Hannah Exits Family Court!

We just received an email yesterday that Hannah's case exited Family Court on December 12th. Now we're just waiting on the US for pre-approval and then her case can go into PGN in Guatemala.

Noah's DNA Appointment

Great news! Noah had his DNA appointment yesterday to match his DNA with his birth mothers. This is great because it means our case is moving through the US Embassy.

Hannah's Doctor Visit Pics

Here are some pics from Hannah's doctor visit last Thursday (Dec. 6th). She's getting so big! She's up to 11lbs!

Slow Blogging

You might have noticed we haven't blogged over the last week. To start with, we just didn't feel like it after leaving Guatemala last week. Then Joel relapsed on his stomach sickness after we got home. Then Shannon caught it. Then Jason caught it. On top of that, we've been trying to pack up our house this week for our upcoming move. Add to that we're trying to work out the details of buying our new home. Add to that getting ready for Christmas. Add to that Jason's last day at his job is Dec. 21 and he's trying to wrap up his responsibilities and make up time for being gone to Guatemala. Add to that we found out today our house in Lubbock has a second contract on it requiring us to pony up the money before our house sales if we still want it (and we do). Add to that haircuts for everyone before the holidays. Anyway, it's been really hectic this week. We've been getting in bed around 2:00am most nights. Thanks for letting us rant!

Difficult Day

We had to give baby Noah back to his foster mom today. Joel started throwing up last night at 3:30am and we didn't want baby Noah exposed to it. Hannah got a good a report from the doctor today and would have come and stayed with us if Joel had not been sick. Today was really hard and very disappointing. We wanted to see Hannah so bad and felt like our time with Noah was really cut short. We are thankful that Joel is doing much better. We'll be coming home tomorrow.

More Pics from Guatemala

We had an enjoyable day today in Guatemala. We spent some time out by the pool which was really nice (although Joel decided to toss his stuffed lion out into the pool right before we left!). We're really enjoying our time with Noah. He's such a handsome little guy! We should find out tomorrow if Hannah will be able to come and stay with us. We received an email today that Hannah's Family Court interviews have been completed. They are saying we should expect 3-5 more weeks in Family Court. We need to exit Family Court and get pre-approval (PA) from the US before we can move forward. Joel still has hives today but they are better and seem to be clearing up. We think the strawberries he ate the first morning are the culprit. Here are some pics we wanted to share.

Baby Noah

We are in Guatemala with our new baby boy, Noah! We haven't finalized a middle name so we'll post it later. :) He's absolutely adorable! He's a great baby - we feel blessed that he and Hannah are both so content. Joel really likes him and has been excited about holding him. Joel immediately got out some of his cars and trucks to give to baby brother when we got back to our room on his own inniative.

We signed our POA today and found out from our agency worker here that he is the last baby to be referred by our agency because of the changing laws here and how difficult the US Embassy is making it for everyone to keep moving forward. It is simply God's blessing that we were matched with him at all. We are not out of the woods yet though. Please pray that our cases continue to move forward quickly in Guatemala AND the US.

Our trip down yesterday (Monday) was a difficult day. After about 2 hours of sleep Sunday night we got up at 3:30am Monday morning to make our flight out of Abilene. We were supposed to be in Guatemala by 12:30pm to pick up our baby boy. However, when we got to Houston our flight out to Guatemala had been delayed and wasn't leaving until 11:45am (which put us in to Guatemala at 2:30 or 3:00). This put us in too late to pick up Noah on Monday. We had found out over the weekend that Hannah has impetigo, a rash-like infection. It was confirmed Monday that she would not be able to even come to the hotel this week while we're here. We are waiting for her to visit the doctor again on Thursday to see if she is well enough to come and stay with us. We were going to leave on Friday but may extend our stay until Monday if Hannah can come stay with us for the weekend. We are just sick about not having her here with us this week. Today, Joel broke out with hives all over his torso. We think it must be from something he ate at breakfast. We had a local pharmacy bring us down some medicine for him so we're hoping it helps. He acts like he feels fine but we're still concerned. Anyway, a rough couple of days but we are rejoicing with baby Noah and praying that baby Hannah comes to stay with us this weekend. Please pray too!

Now, enjoy some pictures!

Letter To Our Congressman's Office

We have only posted a little so far about all that has been going on in Guatemala and with the US Embassy. This is a letter I just sent to a contact in our Congressman's office (thanks to Andy for making the contact). I wanted to share it with you all...

We are in Guatemala right now visiting our babies and signing paperwork for our second adoption. The reports we are hearing here are disturbing and center around the US Embassy. The US Embassy only allows 40 appointments per day and recently stopped allowing Guatemalan lawyers to work on multiple adoption cases during one appointment. This is requiring them to have many more appointments to get their cases submitted. Guatemalan lawyers are waiting all night in line to get an appointment slot the next day. We've heard that the US Embassy consul has kicked some lawyers out of the line because they had been given appointments on previous days. We know of families that have finished everything they are supposed to do with Guatemala on their adoption and are now waiting on the US Embassy to finalize everything and issue them an appointment so they can bring their children home. But the US Embassy is delaying, won't return their calls, won't answer their emails, and won't allow their agency to work on their behalf. The December 2nd post at http://www.adaguatemala.org/English/news/ reports that the US Embassy is threatening to cancel US visas of Guatemalan congressmen that do not vote for the laws they are lobbying for. If our lawyers cannot get our paperwork submitted to the US Embassy because they can't get an appointment or because they are kicked out of the line, then my son may not ever come home.

