Mia’s name giving ceremony

When we first had Mia we asked our friends, colleagues, neighbors and other interested members of the community, to give us a bit of time and space to get used to each other. We promised to have a big party as soon as the adoption would be finalized.

Even though we are still in the last stages of the process, we felt it was about time to finally have this party, so today we organised a name giving ceremony for Mia.

We had a magical afternoon full of love, light and laughter. The theme of the party was picnic, because every night when I put Mia to bed I ask her: “What will you dream about tonight?” And every night she answers the same: Picnic! So we thought we’d give her a nice picnic to dream about.

If you’re interested in the (long) version of the speech which Eddy gave, have a look at the bottom of this post.

The bumpy route with Mia Keziah Verbeek

When we first met with Shel to talk things through for today he said: Every adoption has a story. Why don’t you share yours? So here goes:

Since very early in our relationship we have known that if and when we wanted to start a family together, we hoped to do so through adoption.
We met in university, where we both studied Tropical Agriculture. Our studies, and later jobs, brought us to some of the most beautiful places in the world. But we also realised that these were often the harshest places to survive for many.
This strengthened our feeling about wanting to adopt.

So when we decided that the time was right for us to start a family, we started gathering information about adoption in Kenya. We quickly discovered that one of the main requirements was marriage. So, after a relationship of more than 12 years, we decided to get married. Lieke’s dad couldn’t stop crying when I called to ask for permission.
We are not the persons to just quickly pass by the registrar’s office to get hitched, important things in life need celebrations. So, instead, we had a wedding that lasted a week, and enjoyed every last bit of it.

A few months after our wedding we officially started the adoption process. Knowing fully well that the official requirement is a marriage of three years. But, we had been advised by a family-law layer to try it the ‘ Kenyan way’: under customary marriage. Especially as this was similar to the Dutch ‘ Registered Partnership. We gathered all the required documents, including official declarations by the Dutch Embassy and Notaries from Holland. The process started, and we underwent all the counselling sessions and house visits that are required, and kept our fingers crossed. But, unfortunately our application was rejected as soon as it was presented to the independent adoption Committee. No discussion possible.

We counted down the days until our third anniversary, and presented ourselves back at the adoption agency the very same week. This time the process was short, as most had already been done in 2011, and only a bit of updating was needed.
We received the joyful news in February 2014, this time we had been approved to adopt!

When we stopped by the adoption agency in Nairobi to collect the approval letter, they insisted on us having a meeting with our social worker, in which we were more or less pushed to visit an orphanage that very same day. We hesitantly agreed, thinking that perhaps we could already have a tour around the orphanage, and plan another date with some more time. Little did we know that we would have one of the strangest experiences in our lives that afternoon. When we arrived at the orphanage we were asked if we were ’the people that came to see the babies’? So we explained that we just wanted a tour, and to plan a date for a meeting. Well, we were told; this is the sitting room, the kitchen is right there, and these three are the babies that are up for adoption. Which one do you like?
Completely flabbergasted we rolled back in to the car and decided that this wasn’t the way we wanted to go about things. So, for the next week, we planned some meetings with several different orphanages, and decided that we first wanted to find an orphanage that felt right for us.

The first orphanage that we visited was ABC centre in Dagoretti corner, part of Feed the Children. We got a tour that lasted all morning, and were so very impressed by the many things they do, that we didn’t even need to see any other orphanages. We were very certain that this was a place that we would be very comfortable with supporting, and it wouldn’t be such a bad start in life for a baby to have started here.
So now our file had to be send to ABC, something that apparently still is done by literally sending a pile of papers by pikipiki. This must have been one of the slowest piki’s in Nairobi tough, as it took nearly another month.
But, mid-May we received a phone call that there was a baby girl, that ABC centre felt we should meet.

And all the clichés were true! It was love at first sight. Little Mia was laying there on a mattress, giggling and smiling away, melting our hearts right then and there.
The obligatory 2 weeks of daily visits to the orphanage became 4 weeks, due to some paperwork that still needed sorting. It was a beautiful, but also difficult time. Beautiful because it truly is very special to have so much time dedicated to nothing else then just getting to know each other ,and each other’s routines. Something that I would wish for every new family.
But also a difficult time for several reasons. There are the obvious ones, which we had already anticipated on, such as the travelling up and down between Naivasha and Nairobi, and the fact that things at the orphanage are done in different ways from how we would want to do it. But what we had overlooked, is that our Mia lived in a group with 20 other little boys and girls, and by visiting every day, you also bond with the other children, even if you try not to. This, together with the insecurity about when we would be allowed to take Mia home with us made it a difficult period as well.

But, the Friday morning before Father’s day, we were told that finally everything was as it should be, and that we would be allowed to take her home with us that very same day! So whilst Mia had her final mid-day sleep at her group, we quickly organised a cake and lemonade for a celebration with her group, and we couldn’t believe our luck when we finally drove home as a family that afternoon.

An obligatory bonding period of three months followed, before we could start the court case to finalise the adoption. We passed all the visits in this period again with flying colours, and were confident that the end was in sight.
But by the time the court case was actually registered, it was beginning of December 2014, and in the meantime the Kenyan cabinet had revoked the permits of all adoption agencies, dissolved the adoption board, and banned foreign adoptions. It was a very scary and insecure time for all . We had many meetings at the Dutch Embassy who were trying their best to help wherever they could. Luckily it looked like all parents who had already received approval from the adoption board could continue with their adoptions. We already received this approval in February, So we decided to just lay low, and keep continuing with our case. But it took until the end of May 2015 before we got our first court case. Auntie Angie flew in from New York directly to Nakuru court. After hours and hours of waiting, our case was the very last to get handled, and then the judge wanted to dismiss it straight away, as she didn’t want to handle foreign adoptions. Luckily we managed to get a meeting in the judge’s chambers after a bit of Dutch directness, and the judge agreed to see if she could take on our case after all.

Then we didn’t hear anything, until in July we had another house visit, this time by child services. So apparently something was still happening…….but sooo slow.
In August the Court closed for their annual break, and Lieke decided to go to Holland for a visit, as she hadn’t been there for over 2 years. But of course, before the plane even landed in Amsterdam we received a phone call that we needed to be in court a few days later. So Lieke changed her ticket when she landed, and flew back after just a weekend in Holland.
On the day that we had been told, the complete Team Mia (as Angela, Lieke, Eddy and Mia had started calling ourselves) managed to be in court. Only to find out there, that the judge did not show up.
A week later we tried again. This time luckily the judge was in, and after 5 hours of waiting our case was handled in just 30 seconds, and we were told that the ‘ruling would come by notice’.
We waited and waited for this ruling to come, but our mailbox remained empty. In the meantime the judge was relocated to the other side of the country and nobody was responding to our request for information. Our lawyer decided to involve the Law Society of Kenya, and perhaps this made the difference, as in November I was called at 16:00 that we needed to be in court the next day. Obviously this was the week that we had an international group of directors and visitors from the entire world on the farm, and i was supposed to fly to Ethiopia with them the next day.

But in a case like this one drops everything, and we went to court again the next day. When we walked into the courtroom at the time that we had been told, we found the court completely empty. A quick phonecall to the lawyers office learnt us that all cases where finished, and Mia’s case had been approved. This was a surreal feeling….. after so much time, and so many visits to and by so many agencies, we were standing there in the middle of Nakuru, and were told that Mia was now officially our daughter! And we had missed it. So typical. It took a little while for the news to sink in, but then we made some of our happiest phone calls ever to tell our parents and Mia’s grandparents: She is ours!! It is really true!

Now this still isn’t the end of the process, the last few months we have been busy to apply for her documents. She will need a certificate of registration in the adoption register, with that she will be able to receive a Birth certificate, and then she can apply for a passport. First Kenyan, and last, but not least Dutch. In contrary to what we were told the Kenyan side of the paperwork had not yet been finished before Christmas, but we did receive the first certificate (from the adoption register) last week!

We are so looking forward to getting her passport and being able to travel as a family so that we can also introduce her to our Dutch family and friends.
But we are equally happy to be able to celebrate today, with all of you, our Kenyan family and friends that Mia is now officially Mia Keziah Verbeek!

Mia is a name that both Lieke and I have liked for a long, long time. We liked that it’d a name which can be pronounced in both Dutch and English and sounds similar in both languages. She is not named after someone in particular, although we have met a few amazing Mia’s over the past few years.
Mia is said to from the name ‘Maria’, and with us being Catholics that means that nearly every important person in our lives has the name ‘Maria’ somewhere in their names. There are several known meanings of the name Mia, amongst which ‘Beloved” and “Darling” it was a perfect fit.

Keziah is the name that the orphanage gave her when she was found. So the name she was known by during the first months of her life. We decided even before we met her that, if possible, we would keep whichever name she would have as a middle name. And we hoped that wouldn’t be a name like ‘Innocence’ or ’Purity’. Keziah such a beautiful sound, and with a beautiful meaning. It is a biblical name, Keziah was the fairest of Job’s three daughters. It also refers to the Cassia three, a sweet-scented spice.

So we are proud to call her Mia Keziah Verbeek.