Expenses and Money

In previous blogs we have shared that we do receive reimbursement from Cart's job and my job. Which is a total blessing. But how do we save money to pay for the costs up front. Adoption is not cheap. It's expensive and for that reason alone some people may never have children. So how do we save money?
Our biggest money saver right now is my couponing. Yes that is right every Sunday I cut coupons from the Sunday paper. My mom and mother-in-law also give me their Sunday coupons. I also participate in a coupon train on a message board I am a part of. How does this save us money. Well once I cut the coupons or trade for the ones I want I organize them in a binder using baseball card holders. Each Sunday I also look at the CVS and Walgreens ads. Here I match coupons to sales. Some things I refuse to pay full price for :) We use to spend at least $100 each week on groceries and such. Lately it has only been somewhere around $50 a week.
We've also cut down on some of our electrical costs as well. Just by unplugging things we aren't using, keeping the temperature high enough so the a/c doesn't kick on as often. When it's cold we just put on more clothes...Cart really likes this, the house is nice and cool for him.
Those are just a few of the things we do.

Merry After Christmas :)

I haven't had much to post as of late with the holidays and all. So I decided that not only will this be an adoption update blog but just stuff about us too. :)

Christmas was good. Christmas Eve we went to my dads house for desert and time with the family. It was a nice time. Cart and I went to service and then came home....by that point I was running on 1hr sleep from the night before. I just couldn't sleep the night before and took Cart to work. On Christmas Eve I also went to brunch with my friend J and her little boy. It is always nice to just sit and talk with her. Her little boy is so good and sits there quietly while his mom and I talk. So well behaved. :)

Okay back to Christmas day. We got home from church somewhere around midnight or something like that. Cart and I have never opened presents from each other after waking up on Christmas morning. So we decided to open them when we got home from church. It was still Christmas ;) His parents came over and we did Christmas with them. Then my mom and little brother came over for brunch. We had apple cinnamon pancakes, bacon and hashbrowns. Yummy! Then we went to see Marley & Me it was a great movie but sad. Afterwards Cart and I went to visit our friends D & M in the hospital. Their little boy had been in the hospital since that Monday. So we spent a couple of hours visiting with them. By the time we got home we were absolutely exhausted but still needed to eat dinner. So we ate and I think we went to bed.

Cart had to work the next day and then I worked all weekend. New Years will be a blur as I work and so does Cart. We haven't done anything special with each other for New Years since we met almost 5 years ago.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Have a Happy New Year!

Decision Made for Us

Well it looks like the decision was made for us. Holt called today and basically said that the Philippines program said while we would most likely be approved they felt with my depression/anxiety issues we would sit on the waiting list to be matched forever. So they did not want to accept our application. They are refunding our application fee, so that is the good news.

I have contacted the agency who was doing our home study and they do infant adoptions. So we are waiting to hear from them.

Our Dilemma

I write this as a way to get my thoughts out there and to let you know what we are thinking. In my last post I stated that we had decisions to make. The one comment that sticks with me from the people at Holt is that other countries don't view depression/anxiety like the United States does. Some countries it is an automatic disqualifier. So with that being said is International really right for us? Since we hit this major road block, I find myself asking, do I really want to defend my mental health? Really in the conversations I have had with Holt I feel as if that is what I have been doing. Then I think there are so many people out there who have children and "try" to raise them that didn't have to be "approved" to be a parent. If you recall my post about international vs. domestic I will refer to that a little. International is more of a guarantee, however we most likely would get a toddler not an infant. I've been reading other peoples blogs and with toddlers have heard of major attachment issues. My question to myself is would I have the patience to deal with that. We have been reading the books to understand our perspective child better but I still wonder. With domestic the "wait" isn't necessarily 1 month or 2 years it all depends. If we did domestic we most likely would not do foster to adopt. I don't think I could handle that emotion.
Also the other thing to consider with domestic is once your profile is "published" you basically get your nursery ready because the wait could be short or could be long. You just never know. But the more open you are to different cultures the more your profile is presented.
We really thought that International was the way to go. I just never realized the culture difference when it comes to mental health. But I should have considered it...
So if we did domestic we most likely would go with the agency that is currently doing our homestudy or I might just bite the bullet and get the pysh report done.
As you can see the road to adoption is a roller coaster ride...ours so far reminds me of the ride at Animal Kingdom called Everest...At one point in the ride you come to a complete stop and the go backwards. I feel like we are going backwards and changing our minds. We may actually decide before the Holiday, so that we know the plan for afterward.

