Welcome, September!

I had an adoption update all written up and ready to rest a few days before proof-reading, but then I never went back to edit and post it! So now that one is outdated and will be replaced with whatever this one turns out to be. Sorry to keep you waiting in the midst of overwhelming anticipation like that! (It makes me feel better about my writing if I pretend I'm a well-sought-after author with a huge fan base anticipating my ever word.)

My emotions have been fluctuating a lot lately with this whole adoption thing. I was feeling pretty good about our progress with the home study stuff, then I realized I have to get moving on our family profile (the photo-filled story of our family that will be presented to prospective birth parents once our home study is complete), gathering the extra things required by a few of the agencies we might end up working with, and of course, applying for grants/loans/etc. and trying to raise enough money to pay for everything. All this while already feeling overwhelmed and conflicted about regular stuff going on in life, so I've been a bundle of nerves lately. I've been trying to remind myself to just relax and trust God to handle things in His timing instead of trying to force things into place before their time.

We've all completed our medical evaluations, and Darling and I have gotten one set of fingerprints done. I learned that my fingers are not very cooperative with whatever that machine is called, and I barely have any prints at all. Darling's hands are much better suited for such things. Perhaps I was born to be a cat burglar, but that isn't something that would work out very well with pursuing adoption. Maybe I'll squeeze into a black leather cat suit when I'm ancient, and see if I can steal dentures from friends' nightstands.

Our Amazon link has been getting some use, and has brought in $26 and change in the past month! Thank you to all who have used it and/or shared it, as every bit helps. We have plans for an upcoming yard sale soon, which will hopefully bring in some more funds, and we've been working so hard to avoid eating out. That's a tough one for us, since we love food and are sometimes too lazy to make it ourselves. But $40 or so for a single meal is pretty ridiculous when we are trying to add to our family, so the sacrifice is worth it. Our budget has a lot of fat on it that we could cut, but we have a hard time agreeing on how extreme to go with it. We are planning on taking a final vacation with just the four of us, since some things will be out of the question with a baby in tow, and since we have no idea where we will be living a year from now. I admit that I feel pretty guilty about it, even though I think it will be a good memory-making opportunity for us that we might not have again. I really don't want to be one of those people who asks for financial help while being frivolous with our own money.

The past few weeks have been full of missing our sweet Osias, even though he was already gone this time a year ago. I don't know where the time has gone. We saw the most precious little girl at church the other day, and her adorable wobbly dancing and clinging to/patting her daddy's shoulder was a huge reminder of what we are missing with our precious boy. I try to imagine his little voice babbling and his chubby hands getting into trouble, only to return to the harsh reality that those things will only take place in my imagination. Even the munchkins have been talking a lot about him lately, and I so hate that those conversations usually begin with "I wish Osias didn't have to die." Adopting a baby will probably make us all think of him even more, especially since J has already begun saying, "I really hope this baby doesn't die too." It has given us many opportunities to talk about the uncertainties of life and death, and she is more diligent in her pilgrimage to the "Celestial City" we've been reading about in Little Pilgrim's Progress so she can join her baby brother someday.

Nesting and Such

As mentioned in my last post, we are now in the early stages of adopting a precious little one into our family! I'm still somewhat in shock that this is actually happening, because it's something that has always been deferred to that obscure "someday" that rarely ever arrives. We went from discussing it as a possibility one day, to printing out about 90 pages of paperwork the next day. Since reading personal accounts of other people's adoption journeys has given me a much better understanding of the process and what to expect along the way, I'd like to share our experience along the way as well. Maybe it will give someone else the courage to pursue adoption for themselves, or maybe it will just help dispel some of the adoption myths that are out there. I'll do my best to be open about even the personal details for this reason, so hopefully none of it seems like oversharing.

Our first step after finding a wonderful consultant to guide us through this unknown territory is to complete our home study. The home study is the process that allows a social worker to determine if we are fit to be adoptive parents, so it's a pretty big deal. And intimidating! It includes that mountain of paperwork I mentioned before, background checks, home visits, interviews, medical evaluations, fingerprints, and copies of pretty much every important document we have ever possessed. They will evaluate our home to see if it is safe enough and clean enough (Is there such a thing?! I'm just going to bleach everything non-porous and scrub everything else to be on the safe side.), which makes me anxious. And the idea of someone else looking into our lives to see if we meet their standard is pretty scary. The very thought of it makes me feel inadequate, even though I can't think of a good reason for them to turn us down. Neither of us have a criminal history or anything, and we have 2 walking, talking bits of evidence that we can be decent parents. But still...!

Darling was on leave this past week, so he took advantage of his time off to finally finish painting our bathroom and updating the light switches and outlet covers (they were that horrid "almond" color before, so his handy self changed them to the much crisper-looking white). I delayed our homeschooling a few hours one day in order to bleach the grout on our kitchen floor. I think it's safe to say we are in full-on nesting mode.

Since we have already invested close to $3000 into this process and have another $1500 or so coming up for the home study, we need to figure out a plan to pay for the whole thing. Once we (hopefully!) pass the home study, our family profile will be shown to prospective birth parents. Our remaining expenses will depend on who we get matched with, as some might have more medical expenses, etc. than others. From what I've read so far, this can be in the $20,000-$30,000 range, but I guess we will find out for sure soon. And of course, we will most likely have to travel to get our baby, which will be another undetermined amount we will be surprised with later. Thankfully, we have a decent amount of savings, but some of that will probably have to go toward our move next year, especially if we can't sell our house first. There are adoption grants that we will be applying for, tax credits that we can take advantage of after the fact, and even low-to-no interest loans that we will use as a last resort. We also are taking advantage of Amazon's affiliate program to raise some money to cushion the blow as well. It allows Amazon shoppers to make their purchases as usual, but a percentage of the purchase will go to our adoption fund!

A lot of people have negative things to say about the high costs associated with adoption, and some even say it is basically "buying a child." While it saddens me that it costs more to adopt a child than it does to abort one, I understand the need to have intense screening processes (all costing money) and legal proceedings (again, more money) in order to protect the child and the families involved. If kids were adopted for the same price as a stray pet in a shelter, many of them would end up abused and neglected. I know that is still a possibility even now, but the extra costs and extensive steps probably deter a lot of ill-meaning people from adopting. I just wish it didn't deter so many good-intentioned people from adopting as well.