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!!!
AZ Court date
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Category Archives: Adoption
Tsegay and Almaz
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.
It's over!
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. :)
Insurance Update
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
8 months
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. 
Fighting an unexpected battle
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.
One Week Home
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 first doctor appointments went well. We came home with NO ear infections and Giardia does not seem to be present.
- I overheard Matt telling his mom that cloth diapering is just as easy as disposables. :)
Drying some on the line right now
- The boys are super chatty and giggly.
- Noah is super close to sitting up.
- Ezra loves to sing.
- Noah loves to jump in the jumper. seriously. he jumped over an hour today (video proof of the fun).
- We have tried rice cereal and sweet potatoes. Ezra doesn’t like the cereal, but the sweet potatoes are yummy.
- Matt is amazing with the boys, he was so worried before, but it seems to come natural to him.
- The animals are all adjusting well, yes even Tank.
The boys in their bumbos.
twins = busy busy busy
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.
almost home
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.
heading home!
Today we leave Ethiopia for the long trek home.
Some quick hitting notes:
- the food at our guest house has been amazing!
- the people here are very warm and friendly
- the weather is a near perfect 76 degrees
- the boys are starting to be clingy and are avoiding bed time at all costs.
- we are a little worried about being THOSE PARENTS on the plane with the fussy screaming kids. (prayers please!!!)
- I will be glad to see “normal” driving again. They drive super crazy here.
- ohh yes – we are looking forward to sleeping inour bed!
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 made it!
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
and we are off
I think we have things all set. Spent last night running some last minute errands then went to dinner at Camarones at the chandler fashion mall. Wow it is really some of the best mexican food we have ever had. We both got vegetarian dishes, and really tasty stuff. We even went and saw Star trek last night. For those that know us, we rarely see movies at the theatre. Not really sure why, just not our thing.
Got home kind of late, then spent a few hours packing. In bed by midnight.
4 big suitcases and 2 carry-ons. All under the max sizes and weights (which was the hard part for carry-ons).
The travel plan:
PHX to LAX via commuter.
LAX to Dubai (stay sunday night)
Dubai to Addis monday morning.
Please say a prayer for us. We’ll try and post something on the blog if we get access to an internet cafe somewhere.
My Handsome Guys
We received more pictures of our boys today. Thanks to Stefany for taking them! We are so happy and extremely lucky that CHI started allowing traveling families to take pictures for families waiting to travel. We have been able to see the boys grow and are thankful to everyone who took pictures for us. You all are a tremendous blessing!
Look who’s not crying!
I added the rest of the pics to the photo gallery.
Busy, Busy
Matt and I have been very busy making sure everything is in order for our trip. Can you believe we leave this Saturday? It is coming up quick! We have been busy getting a few projects done around the house and making sure the business will run smoothly while we are away. I think we are doing pretty well, our to-do list is getting shorter even with a few glitches thrown in last week.
So what have we been up to?
Paperwork, I know you think you are done with it but there is always something else.
Laundry, all the boys stuff is washed. The cloth diapers are ready to go!
Yard work, we didn’t want to have much to do after we return home, so we have been busy making sure the weeds are pulled and the shrubs trimmed.
Matt has also steamed cleaned all the carpets in the bedrooms. To me this was necessary as our animals seem to barf a lot.
Making baby food. This last weekend we made a trip to the farmer’s market so I could by some local, organic produce to make baby food. I didn’t buy too much as I didn’t want to overwhelm myself the week before we left. I wish I would have bought more! It was so easy.
mmmmm sweet potatoes
and peaches!
Both foods I love, so hopefully the boys will love them. (These are seriously the best peaches I have ever had. I wish I would have bought more!) I cooked the sweet potatoes in the solar oven and they were perfect and the peaches didn’t need to be cooked.
We also attempted to put the car-seats in the car last night for the first time. I think we got it. We didn’t install them and leave them though because my parents have to use their car to pick us up from the airport (so we all fit) and the seats will need to be installed in it.
What do we have left?
Packing!
Steam clean the living room carpet.
Some accounting stuff for the business.
Finish adding the boys to the health insurance. (waiting on a letter)
Clean the house.
Run a few last errands.
Not too bad if you ask me. I think it is totally doable. I have some other things I would like to do before we leave, but they aren’t necessary.
We are both excited and anxious for our trip and cannot wait to meet the boys. :)