We said all along that if it wasn't meant to be, God wouldn't let it happen. We've hit several road blocks in the past three months. We kept explaining them away as tests in our faith and the plan. We kept praying for a sign that we were on the right track and we kept getting hurdles.
Jon and I have been struggling to come up with the full amount of the adoption costs. Once we found out we will need a second trip which would add on another $5-7,000, we had to sit down and really think about the process.
We are still completely committed to the adoption process and bringing a little girl into our family. Now that we have more information about domestic adoptions and know that it isn't this scary, unpredictable process, we are comfortable proceeding in that direction. We are looking into agencies and consulting groups across the country. Bellefaire (the agency doing our home study) will finish our home study as planned and instead of proceeding with Holt (the international agency) they will forward our information to our domestic agency. We decided not to use Bellefaire for the adoption because they will not allow you to select the gender of your baby.
So instead of an older baby, we will be getting a new born and it is very possible that we will have her before the end of the year. While nothing is set in stone, we will most likely still be adopting an African American baby. We are heavily considering a consulting firm, but have one or two more agencies to talk to before we make a decision. Once we do that, I'll explain the consulting firm vs agency and hopefully have more details on time frame etc. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the cost of domestic adoption is pretty much the same as the Ethiopian adoption (before the second trip was added) would have been. Please keep praying that God will help us find the rest of the money to complete the adoption.
While I'm a little sad that we wont be going to Ethiopia, I'm very excited about moving forward and completing our family. I think some day there will still be a trip to Addis Ababa in our future!
2 comments:
You are correct, I am very pleased that you and Jon won't be getting on an airplane and going half way around the world. Call me crazy, but I'm a mom....mom's don't want their kids half way around the world no matter how old they are....you can't protect them a continent away. I will be pleased with whatever little girl we get...as long as I can go shopping for pink things, I'm happy.
So happy for you all either way. I know this decision was hard for you, but I'm glad you were able to come to a decision you both feel good about! Looking forward to meeting the little one (maybe soon?)
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