Natali and Neomi

best friends

Neomi and Natali Reinhardt are two precious 7 year old twin girls that came into our lives in 2005.  Here is an abbreviated version of their story

Natali and Neomi came to us in September of 2005. We heard of the girls through a newsletter our church receives. My mom read that a missionary family (The Stantons) had two twin babies and were looking for a younger couple to take care of them. The Stantons had been given the girls by their mother (Tania). The girls were a product of a rape and Tania had no resources to take care of them, then known as Melisa Caroline Agustin Cuchilla and Melisa Katherine Agustin Cuchilla. She had two other children to take care of and just could not handle two more. The girls had been in the hospital with double pneumonia and were not doing good. Tania knew if she took them home they would die so she gave legal custody to the Stantons. The Stantons received two little girls that had never received much attention or love, who were both malnourished, and could not even crawl. They quickly corrected the first six months of the girls’ lives with lots of love and using every resource they had.

When we met Natali and Neomi in late July of 2005 they had made tremendous progress. We stayed with the Stantons for over a month getting to know the twins and learning all the ropes. During this time we had to get our Resident Visas so we could get legal custody of the girls. While we waited for our visas we fell in love with Neomi (Kathy) and Natali (Carol), and we gained family in the Stantons. The Stantons signed over legal custody to us in September of 2005, and ever since we have had the girls.
We started the adoption process in September of 2007. We are doing what is called an exceptional or special adoption as residents of Peru. Peruvian law requires 2 years of residency that is why we had to wait until September of 2007. 

The adoption is finally final!  We have all the necessary paperwork!  We also have obtained the new birth certificates and Peruvian passports for the girls!  Our final steps were  in October 2010 when we immigrated Natali and Neomi into the U.S.  We had to do what was called an I-130 for both girls.  This type of visa gave the girls U.S. citizenship as soon as the plane landed in the U.S.  The I-130 process took about a month to complete, after our initial paperwork and interview.  When we arrived in the U.S. we re-adopted the girls so they would have Ohio birth certificates.  This process was very simple to do.  We now have the girls’ Ohio birth certificates and are waiting to complete their U.S. passports.