Everything on Hold

We have decided to put everything on hold until after the holidays. Due to a depression/anxiety diagnosis in 2002 the Philippines is requestion a Pyschology report on me before they "pre-approve" us. So we do have decisions to make and we have decided to wait until after the holidays.

We hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

Homestudy cancelled

Well we have cancelled the homestudy for this Saturday. We still have not heard from Holt in regards to our approval or not. Our SW needed to know yesterday if we needed to cancel or not. So since no word from Holt we decided to cancel. Once we get the approval from Holt we will reschedule our Homestudy.

Heard something but still Waiting

I did receive a call from Holt on Friday. The Philippines had more questions regarding some medical issues that I listed on my application. I answered their questions and she said we should hear something by this week. Cool thing was the Director of the Philippines program at Holt was headed out on Saturday for the Philippines. So he was going to be able to talk to the liason in person. However, the intake social worker that we are dealing with won't be in the office he first part of the week. She did say she would pass the word that we are anxious to hear....if we don't hear by tomorrow we need to reschedule our Homestudy interview. So that is where we stand right now. Waiting, but I guess we should really get used to that.

Our first speed bump in this process

Well we have hit our first speed bump. We received a call from the intake social worker at Holt to ask some extra questions about some thing we put on our application. I answered them and she has to get with the Philippines liaison about this issue and see if we'll be able to get into the program. We may find out Friday or might have to wait until next week to hear something.

Application Sent in

I have sent in our application to Holt today. At first I didn't think I would be able to send it in today because I was missing one thing from the checklist. However, our contact (we'll call her E) returned my call and said it was fine if I sent that document in later that it wouldn't hold up the start of the application. That was great news so I rushed to the UPS store and overnighted our application to them. With the holidays we didn't want to take any chances for any delays.

As I was driving there I got a little emotional. This is a big step. The only way I can describe the emotions we are feeling right now is comparing it to when you hear the heartbeat for the first time in an ultrasound. Although we have no idea who our child is yet, the love we feel in our hearts for our soon to be child is already growing. With each step I'm sure there will be more emotions.

We love you all and are so glad we have the support of our family and friends.

Sending off Application

As you all know, we have been waiting to send off our initial application to Holt until the siding project is complete on the house. Well delay after delay with that project we have decided to use one of the before pics so that we can get "the book" from Holt before our Home Study interview on Dec 13th. There are a few documents needed for the Home Study but due to Holt requirements those documents are in "the book". So the application will be sent out hopefully on Saturday.

Here is the picture of the house we are submitting with our application.

Official Language of the Philippines

So we've been asked about a possible language barrier between us and our future child. So, first and foremost the "official" language of the Philippines is Tagalog however government institutions speak English. Most families second language is also English. After some research the language used to teach in school is also English. So what is spoken in the orphanages could possibly be English but we won't know until we get our referral. But I thought it would be fun to post some common terms in English with their Tagalog translation. I'll do this every once in a while.

Father - ama (Ah-ma)
Mother - ina (E-na)
dad - tatay (Ta-tai)
mom - nanay (Na-nai)
grandfather - lolo (low-low)
grandmother - lola (low-la)
grandchild - apo (a-po -short o)
aunt - tiya (tea-ya)
uncle - tiyo(tea-yo)
family - pamilya (pa-meal-ya)
I love you - mahal kita (ma-hall key-ta)

So there may or may not be a language barrier but we hope to learn key terms in tagalog so we can communicate with our Little One (LO in future posts)

Domestic vs. International

So we have had quite a few questions asking why International and not domestic. We thought about this for quite some time. Here are the cons of domestic that pushed us toward International:

1. If we wanted an infant there would be no real time line could be fast could be years. However when selected by a Birthmom (BM) we would pay her medical, clothing, food and housing if needed. Once the baby is born there is always the chance she could change her mind. If she decided to change her mind then we are out the money and have to start over. Unfortunately, there aren't any laws to protect the adoptive parents from scams. Although not all BM would be like this we felt the risk too great.

