6 months ago today we had this moment:
It was the day we became a family!
Look how tiny they were! I cannot believe how much they have changed in the last 6 months. They couldn’t even sit up and now they are crawling everywhere and Ez is on the verge of walking!
What a wonderful blessing the last six months have been! Happy half anniversary Noah and Ezra!
Today was re-adoption day which is the domestication of a foreign adoption. What does that mean? That the boys are now legally Noah and Ezra and we will be getting AZ birth certificates for them.
Us and the Judge, he was super nice and Noah really liked him
Ez and mom
Ez and dad
Noah making more friends, he was very happy to meet people today
Noah and his favorite lady, Grandma
The boys having some fun with a glass door
It is the last day of November and that means it is the last day of NaBloPoMo! I hope to keep posting often, just not every day.
I wanted to take this last post to remind all the waiting families that it will happen. I know sometimes it seems it never will. I remember this time last year and just willing my phone to ring. All I wanted for Thanksgiving was a referral and then all I wanted for Christmas was a referral. We were ready to find out who Tom and Jerry were! We were often feeling like it would never happen, but on February 11 of this year it finally did. I know the wait times are increasing, but there really is an end to all that waiting.
It is such a joy to celebrate the holidays this year with Noah and Ezra. I am so thankful for them and am looking for many, many years of celebrations to come.
We received paperwork from our county court to complete our adoption. December 8th!
It feels so good to think that our adoption stuff will be done this year!!!
The CHI in-country representative for Ethiopia was able to come visit Arizona with his wife. They did a wonderful job caring for our little guys in Ethiopia, staying with Ezra at the hospital, worrying about them, making sure they received the best care possible. We absolute adore Tsegay and his wife Almaz and were so glad they were able to see the boys again. We went to a gathering last night of other CHI families and had a great time meeting new families and seeing old friends. We only took two pictures!
Noah just stared at Almaz. I have no idea what Ezra is distracted by in the pictures, but he did give them plenty of smiles.
Hey guess what? I have INSURANCE!!!
Yep that’s right, we were finally approved for insurance. In fact, we received a letter of apology saying that both boys should have been covered with no medical underwriting! What does that mean? It means we get to submit all our receipts from the time period we weren’t covered! We are so happy that we have insurance and are very hopeful that we will get our money back. Of course, I will only truly believe it when I see the check. 🙂
Several of our faithful readers and friends have asked for an update. We are currently appealing the decision of our insurance provider. Ezra was actually declined for no diagnosis. Yes that is correct, NO DIAGNOSIS. We are appealing this decision because in our minds it is ludicrous. I am sure lots of babies are born every day with an undiagnosed health condition and their insurance picks them up no problem. In our minds he is being discriminated against because of potential health issues. He has tested negative twice for the medical issue they are assuming he has. Ezra and I are going in today to have more blood drawn to see if the elevated levels last time have gone down or to see if something else could be the cause. Please pray for the results.
We also learned that the state of Arizona has a law that requires children adopted or born be covered automatically for 31 days. We asked our provider why we were not given the 31 days and they told us they weren’t sure if it applied to us and would give us a decision in 30 days. We contacted the state insurance commissioner’s office and they couldn’t tell us much over the phone and they are currently running 6-9 months out for processing claims. I am assuming we will hear back from them in 9-12 months. Hopefully given the law we will at least be reimbursed for the money we have already paid to have them initially visit the doctor.
That’s all I can share for now. Thanks to everyone for your words of encouragement and your prayers. We are truly thankful to have such a wonderful, supportive community.
Let’s end this boring post with a cute pic!
Ezra sleeping in his exersaucer
Ezra and Noah are 8 months old today! Also tonight marks 4 weeks home. It is hard to believe we were landing at about this time 4 whole weeks ago! It has been great getting to know them over the last month and watch them grow.
The boys have been busy trying lots of new things. Both of them are sitting up now and that is the way they prefer to be, none of that lying on their tummies or backs anymore. Ezra can roll over, but doesn’t like to do it, and Noah has absolutely no interest in it.
They both push up great now, they weren’t doing that when we met them.
Both are very smiley and giggly. Ezra laughs out loud quite often. Noah loves to click his tongue. Ezra taught Noah how to blow juicy raspberries. Sometimes a bit too juicy. Both boys are playing a lot more. Last month toys were for us to play with them trying to entertain them. Now they play on their own a lot.
