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.