It's Complicated

I feel like all I have done is stare at this paperwork for the last few days.  It is super overwhelming.  I am constantly afraid that we are going to answer a question wrong or our house won't be good enough or Phoebe won't behave when we have our home inspection.  The giant hole (firepit/jacuzzi) in our backyard doesn't help either!  This is how I am though.  I am always afraid of doing something wrong.  I just have to keep it in my head that the end of this process results in a child.

On to something else...

Yesterday we had our phone meeting with Heart of Adoptions.  Our major concern/question for them was about the cost.  Obviously, a child is worth any of the cost, but the difference in cost between Catholic Charities and Heart of Adoptions is a TON.  Catholic Charities will end up costing about $17,700.  Of that, $1,200 is for the home inspection and the rest we pay after we take home a child.  Heart of Adoptions could end up costing anywhere from $25,000 to $40,000.  That is a big difference!  We did find out yesterday, though, that you only pay about $3,000 up front for Heart of Adoptions and you do not pay any more until you are matched with a birth mom.  Our worry was that we sign up with Heart of Adoptions AND Catholic Charities, get matched with Catholic Charities, and lose all our money with Heart of Adoptions.  This isn't the case. (Yay!)  So, it looks like we will go through Heart of Adoptions AND Catholic Charities.  Casting the net wider will only hellp =)

Luckily, we will only have to do one home inpspection (phew!).  So we will do that through Catholic Charities and then have to pay a small fee to use it for Heart of Adoptions.  We can also use the same profile for both.  However, we now have two mountains of paperwork to go through. =/

After our phone call, we went to get FBI finger printing done.  We are both getting our medical record forms taken care of this week too.  We have a busy weekend coming up, but the weekend after that will be spent filling out all of the paperwork.

I have had a bunch of people reach out on Facebook to help in any way they can.  That has really been surprising (in SUCH a good way).  =)  Thanks to everyone who did that!

Until next time...

Katie

"DNA doesn't make a family, love does." - The Fosters