They have tried all sorts of new foods in the last month. They were only on formula just one month ago, now they are having three additional meals a day. Noah’s favorites are anything we feed him and Ezra’s are sweet potatoes and banana. Avocado is also a big hit, with its gooey green being smashed into our hair, nose and ears as the boys are very into wanting to help with the spoon.
All the animals are doing really well with having babies in the house.
Taffi really loves them
Last night was their first bath in the big tub together. 🙂
Before we left for Ethiopia I had sent off the application to add the boys to our health insurance. Given that they are dependents I figured they would be added or at the worst a pre-existing condition might be excluded for a year. Upon return we learned our health insurance provider wanted more info, so we paid out of pocket to get the necessary doctor appointments and blood test run. Ezra’s test came back and there was one health concern, but I showed the blood test to an international pediatrician and she said she sees this a lot in international adoptions, so I was not concerned. Much to our surprise our insurance is denying him coverage completely.
I am blogging this to ask for help, for prayers, for advice. Has anyone had a similar issue? How did you fight your battle? Did you win or lose? (We are on an individual plan because we are self-employed.) If you do not want to share your story in the comments section, please email me directly.
We have survived our first week home! The jet lag plus having two infants made for a challenging week, but thankfully we had lots of help and lots of food. Here are some highlights from the first week, sorry I am sure more happened but I cannot remember all that much!
The boys in their bumbos.
wow twins are a lot of work. I mean it feels like a lot for both of us. Stephanie and I wonder how people with more kids ever do it. triplets? quadruplets? HA no way!!!. These two are a handful as it is.
We are home and alive, sorry blog updates have been minimal. Catching up on sleep. the boys are all out of whack on their sleeping patterns, but i think we are moving in the right direction. Noah still fights sleep pretty hard. A sound machine and some swing action are helping to cut the sleep fighting efforts down by a bit.
Grandma and grandpa inskeep have been helping us keep the house in order with dishes, and laundry. As well as staying up late and playing after we feed them. All of our friends and neighbors have been bringing us food, which has been huge!. Thank you all so much.
Please keep praying for bonding and attachment, as well as our own sanity trying to handle two kids and eventually go back to work and house chores. I hope once we are all comfortable with the new situations, a routine will fall into place.
Some pics from the park this morning:
noah is in blue (because noah had an ark, smooth huh!) and ezra is in green. Yes, those are their official colors. We are trying to color coordinate toys, and things we buy so we know whose item is which. But we still often share.
Official weights:
noah: 15.9 lbs
ezra: 13.5 lbs.
Thats all. I think my computer time is about up as I hear stirring & cooing on the baby monitor.
We are very close to being home home home.Currently sitting in LA waiting for a connevting flight. So please excuse any blackberry typos.
The flight from Addis to Dubai was a pretty rough 4 hours. It left at 7:30 (the peak of the boys no bed time fussiness / screaming). We landed very late and got to the hotel at 2am.
Up at 6am to head from Dubai to LAX. The boys did quite well 13 of the 16 hours. Only cranky /screaming at the same anti bed time.
The female flight attendendants gave the boys lots of attention. They are little flirts and seem to always smile at pretty ladies.
We ended up with the entire bulkhead row to ourselves. 4 seats and 2 bassenettes. It was very nice, and needed. We made a huge mess of the row with all our stuff spread out.
Now its off on a small-ish commuter plane to phoenix. Only a 50 minute flight.
Today we leave Ethiopia for the long trek home.
Some quick hitting notes:
That’s about it for the moment. If we have time (read no screaming boys, and we have energy left in us) in LAX, we may blog / facebook some quick updates.
We just got a chance to use the internet today (wednesday ETH, Tuesday night USA).
The flight went really well. 16 hours is a really long flight for 2 adults. We’ll see how it goes with the boys. All of our luggage made it!
The boys are super cute, and doing well. The first night was a little rough, as all 4 of us had no idea what to really expect. The second night went much better. We figured out a system that works (for now). Attached is a pic of the 4 of us in the guest house courtyard (excuse the laundry, its not even ours).
Ethiopia is very nice this time of year. Actually cool for us from AZ. Very hilly, and busy, lots of people, cars and traffic.
Well thats it for now. I dont think we will get to use the internet again before we go, so we will see everyone when we are back on tuesday night.
Wish us safe travels!
Matt, Stephanie, Noah & Ezra
