Do you believe in magic?!

I do! I believe that blogging has magical powers. I've written about this before, about how every time I blog about something I would like to happen it happens. Well it happened again today. I blogged about not having our 171h and we should get our 171H early next week!! YIPPEE!!

AT around 3 o'clock this afternoon I got a call from an employee at the NBC/USCIS office stating that they could not find our paperwork and asked if I could fax over the paperwork so they could have it to process. Matt brought all our paperwork to my office and I got it all together and he took it to FedEx and he faxed it to them at around 4pm and at around 630pm we had this emai:

"Good Afternoon.
We received your faxed documents. I have rewritten your I-171H and sent the documents to the NVC. I have also placed a copy of the new I-171H in the mail for you.
Congratulations and Best Wishes.

Warm regards,"

I'm not going to post her name for her privacy, but she is now my BFF. She has bent over backwards for us and we will never be able to thank her enough. We are thinking about sending her Boss a nice letter. I am definately going to send her a Thank you card and probably slip a picture of us and the twins together so she can see who she helped and how much her work means to the people she is helping. We still need to make sure that NVC does there part quickly, so we are not totally letting out our breaths but we are definately breathing a little better. Thank you for all the prayers. Our God does great and powerful things and knowing that is what is getting me through all of this.

Still waiting...

So we are still waiting on our new 171H and we leave in 1 week and 6 days!! Our S.W. keeps telling me not to stress but seriously how can I not?! I am trying however not to dwell on the shoulda, coulda, woulda's of our journey to this point. Nothing can change the past so I need to just focus on what is ahead of us and what needs to be done now. It is hard but I am trying. I'm just so scared that 1. We will be stuck in Ethiopia with no certainty of when we would be able to go home or 2. Our embassy date will have to be moved to a later date. Neither of these options sits well with Matt and I. All I want is to bring our babies home. I did get an email from a woman from the NBC/USCIS office today saying that she would be putting my email regarding our case in the expedite file, whatever that means. But atleast one more person knows the urgency of our case. The more the better I say. Our S.W. says that he knows of two people on our case, so that is 3 people working on this. So hopefully it will get done soon. Many more prayers needed. Thank you.

Attachment Do's and Dont's

Do
1. Offer household help (running errands, preparing meals that can go right from the freezer to the oven, etc.) so the mother and father can spend more time holding the children.
2. Trust the mother’s instincts. Even a first time parent may notice subtle symptoms that well-meaning family and friends attribute to "normal" behavior.
3. Accept that attachment issues are difficult for anyone outside of the parents to see and understand.
4. Be supportive even if you think everything looks fine to you.
5. Allow the parents to be the center of the baby’s world. One grandfather, when greeting his grandson, immediately turns him back to his parents and says positive statements about his good mommy and daddy.
6. Tell the baby every time you see her what a good/loving/safe mommy and daddy she has.
7. When the parents need someone to care for the baby for a night out, offer to babysit in the child's home. (After the child has been home for a substantial period of time.)
8. As hard as it may be for you, abide by the requests of the parents. Even if the baby looks like she really wants to be with Grandma, for example, she needs to have a strong attachment to her parents first. Something as simple as passing the baby from one person to another or allowing others, even grandparents, to hold a baby who is not "attached" can make the attachement process that much longer and harder. Some parents have had to refrain from seeing certain family members or friends because they did not respect the parents' requests.
9. Accept that parenting children who are at-risk for or who suffer from attachment issues goes against traditional parenting methods and beliefs. Parenting methods that work for many children can be detrimental to a child with attachment issues.
10. Remember that there is often a honeymoon period after the child arrives. Many babies do not show signs of grief, distress, or anxiety until months after they come home. If the parents are taking precautions, they are smart and should be commended and supported!