2. foster to adopt: This would be a great option as there are many children in foster care. However, a child isn't available for adoption until the parents legal rights are terminated. So when a cchild is placed with you, the birth parents have every opportunity to take classes and get themselves back together before the court terminates rights. So if they got their act together the child goes back to them. This after we, and you all (our family) have become attached to this child. We don't feel we were ready or able to handle this type of emotional roller coaster.

So the pros of International adoption have out wayed domestic.

More Benefits

Wow! I was reading through Chilis benefits packet as it's open enrollment and stumbled across a section for extras reimbursements. Well they offer $7500 in adoption reimbursement. This is great news. It differs a little from Carter's work. His work reimburses as we submit claims. Mine on the other hand is after the adoption is final. So it looks like I'll be at least working part-time at Chili's until the adoption is final. :)

On a lighter note, we have begun gathering our paperwork and filling out the 26 page biographical information sheet the SW sent us. We are on our way!

Spoke with Social Worker regarding Home Study

The Social Worker (SW) who will be doing our HomeStudy(HS) and I finally made contact this evening. We spent about 45min on the phone going over things we need to do to prepare for the actual visit. She will be sending me via email the paperwork we'll need to fill out plus a packet in the mail of other documents. Our appointment is scheduled for December 13th at 9am. The good news is our house doesn't need to be child proofed just yet. However we do need to have at least 1 fire extinguisher. So we'll be buying one very soon. I'll be headed to the courthouse soon to get some certified copies of a few documents.
So once we have our HS meeting it will take her 2 weeks to get the first draft completed. We'll get to review it and once she corrects anything we suggest or correct then she'll send it to Holt. Once Holt approves the document it will then be sent to the director of the HS agency to be certified and sent to us. By the end of January we will need to have our application completed and sent to Immigration for approval to adopt. It will take about 2 months to get that approval and usually that is the last document we'll need before sending our Dossier to the Philipines.

It really feels that we have our feet really wet right now. One step closer. :)

Spoke to Social Worker today

I spoke with the social worker today about getting the paperwork for the homestudy. She will be passing my information onto the social worker who handles international adoption and we'll go over our timeline with her and she'll send the paperwork to us without paying the fee just yet.

We've also filled out the application for Holt today so it is ready to go. We just need to go to the bank to have the contract notarized. I've heard that once we send in this application that Holt sends us this huge book of the process and documents we need to get together for our Dossier. So it's going to be several months of getting paperwork together. :)

So although not much has been done a few baby steps have been taken.

Application and Homestudy

We have reviewed the documents received by Holt and have been in contact with the social worker who will complete the Home Study.

Timeline thus far: We will be submitting the application once some work is completed on our house. With our application we have to send in a picture of the outside of our home. I haven't exactly figured out why but I think it might have to do with appearance. I'll have to ask.

I'll be in contact with the social worker this week to determine if we can start the paperwork now before our first appt with her. From what I hear there is ALOT of paperwork.

We are getting very excited about this process and I'm sure at times we may be a bit overwhelmed.

By the way, as we continue to update this we will try to explain as much as possible the abbreviations and steps.

Thank you to all of our friends and family for all your support as we start this journey to Bring home our Baby! Love you all!

Adoption Decision Made

We have made the decision to adopt. This decision did not come lightly. As many of you know we did infertility treatments last year and were unsuccessful. After seeking a second opinion, and being told our chances were down to 25-30% to have a successful pregnancy. We know without reservations that our hearts and home are open to adoption.

With the decision made we have decided to go with Holt International and have chosen the Philippines. This will be a very long journey of about 2-3 years before we bring our child home.

We have started this blog to keep all of our family and friends updated on the journey.