the twins and Naomi. Naomi also has a big sister, Liliana, who came home a couple of years ago from Guatamala. Lili was with her Daddy while Naomi and Deb were at the baby shower so unfortunately I did not get a picture taken with her. But believe me she is an absolute doll.

One month from today the twins will turn "1". I so wish we could be with them on that day, but it is good to know that we will never miss another birthday with them. We will definately be doing a no presants birthday party once they get home. I want them to atleast get to dig in to their first birthday cake. I also want pictures of this event.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend. Thank you to all of those that have fought for our freedom!

COURT DATE!!!!

We got our court date today: June 8th. And what is even better is we don't have to travel for it. Now in some ways I am a bit disappointed to hear this due to the fact that I am ready to meet my babies, but for our pocketbook it is a good thing. I'm just glad to know that we are one more step closer to being "legal" parents to these two precious babes, of course in our hearts we already are their parents, but for the sake of red tape we must do things their (read: government's)way. So hopefully in three and half weeks we will posting photos on the blog and packing to go and pick them up. Please pray that all goes well with the court hearing and also if you could please pray for their tummy mommy, I can't even imagine what she has and is going thru.

Baby Shower

This past Saturday (May 8th) my mom, mother-in-law and sister-in-law threw me a baby shower. We had it at Jupiter's II and it was so very nice. Almost everyone that was invited came so there were around 35 people there. We rec'd a lot of nice baby gear along with money and gift cards that I have already used up buying the things that we need but did not receive. The only things that I haven't gotten yet are more clothes (we need some in larger sizes), diapers (for travel), and formula. So all in all we are ready for our babies. Let me say that again, WE ARE READY FOR OUR BABIES!!!!! I am so sick of waiting for our court date it is not even funny. The way things are looking we might be able to travel in June though, so that would be good. I would rather not wait that long but unfortunately it is not in my control, if it was the twins would already be home. I did not get any pictures of the baby shower, which I might say really ticks me off. I had my camera laid out and in the craziness of setting everything up it got buried and I totally forgot to make sure it was with me. I think some people got some pictures but I'm not sure. I will get pictures of the quilts my grandmother made the babies though. They are so gor.ge.ous. She is so talented! The nursery is coming together quite nicely. There cribs are ready for them. We got their crib skirts yesterday so last night I put on the skirts and their bumpers. Their cribs look so cute, they will look even cuter once Avery and Isabelle are them though.

So obviously we are still waiting on our court date. Noone else has rec'd a court date lately either, so I know it isn't just us. Our agency said that our paperwork is in the courts and we should get our court date before the elections, but we will see. I promise that I will let you all know when we hear anything.

Names

Well Matt and I have finally agreed upon the names for our children. His name will be Avery David Ethiopian nameand her name will be Isabelle Jane Ethiopian name. It has been a long and trying road for us to agree on the names. I'm guessing these two children will be our last simply due to the fact that we would never be able to agree on names for any more.LOL!! Well not much more to post at this point, when we have to tell I will definately post it. Til then.

more nursery pictures

Here are more, the blog is not letting me download more than 5 at a time. Sorry!

nursery pictures

Traveling update (Long)

We received information today from our agency regarding the new rules for traveling. If our court date does not come before the second week of May we will have to travel twice. Matt and I understand that there is nothing we can do about this new rule so we are just going to roll with the punches and do whatever we have to do to bring our little ones home. The money is the only thing that we are worried about and we are only a little worried about that because we know that we can do it. We have faith in each other that we can get through this as painlessly as possible because we are a team and we will do whatever it takes to bring the rest of our team home. On the brighter side we would be able to see our "chipmunk" and "bumble bee" sooner than we were expecting to. Plus we would get to do a lot more touristy things while in country than we would if we only traveled once. The reason being is that our first trip the children will not be legally ours so we will not be able to check them out of the orphanage so we will only visit with them when there schedule allows it. So that means while we are not visiting our children we can shop, go to the museums, etc. The second trip we will get custody of them and that is also a shorter trip from what I have heard. Only one of us has to go on the second trip, and if Matt is on a good job we will probably be looking for someone to go with me to pick up the kiddos so that he can stay here and make that much needed money. So who wants to go to Ethiopia with me to pick up our babies? Just leave a note in the comments and I will be drawing the lucky person's name later. LOL.

We will be taking donations for our garage sale also so if you have anything you would like to donate to us please either call me at 217-714-7932 or email me at jennifer_barbee@yahoo.com and we will come and pick the stuff up.

Thanks for all the prayers they are much appreciated!!


The following is the email from our agency:

Dear Families,

The conference of attorneys ended today and Abebe called Radu to inform him of the decisions and changes to the Ethiopia Program. Here are the findings.

Beginning the second week of May (the exact date is yet to be determined) families WILL BE required to travel to Ethiopia for the court date. The families (both parents, one parent, or an escort) will also have to travel back for the visa appointment. These two dates will be about 7-8 weeks apart.

In an effort to ensure that the court process will only require one appearance, it was decided that if MOWA does not have the required letter (often the reason for court dates to be rescheduled) , the proceedings will still occur, a determination will be made (regardless of the lack of letter), and MOWA will send the letter post-completion to the courts. The justices have said they will NOT be postponing court dates for this at all!

Additionally, it will be possible in some situations (Radu expects to have more details about this situations in the weeks to come.) for only one parent to travel for the court appearance if they have a notarized power-of-attorney from the absent parent. This does NOT affect the possibility of using an escort for the Embassy appointment. (But, at least one parent WILL have to be present for the court date.)

Finally, it was decided that the orphanages will have to obtain and produce a birth certificate for every child prior to the court appearance. In the past, sometimes attorneys had it and sometimes they didn’t (in the case of abandonment, for instance.) This birth certificate will state that this child “exists,” include basic data, and will be accompanied with a picture. (There is no expected additional wait time associated with this change.) Then, upon a successful court date, a second birth certificate will be issued by the Minister of Justice and will have the child’s family name. (The last name of the adoptive parents.)
Currently, there are two types of Visas issued by the US Embassy in Ethiopia for adopted children.
IR-3: Which generally means that the child is adopted abroad.
IR-4: The child is brought back to the US for adoption here.
With an IR-3, the adoption is processed in the country of the orphan. IR-3s Visa recipients are automatically considered citizens as they "immigrate" to the US (meaning when they cross to the US for the first time as part of a new family). This recognition only applies to the US federal government and does not carry over into state recognition (though, many states recognize the adoption based on the Visa type). To qualify for an IR-3 visa, BOTH parents (if married) or sole adopting parent MUST visit the child PRIOR to the Court.

This will mean that you might no longer need to “re-adopt” the child/children in the United States as they will have come home on an IR3 Visa. (However, each state has its own regulations, so check with your state immigration office.)

These changes, at the root, are to ensure authenticity of the status of “orphan” for these children. Yes, this may make it more complicated for some. Yes, there are some aspects of this change that may be questionable. But, at the end of the day, this will provide more assurance for the government of Ethiopia, for the citizens of Ethiopia, for adoptive parents, and for the adopted children that the adoption is ethical.