go ahead and picture that and then just know that it was ten times worse than what you just imagined. sewage was overflowing out of toilets, sinks, and bathtubs. it smelled awful. it looked awful. it was awful. thankfully i had already had a shower when we made this discovery, but kenny had not. he rushed out the door to his parents' in elgin to shower before our meeting. i got ready quickly, flew out to elgin to scoop him up, then we headed to columbia. i wish i could say that we handled this inconvenience with grace, but truthfully, we were absolutely frazzled, aggravated, and short with each other. what should have been an exciting morning turned into a couple of ill-boxes riding down the road in silence. praise the lord we had gotten it out of our systems by the time we got to the meeting, and we were back to being a happily married couple.
as soon as we sat down in the conference room, kenny pulled out the orientation packet. he flipped through it quickly (all 28 pages of power point slides) and said, "i should have taken an adderall." HA. two hours later we emerged full of information, hungry, with head aches. it was a LOT of information to process. we learned so much about the process, expectations, wait time, etc.
the first thing we had to do after leaving the meeting was to email the bethany adoption specialist and let her know that we're ready to proceed with our formal application. i emailed her from my phone from the parking lot of bethany's building. ha. we were a little excited! i spent yesterday afternoon completing our application (while kenny spent the afternoon cleaning up the septic tank mess). we sent in our application, paid our application fee, and got our next steps. we have our pre-study documents in hand, and we have until december 5 to complete them and pay our pre-study fee. we are going to do our best to get these documents finished before thanksgiving, because we need to get in to a mandatory training on december 12. they only take three couples from each of bethany's three south carolina offices, and there isn't another meeting until february. we REALLY want to have this training complete so we can move on to our home study.
this is the part where reality smacks us in the face. at the meeting we got to see the break down of fees, and let's just say we were less than encouraged. the overall cost of our adoption (just the adoption - not financial support for our birth mom, not attorney fees) will be $18,000. it's totally and completely overwhelming. the upfront cost will be about $4,000. that's a manageable figure, and we have a plan in place to cover our home study document fee, home study, and marketing fee. however, when we pick up our baby, we have to have a check for $14,500 ready. we have no idea where this is going to come from. we have gotten some good information about adoption grants that we can apply for once we are considered an approved family, so that has given us some hope. although it's encouraging, it doesn't give us a clear plan, and it also doesn't account for what happens should we be matched with a baby sooner rather than later.
i would be lying if i didn't say that we are apprehensive. this is a big leap of faith. huge. giant. massive. we believe that adoption is important to the heart of god, and we believe he teaches us to care for the orphans. because of this, we believe that god will raise up the funds we need to bring our baby home.
we are thankful for your continued support and prayers! i am blown away every single day by the sheer excitement and joy that so many of you show me. here are some things you can be praying about:
- that we would be able to complete our pre-study paperwork quickly and efficiently
- that we would be invited to attend the december 12 training
- that we would be assured of god's ability to provide
- that funds would come together
- that our eyes would be open to god working through this process - that we would see his fingerprints all over it - that we would be amazed by the wonders that we know he will accomplish through this process
- our birth mother
- our baby
xoxo.
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