Don’t
1. Assume an infant is too young to suffer from emotional issues related to attachment. Babies are not immune.
2. Underestimate a new parent’s instincts that something isn’t right.
3. Judge the parents’s parenting abilities. What looks like spoiling or coddling may be exactly what the child needs to overcome a serious attachment disorder. Parenting methods that work for many children can be detrimental to a child with attachment issues.
4. Make excuses for the child’s behaviors or try to make the mother feel better by calling certain behaviors "normal". For example, many children who suffer from attachment issues may be labeled strong-willed by well-meaning family members. While being strong-willed can be seen as a positive personality trait, this type of behavior in an attachment-impaired child may signify problems.
5. Accuse the mother/father of being overly sensitive or neurotic. They are in a position to see subtle symptoms as no else can.
6. Take it personally if asked to step back so the parents can help their child heal and form a healthy and secure attachment. You may be asked not to hold the baby for more than a minute. This is not meant to hurt you. It is meant to help prove to the baby who his mommy and daddy are. Up until now the children's experience has been that mommies and daddies are replaceable. Allowing people to hold the babies before they have accepted their forever mommy and daddy are can be detrimental to the attachment process.
7. Put your own time frames on how long attachment should take. One mother was hurt when she was chastised by a relative who couldn't understand…after all, the baby had been home six months. It could take weeks, months, even years. Every child is different.
8. Offer traditional parenting advice. Some well-meaning family members will tell a new mother not to pick the baby up every time they cry because it will spoil them. Children who is at-risk or who suffers from attachment issues must be picked up every single time they cry. They need consistent reinforcement that their mommy/daddy will always take care of them and always keep them safe.
9. Fall into the appearance trap. Some babies/toddlers with attachment issues can put on a great show to those outside of the mother/father. What you see is not always a true picture of the child. Even babies as young as 6-months-old are capable of "putting on a good face" in public.
10. Lose hope. With the right kind of parenting and therapy, a child with attachment issues can learn to trust and have healthy relationships. But it does take a lot of work and a good understanding of what these children need.

Needing some major prayers....- Updated

Okay so yesterday we finally rec'd our approval letter from DCFS and our updated home study. So Matt drove to Chicago and dropped it all off at the USCIS building. A wonderful woman there looked it all over and proceeded to let Matt know that there were a couple of things wrong. 1.) Our fingerprints with the FBI and State Police were expired 2.) Some wording in the report about our living environment were missing. So I contacted our Social Worker and explained to him what needed to be done. He sent me the forms to get the FBI and State Police fingerprint reports updated and he changed the wording in the home study regarding the living arrangements. But as of today, July 1, all this info needs to go to Missouri instead of Chicago. And the fingerprint updates take 48 - 72 hours to receive and with the holiday weekend it could be even longer. Our Social Worker is going to see if he can just email them the corrected pages of the home study and if they will expidite our paperwork due to our situations. Because, we leave in exactly 3 weeks for Ethiopia and if we don't have all of this taken care of we won't be leaving Ethiopia until it is resolved. So I'm asking for major prayers, pleading really, for all of this to be resolved before we go over there. Or to have been resolved before our Embassy appt. on Monday the 26th. Thanks to all of you.

**UPDATE: I just got off the phone with our Social Worker and he informed me that our clearances came back yesterday. So he is going to get in contact with a woman at the USCIS in Missouri and see if he can email her the two pages that needed corrected so we can get the ball rolling to get our amended 171H. Please pray that this woman tells him that he can email them and that our S.W. is able to stress to her how much we need this paperwork done as soon as possible. Thanks for the prayers you have given so far.

***UPDATE #2: Everything is now at the USCIS office in Missouri. A woman there told our Social Worker that it should be done by the end of this week and that they would expidite our paperwork so that our travel date would not be delayed. We still have a ways to go before we can breathe easy but we are getting closer to having this resolved. So we now pray for the person who will be taking care of our paperwork to be able to get it done in time. We need to have the hard copy of this form before we leave on the 22nd and the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia needs the update to be in there computer system by the 26th for our appt. Lots of prayers still needed that this all can be done.

We got our travel date!

I received an email from our agency today that stated that we need to be in Ethiopia on July 24th by 8am!!! Oh my goodness, in one month I will be holding my babies! Matt and I will be searching for flights tonight and getting our guest house reservations made. I can't believe this is actually happening. The bad part, not really bad but anyways, is that my friend Debbie and I had a shopping date for the
23rd to buy all the necesseties we will need to take with us and to buy Avery more clothes. I guess that will need to be rescheduled or I will just have to brave it on my own.LOL. I tell you what this blogging stuff is like magic. I blogged saying it was 2 months of waiting for a referral and we get our referral, I blogged about wanting to get our court date and we got our court date, I blog about the twins 1st birthday and we get our travel date. So now off to find cheap flights. Cross your fingers for us.