I don't know if you are a father or not, but I can tell you as the father of two Guatemalan children, Hannah and Noah, and one biological son, Joel, there is nothing more important to me, nothing more urgent, nothing more concerning than these issues involving and surrounding my children. Every day is critical. The thought that I may not be able to bring my two Guatemalan children home makes me sick inside. The knowledge that the Embassy of my own country may be the cause makes me angry. I implore you with all the sincerity and urgency I can to please help in bringing the US Embassy in Guatemala to accountability. The future of my children may depend on your actions and the actions of Congressman Neugebauer's office. Why is the US Embassy making it so difficult for American citizens that have followed all the laws already set forth by the United States and Guatemala? Why are they making it so difficult on Guatemalan lawyers to process cases on our behalf? Why are they lobbying for laws in Guatemala that are not in the best interest of Guatemalan children or American citizens?

Please look into the reports I've mentioned above and do it with all haste. Please ask Congressman Neugebauer to contact the Department of State and the US Embassy in Guatemala. We need the US Embassy to open their appointments back up to multiple cases, just as they had been doing. We need the US to speed up the pre-approval process. We need the US Embassy to finalize and issue appointments to parents who have completed everything with Guatemala so their children can come home.

I've attached a picture of Hannah and Noah. Aren't they beautiful?



Sincerely,
Jason Hedges

It's a BOY!!!

We are extremely happy to announce the birth of our new baby boy! He was born on November 16th and weighed 7lbs. 15oz. We just got the phone call today while we were on our way to get our new home inspected in Lubbock. We're flying down to Guatemala on Monday to meet him and sign our power-of-attorney. We'll also get to keep Hannah while we are there so we are really excited! We are still deciding on his name so we'll post that later. :)

Hannah's Case Is In Family Court

We received an update on Hannah yesterday that confirmed that her case is currently in Family Court. The case went into Family Court on November 12th.

New Blog Look

We decided to change our blog colors since we are blogging about our baby girl AND baby boy now. So, we've gone black with blue and pink accents. Hope you like it!

We're Moving!

It has been a crazy week! Jason has been offered a job with a company in Lubbock, Texas and we've decided to accept the offer. The company is Smooth Fusion, a high-end web development firm that is one of only a few companies authorized to do web development work directly for Microsoft. Jason will be working as a Web Developer and will start the beginning of January. Jason is from the Lubbock area and still has parents, grandparents, and siblings in the area. We spent Thanksgiving there with his family and went house shopping over the weekend. We found a house we really like and are in the process of making an offer. Our house in Abilene goes on the market tomorrow. We are excited about the new opportunities but sad to be leaving Abilene. We've been here for almost 8 years. We also think we'll be going to Guatemala soon for our second adoption. The next 6 weeks are going to be crazy!

Shopping Online Benefits Our Adoption

The estimated cost of our 2 adoptions is $70,000. We've been very blessed to be able to pay about $24,000 of this already from our bank accounts, selling Jason's car, and contributions. We have a little left to cover our next Guatemala trip and we're trying to be fierce about saving. We will still have a great deal left to pay so we've setup links in the right hand column of our blog for online shopping. When you use the links on our site to shop with these websites, they will give a percentage of your purchase towards our adoption costs. Everything else about shopping with them will be the same. Same websites, same prices. They're just giving us a percentage for sending you there (typically 1-4%). So, we would appreciate anyone that's going to make a purchase through these online stores to do it by starting at our site (refer your friends too!). Just click the links! Thanks!

Dossier #2 - On Standby

We did receive confirmation that dossier #2 is good to go, but our adoption agency is holding it here in the US until they find out if they will have a baby for us. If they do, then they will send it down to Guatemala as we get our second referral.

Adoption Timeline

We've added our adoption timeline to the right hand column of our blog (down the page a bit). We thought you all might like to see the timeline of how things have progressed so far and what's coming next.

Waiting...

Well, we're waiting to find out if dossier #2 is ok and if it's been sent down to Guatemala. Our agency has it right now but we haven't received confirmation from them yet. We're also waiting to hear if Hannah's case has entered Family Court (FC) in Guatemala. A previous email told us it would be submitted to FC around November 12th but we haven't had that confirmed either. Anxiously checking email very often...

DNA 99.99% Match

We received the results of Hannah and her birth mother's DNA test in the mail today and they're a 99.99% match!

Hannah's Doctor Check-up

Hannah had her regular doctor check-up this week and she got a great report. She's very healthy and doing well. She weighs 8lbs 12oz now and she is 5 weeks old! Here's a few pics from the doctor check-up. She looks beautiful! We sure do miss her!

Dossier #2 Complete

We received dossier #2 back from Austin on Monday, Fedex-ed it down to Houston to the Guatemalan consulate that same day and received it back on Thursday. We Fedex-ed it Thursday afternoon to our agency's dossier coordinator to be compiled and sent to Guatemala. She received it today (Friday). So, we're offically done with our second paperchase! We hope to find out more details soon about the wait time.

Trick-or-Treat

We took Joel trick-or-treating last night with our friends. He had a lot of fun and is enjoying his candy!

DNA Test

Hannah went in for her DNA test yesterday along with her birth mother. The US government requires this test to make sure the woman giving up the baby is the birth mother. They will also perform a second DNA test at the end of the adoption process to make sure it's still Hannah!

Paperwork To Austin

We received our FBI letters via FedEx today and sent them right off along with the rest of our paperwork to Austin for certification by the Secretary of State. This is the paperwork for adoption #2.

Waiting On FBI Again for Dossier #2

We've collected all our paperwork for our second dossier except we're waiting on the FBI for our fingerprints and letter. Everything has been checked by our case manager and approved. Once we receive the FBI letters we'll send all our paperwork off to Austin for certification and Houston for authentication.

Back Home

We came home Tuesday from Guatemala. It was a great trip and it was really wonderful to get to spend time with Hannah! It was sad having to leave her! We took over 800 pictures so we couldn't help but share a few more!