Babies doctor appts.

We took all 3 babies to the cardiologist apt. yesterday and they all 3 got a good bill of health!! We were so excited to hear the doctor tell us that they are all o.k.
I have been getting many emails about the Haitian babies!! I did have one lady that reads my blog follow threw with the info I gave her. She said right now they only have 8 year olds and up/ My friend form church said that in the next few weeks the younger ones will follow, but they don't want to get people excited right now because A lot of people are wanting them! If you have tried to follow up on the info I sent on my earlier blog and have not received any response please leave me an email so that I can talk to my friend working for these people. She is eager to help place these children into good, loving homes!!
email-tbarch@prodigy.net Thanks, Leah

Homeschooling and parenting

These are the only pictures I can find right now. Our camera brokeat such a bad time so we are looking to buy another one this weekend. Then we will get some good pictures on here!!

When we left to go to the Ukraine we put all of our homeschooling on hold, now it seems I can not find my way back into it. The kids are not doing well and My husband is getting really frustrated with them, when I know its my fault. Its just a lot harder with the new babies taking up so much of my attention. I'm trying really hard to make that special time to help them more, but I just wonder how so many of you guys that have adopted do this?? How do you make that time to home school, and give the babies the time they need?

The babies are going to the specialist tomorrow with their hearts. They have now gained another pound this week. I'm not sure that's so good for Eli. We don't know how to slow his weight down. They eat so much, then they cry when they are done.. Elisa is becoming so friendly with everyone. This is something we did not know if we would see or not. She was so afraid of people before that she would just look away. Now she dives out of our arms into other people standing around. She loves to show off. They have all started therapy as well. Elisa loves to throw toys, so they are working with her on that. We think that they praised her for this in the orphanage. She claps and looks around for praise as soon as she throws something.

As far as the Haitian adoption my friend said they are still looking for homes. Right now they are sending most of these babies here to Texas, but she said if you guys contact that info that they are willing to send them to homes that are home study ready. The older kids are disparately seeking homes. There is one girl that is 14 that she keeps talking about a lot. She said she is very sweet and friendly and that she needs someone to love her. I am tempted, but I promised my older daughter I would never adopt older than her!! If you guys contact that number or email and they do not contact you please email me because she said she would contact them directly herself. They are really getting a lot of calls right now, but unfortunately not a lot of calls that ready right now. Please contact me with any questions if you are interested. tbarch@prodigy.net

Give Me Your Eyes.....

What do you do when you return home from such an amazing journey and you realize that God is not done with you yet.... When you realize that there is so much more He is calling you to do? We've been home from the Ukraine for exactly one month now and life is amazing! Sure, we're busy and life can be chaotic at times, but we are soooo happy...... but not content. Ok, I know that may sound strange, but let me explain. This adoption process..... this trip to the Ukraine..... this leap of faith has changed us..... FOREVER.

There is a beautiful song by Brandon Heath called "Give me your eyes" that talks about walking through life and not truly seeing.... not truly caring about the people all around you..... the people who are hurting and hopeless. We all fall into that trap of just rushing through life with our goals and our milestones never really paying attention to the needs all around us. That doesn't make us bad people, but I beleive it makes us miss out on all that God has in store for us. I beleive our inability to see through God's eyes makes us miss out on so many of His blessings. The chorus of this song is as follows:

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me you heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see

So after completing our adoption journey we realize that we are not done. God has opened our eyes to a world of need.... to a world of children who have no home and no one to rock them to sleep at night. To steal a line from the song, He's given us the "heart of the ones forgotten" and the "ones that are far beyond (our) reach". God has given us a passion inside.... a burning inside that we don't quite know what to do with yet. We want to bring more children home. We want to start an adoption ministry at church. We want to tell everyone about our experience and encourage them. We want to advocate for those children who don't have families and help raise money to get them home. We want to show people that "special needs" children are truly special and share our experience with the world. But most of all.... we want to follow God.

Have you ever been so inspired and so passionate about something, but not know what to do with all of that passion? That's where we are right now. We feel like we're going to explode if we don't do something. We know that we're called to do more, but we don't what. People keep telling us to just enjoy what we have and they're right..... we are so blessed..... but we are not done. God has given us a vision for something so more... something bigger! We just don't know what yet.

Info On Haiti Orphans....

This is one of the e-mails we've received from the Hope For Orphans organization regarding the orphans in Haiti. Hope For Orphans is affiliated with Focus on The Family and is a legitimate organization. They are not an adoption agency, but are advocates for the children in Haiti and have been working closely with our government to make a way for these children to be rescued quickly. There are e-mail addresses for a few of the key contacts in if you are interested.