Today our Ethiopian prince and princess turn 1 year old! Oh how I wish we could all be together for this momentous occassion. In Ethiopia they do not celebrate birthdays, in fact many do not even know when they were born. They do not have birth certificates as many are not even born in a hospital. We are lucky to know the date of our children's birth. Once they are home we will be having a birthday party for them (read: Matt and I), excluding gifts. I just want to be able to have pics of them with their first birthday cake. You know the ones; icing in the hair, face covered in cake and icing. Ah the joys of being a child!

Happy Birthday sweet ones, Mommy and Daddy will be there soon.

Awesome weekend

So our weekend started off great with new pictures of the twins on Friday afternoon. Friday night I took my mom to Tuscola to see her boyfriend's granddaughter in her first play. But before we went to the play we went to the outlet mall and went to Osh B'Gosh and Carter's and bought some clothes for the babies. Not that they really need anymore but oh well they got some anyways. Then we went and watched the play, which was really cute. It was "Alice in Wonderland" and Mary Rose played the Cheshire Cat, she did a really good job. After the play mom and I went to Villa Grove and met up with our cousin Carol and her husband Paul at the VFW and had a couple of drinks. Every once in awhile it is nice to hang out in my hometown and hear all of the gossip, but only every once in awhile. After we left the VFW we drove around and went by our old house. I do miss the big V.G. sometimes but mainly I miss all of my friends from my childhood and just my childhood in general really. It was a pretty good town to grow up in. Saturday was our 4-year wedding anniversary, we went low key this year. With all of the travel expenses coming up we are trying to save as much money as possible. So we have taken a vow not to eat out or buy anything unless we absolutely need it. ie: food and gas. So we just cleaned out the car we will be using as the "Family Car", then we went to the pool (we allowed ourselves a pool pass for the summer), we took the dogs for a walk, cooked out and after all that we just chilled and watched a movie. It was a Fantastic day! Sunday we went to church, then to Matt's parents house for a Father's Day cookout, after we left the in law's house went to Jupiter's II to meet up with two families that we have become good friends with through our adoption. One of the greatest things that has happened in this process, besides the twins of course, are all the great people we have met. Adoption doesn't just connect you to your children it also connects you to some great people who we are lucky enough to call our friends. We ended our weekend by just relaxing and watching some TV. It was such a great weekend! The weather was awesome and I got to spend time with loved ones. What more could a girl ask for? Well I'm sure I could think of something but I'm not going to push my luck. Next Father's Day will be extra special due to the fact that Matt won't just be legally a father he will have his children home with him. I can't wait to watch our children learn, laugh, cry and just be plain silly with their Daddy. I know he is going to be a great father and I am so happy that I get to share in the joys of parenthood with him. Hope all of you had a great Father's Day weekend.

An Update with pictures!

We got an update today!! The twins are still tiny but we plan on fixing that when they get home. Avery is only 14.7 lbs and Isabelle is 15.2 lbs. I guess this is to be expected when they are only able to feed them 3 bottles a day in the orphanage. It just breaks my heart to know that all these babies are not able to get the nourishment that they need and deserve. Atleast I know that these two babes will soon have everything they need and more. I'm so ready! Especially after seeing these new pictures. Every picture we get they just get more and more real to me and I get more and more anxious to go get them. Yesterday I sent a care package for each of them to a family that will be traveling on Tues. to pick up their twins. In the package I sent them a photo book with pics of Me, Matt and the dogs, plus blankets that Matt and I slept with for a couple of weeks. Hopefully this will help them recognize us when we go and pick them up. Needing lots of hopes and prayers that we get the Aug. 9th embassy date. We will even take the July 26th embassy date if need be. Even though the July date would mean spending about $1000.00 more on airfare we will do it for OUR two precious babies. Mommy and Daddy love you and can't wait to finally hold you in our arms.

So Angry!

In January my friend Debbie made me aware of the fact that our 171H (permission to bring an orphan into the U.S.A.) was wrong. The reason being is that on our home study it said that we were wanting to adopt children 0-6 months at referral, well then DCFS approved us for 0-6 months at referral, which in turn made USCIS approve us on our 171H to be able to bring children 0-6 months in to the U.S. Which means that our children could not be older than 6 months when we brought them home. Well anyone who has adopted, our social worker has, knows that in International Adoption most children come home older than 6 months. When this came to our attention our dossier was already in Ethiopia so I called our placement agency director and he told me to get it fixed ASAP but that it would not affect our paperwork in country, we just needed to have it fixed before we had our embassy appt. Easy peasy since our dossier had only been in country for a couple of weeks and we were expecting to wait 4-6 months just for our referral. So I called our social worker and asked him if he could get our home study changed to say we were approved for children up to 14 months old and he said he would do that no problem. Well a month goes by and I haven't heard anything from our S.W. and when I called to see how things were going with the change he had no idea what I was even talking about. Oh great! So I explained it again and he said he would take care of it. A month later we get our referral and I call him to let him know. I then find out that he still had not changed anything in our h.s. He said that it was no big deal and that with us now having a referral it would be a lot easier to get done. See in Illinois DCFS has to approve not only your h.s. but also your referral. So he was going to send our updated h.s. along with our referral to DCFS and we should be good to go. Matt called our S.W. in April asking if everything had been sent off to DCFS and he acted like he wasn't sure what he was talking about but he would look into it. When he got back to Matt he told him that DCFS had not seen our paperwork yet and that they were really backed up, but don't get worried we still had plenty of time to get it fixed. Then about a month ago our S.W. called saying that DCFS had lost our paperwork and that he, our S.W., could no longer bring up our referral information that I had sent him. SERIOUSLY!! Then on Tuesday I get an email from him that I wasn't sure about so I called him only to find out that DCFS needed an update of our CANTS report, basically saying we are not child abusers, and that they couldn't do anything until they got that. So that was two weeks right there that we thought DCFS was processing our paperwork and come to find out they weren't, but he never even told us. Did I mention that we HAVE to have this paperwork fixed before we go and pick our children up hopefully the second week of August. I know that every thing will work out it is just very frustrating to think that we paid good money to have this stuff done correctly and it wasn't. I guess if we decide to this again we will know better.

Our referral story

CONGRATULATIONS IT’S TWINS!!

March 23, 2010

At 2:37p yesterday I saw that I had missed a call from our agency and the message just said to call back. So I called expecting to learn that we needed some paperwork changed or something. Here is how that conversation went:

Me: (as the phone is ringing I’m checking my email. You know just in case. Nothing is there from AA.) Hi this is Jennifer Barbee and I had a message to call.
Radu: How are you today?
Me: Good. How are you?
Radu: Fine thank you. Can I ask you a question?
Me: Yes.
Radu: Can you keep a secret?
Me: Yes.
Radu: Seriously, do you promise you can keep a secret?
Me: Yes.
Radu: Okay then look at your email.
Me: I don’t see anything. What email address did you send it to?
Some searching on his part and me closing my email and then seeing I had one new message.
Me: Oh I see it. Oh my gosh your kidding right? (the reason for this reaction is because I was looking at an email with the subject line: referral. This is where the sobbing began.)
Radu: this is a special case in which there were twins a boy and a girl available and you and your husband were the only ones who requested this. This doesn’t usually happen so fast and there are other families who have and are waiting longer so you need to make sure not to announce this on the Internet as to not upset anyone.
Me: (a very shaky )Okay thank you.
Radu: You are welcome.

And then the phone conversation was over.

I was able to call Matt and tell him he needed to come to the office. At first he thought something was wrong with my boss because he could tell that I was upset but then I told him we got our referral and he understood my shaky voice. After hanging up with Matt I shakily called my mom to let her know that she was a grandma, unofficially of course. Then I called our home study agency to let our social worker know. Then Matt finally showed up and we sat down to see our baby’s faces for the first time together. Let me just tell you they are the most precious faces I have ever seen. I’m sure it has nothing to do with me being a bit biased or anything either. You’ll understand once I am able to post their pics. Last night was a whirlwind of tears, phone calls, oohs and aahs.

All I can say at this moment it that they are 8 months old and perfect.

Next we wait for our court date. We will not be allowed to travel in May or June due to the elections so we will hopefully travel some time after July but before December. If all goes well that is. As for Matt and I we are going to be kicking it up a notch and getting those honey-do-projects going.

Thank you to all of you that prayed for us. Now I am asking that you please pray for our babies and their family who I am sure misses them. It is really a double edged sword when you receive your referral because you are excited for the chance to be parents to these perfect little beings but at the same time you know that someone out there is missing there babes. Hopefully they will find peace in knowing that their babies are being taken care of and are loved.