Adoption is often unexpected. Babies come when they damn well please and it's impossible to know when or how. Yesterday turned interesting. I was at the airport waiting for my Mom (a.k.a. Grams) to come visit us when I idly checked facebook. There was a message from a member of our Village about a little boy in need of a family. My heart almost exploded and I got goose bumps, then I kept reading. He is to be born tomorrow, 10/8/14. His estimated agency fees are $30,000.00. We declined the match due to lack of cash on hand. In addition to the $30k in agency fees, we would also be responsible for cross country travel in addition to the regular expenses associated with bringing home a child. The agency fees also would not cover the visits from social workers, finalization, or legal costs after our child comes home to us. We fell short by roughly $3,000. Even though I know that he must not be meant to be ours, my heart screamed all night. I asked my friends and family to please pray for that little boy. He deserves to be loved and adored with a family like ours. I hope that baby goes home to a happy big brother, an ecstatic new momma, and a daddy that would do anything for him. I dreamt of family fun time on the beach and a lifetime of happiness for him. I hope it comes true. I wish he was ours, but he's not.
We have fundraised $17,230.00 so far. We are selling t-shirts and putting all of my converse on eBay. We are hoping to raise awareness about the costs of adoption while we save our pennies and put our dreams together. People all think they know about adoption, but they don't. Can you imagine going to the hospital, having a child, then having to come up with $30,000.00 before you could leave? That's private adoption folks, cash is king, and until we have the right amounts of money and the right situation no child is ours. We knew going into this that adoption is expensive, invasive, and often fails. What we didn't expect was to ever have to say no because we didn't have the jingle in our pockets.
I am sad, but it's made us even more determined. I haven't spoken about it much, but we are in love with someone we've never even talked to directly. We have had our fingers crossed for a month, hoping to hear from Birth Mom #2 again. The situation seemed perfect for us and it put a shiny gold star up in the back of our minds. When a scammer has trolled us, or a birth mom has been dangled, we both say we hope to hear from Birth Mom #2. She isn't due until March and has a very long time to decide what is best for her and her family. Will it be adoption? Will it be parenting? Will it be us? Are we the ones? Is SHE the one? Last night when we chose to say no we did it with the hope that maybe our Birth Mom is already on the edge of our lives. It might just be a fairy tale, but it keeps our hearts warm. Where is our child? We don't know, but we're watching the sky every night, waiting for our shooting stars.
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