Dear Families and Friends of HCRM, As you all know, we have been advocating on behalf of the many children that need homes at HCRM. Most, if not all of you have spent time in prayer about how the Lord might lead, or not lead your family to pursue any of these children through adoption. When we first got connected two to three weeks ago, we were praying for a long shot, that the doors be opened for these children to come to America and into forever families. Today is a BIG milestone in the process for the children that we have been advocating for. There has been legislation that was introduced to Congress today called the Hope Act. It is exactly what has been prayed for, that the government would allow these child (pre-earthquake orphans with documentation proving that parental rights have been terminated) to have Humanitarian Parole and be granted visas into the United States. While this legislation, coded H.R. 4603, was just introduced, we feel as though now is the time that we have been preparing for. If you, or anyone you know has a relationship with your Congressmen, please reach out to them and advocate for the Hope Act. Finally, you will see there are 15 children/sibling groups attached to this email. These are the children that have not been matched with any families, and no one has pursued them. Please spend some time with the Lord, as these children do need homes. We know that the Lord will bring ALL these children into homes, so we want to re-iterate that pure motives from the Lord are what you should go on, not an emotional decision. Please do not forward this these profiles to anyone, as we want to be respectful of these children. However, if you do know of individuals that are PAPER READY (current HS), please have them contact me, so I can introduce these children to them. As a reminder, Hope For Orphans is not a child placing or adoption agency. HCRM is the adoption and placing agency that retains the legal guardianship of these children. All matching is done by HCRM. Hope For Orphans is merely mediating and advocating for these children. For those who want to pursue a child or children from this list, you should send an email to rpennington@familylife.com and smcbride@familylife.com. Your email should include:
which children you would commit to if able (in rank order if more than one)
a scanned copy of your current home study
a scanned current picture of your family
a scanned copy (IF YOU HAVE ONE) of your I-600A or Approval
contact information to include cell phones and e-mail address Thank you for your prayers and consideration for the very special children. Pray that the Lord will bring their Forever Families to the surface.

Adoption Info

I had a very big response to the last post. I guess I did not think that that many people would be interested. This is awesome though!!
The lady that is giving me the information actually adopted 3 kids from Haiti a few years back, since then, she works for Angels Orphans in Haiti. They gave her the information that they were sending these children here to San Antonio last week.
I know a lot of you have responded and I am trying to return ever ones emails as fast as I can. The thing is I have to find out where each person lives so that I can ask the woman in charge when and if they are sending these kids to your areas??
I would just post her info on here, but I want to make sure with her first that she does not mind me doing this. She has sent me a list of kids that are coming this week and pictures, but they are all 5 and older to about 18. In the next 2 weeks they will be getting the younger kids. She said if people wanted to foster first they would allow that to while the family was getting their home study done.
To all the people that responded I will email you tonight after the kids lay down. I will try to email you the same email I got that has the pictures of the kids and the contact info. I wish I knew more on this, but they just allowed these kids to start coming into the country so they are moving very fast before anyone changes their minds. Thanks so much for being patient with me!! Leah

Just in Case

I just wanted to write really fast in case anyone reading would be interested. Our Friend from church has been working with people in Haiti and some of the children there. She has sent an email asking if anyone was interested in adopting some kids there. Right now they are sending older kids, but they will be sending the younger ones as well.
They are asking for people that are already home study ready that might only need to get finger prints and such. This will be a very fast adoption, and they say it should only cost about 500.00
If you know of anyone that would be interested please send me an email and I will send you the email of the people in charge. Me and Tony are praying about taking a younger child, but not a baby. We feel God has blessed us so much in giving us such easy children, and he has done this for this reason, so we can continue to do his work and what he wants us to do. At this time we are not sure if we will or will not do this, but please pray about this for you and any of your friends and let me know. Thanks, Leah

Passing the cold bug around

We thought we were done with this awful cold bug in our home, but it now looks like it is making its second round. Elisa can not breath at all, poor baby. She has such a croupy cough as well. The other 2 are still finishing up their antibiotics, but they seem to be getting worse instead of better. I have heard that this is normal when you adopt from over seas, the babies get sick a lot at first??
The babies did get dedicated yesterday, but I do not have the pictures yet. They all did very well, and looked very cute. After church we went out to lunch with a Friend. I was very amazed at how well all 10 kids at lunch. The babies only fused a few times when they wanted more food, but it was a good experience.
I'm getting better at taking all 10 out with me into public, you just have to get passed all the nasty stares that some people give you!!
Eli has been cruising all threw the house. He has managed to pull our blinds down and knock over 3 of our plants this week. We also find him trying to go up the stairs about 3 times a day. He loves to pull out all the pots and pans and bang them together. Its actually really funny. Nessie just sits a lot playing with her toys. Elisa is getting better at trying to walk with us. Her therapy started last week and went very well. Today Nessie, and Eli's therapy starts. I'm glad they have made such process!!
We really want to adopt again now that this has gone so well for us, I just do not know when. I'm waiting for God to let us know who he wants us to adopt, and when?? Ill post pictures tomorrow, Thanks, Leah

Life is Good

As we adjust to the new ways of life here at home me and Tony find ourselves thinking that there is still more in store for us than we thought. We thought for sure that after adopting these 3 children that we would feel complete. As soon as we got them home and everything fell into place without any complications at all we soon starting thinking about adopting again. I know Tony would do it right now again, but I am the one this time that is making the decision to wait a while. There are so many kids out there that it is hard to find the right one, its hard to say no to certain ones. I know it is something that we will have to pray about for a long time. I want to give these babies all the attrition that they need for now.
We are amazed at how well they are doing. They nap from 12-2. Then they go to bed at 8 and sleep all through the night. They do not get out of bed until 9 in the morning. Vanessa is a little bit fussy right now. We think because she has a lot of stuff going on with her little butt. She has scare tissue from something that has almost closed her little hole there and it has got to hurt. She is going into the Doctor on the 23rd for that.
They are all starting therapy tomorrow. I'm very happy to get this started. They have already come so far.
I guess everything is going very well. The only thing that I could complain about is family and the fact that my family has no desire to even see the babies. Me and Tony were very surprised that certain family members have not even called us once to check on the babies, and they have not seen them either. It hurts our feelings I guess that they seem to think that they are so busy with their life's that they cant even call us. I know if they needed anything at all we would be there in a heart beat, even with 10 kids. I don't feel like they really think that this is important because we just have so many kids now. I guess I just don't have that connection I wish I had with family. My own parents still hardly know my other adopted children that I adopted almost 4 years ago. I guess there is not much I can do about it but pray that God will open those doors to communication. Tony has had a hard time with this to. I wish he didn't think about it so much, but I think it really bothers him even more than me. He feels like I do that this is such an awesome gift. We want everyone to enjoy them with us, and some people cant even pick up the phone to see how they are.
I know its all petty, but these are the things we are working on right now. We want them to know there entire family.
Other than that, they will be dedicated at church on Sunday. I'm praying that some of the family will attend that. I will post pictures after Sunday when they get dedicated. Thanks, Leah

After 2 Weeks.......

The babies have been home for 2 weeks now and they are already making so much progress. The first few days were home, the just sat in the playroom. They didn't want to play, didn't want to be held, and they hardly moved. They would just sit there and rock to the music we had playing the background. Today is a totally different story. They've all discovered the excitement of exploration. They love playing in the playroom (formally our formal dining room), but they've also figured out that other parts of the house are exciting as well.

Vanessa likes to crawl on top of the other kids. If you lay down in the room she will usually crawl on top of you and get as close to your face as possible. She loves to explore our faces with her eyes and her hands and she always wants to kiss..... big slobbery kisses! When she wanders outside of the playroom she usually ends up in the kitchen. She's so much fun......

Elijah has discovered the cabinets and, of course, the pots and pans. He would spend hours banging pots and pans together. He also like to find the dog water and tip it over. Then he gets himself soaked by playing in the water. When we bring him in our room he makes a b-line for our shower. It's a big walk-in double shower and he absolutely loves it. Of all of the kids, he explores the most.

Elisa has progressed the most though. She seemed so miserable the first few days, but she has come out of her shell. She is very attentive and is always looking for us. When we walk around the corner she immediately makes eye contact and then smiles the biggest most beautiful smile. Whenever we walk near her she reaches for us and gives us a huge hug. She doesn't wander around too much, but when she does, she finds the closed carpeted area that she can..... and then lays down face first on the carpet. It must feel soothing to her. She still loves her music also. We crank up the stereo in the house and she bobs her head and claps her hands. We're so happy with how much she's warmed up to us.

Oh and they all LOVE bath time now. At first they screamed and cried, but now we have trouble getting them to get out of the tub. They've also put on some weight. The girls have each gained 4 pounds since coming home and Elijah has gained 2 pounds. I guess that's what American food will do for you.

Overall, the transition has been much better than we expected. The kids sleep through the night, they go down for nap time, they eat well, and they've warmed up to all of the other kiddos. Although they've all had runny noses since we got home, they have been such a joy. We are sooooo blessed with these three angels and we are so thankful for how smooth this transition has been. Here are some recent pics of the kids playing: