BIG news!

What a day!

It started with my setting my snooze alarm an hour late.  Hooray for an extra hour of sleep.  Once I arrived at work, I was greeting by an amazing email - starting July 1st, we are no longer a business casual company - jeans every day!  It's the little things that make us so happy.  :)  

Here's where it gets really good.

I was walking from one building to another when I ran into my department manager.  He's a level above our team managers and is often busy with more important tasks, so he's often in and out of the office.  He just happened to ask how the adoption process was going, and I excitedly told him that we were just continuing to do fundraising and whatever we could, and that we were currently only about $40 away from our first milestone - the $5000 mark - which is when we would actually sign on with the agency, start paying fees, and start the process rolling.  We talked for a brief moment as we were heading back to our department, and he asked me to stop by his office when I had a chance.  When I did, he handed me an envelope with $40 dollars in it, and was very excited to help us reach that major goal!  I immediately went back to my desk and called the agency!

We now have our in office interview and home-study class scheduled for the middle of next month, and our check for signing on with the agency will go in the mail tomorrow!

The lady at the agency said that this was perfect timing because they have a seminar next week (this is what we went to last June) and the office interviews and home-study classes will surely fill up after the seminar.  She also told me that they currently have more birth mothers than they do adoptive parents.  She said that they have 5-6 mothers that are due in September/October, and while she knows they won't all place, there are some that have no adoptive parents to place with.

Can we financially be ready for that?  We don't know.  But we are going to continue to do fundraising, as well as now explore other financing options.  We are looking into no/low interest adoption loans, grants, and worst case scenario, we have more than enough credit available for the parts of the process that are finance-able.  I don't want to use the credit cards if possible, because we have worked SO HARD lately to pay them off/down, but it is really nice to know that the option is there.  Once an adoption is finalized, we will get $5000 in adoption assistance from my work that can help pay for any high interest debt we may end up with.  In addition to the assistance from work, if we are able to adopt this fall, we will have a quick turn around with tax credits which would cover most, if not all, ofthe remaining debt.

So where do we stand?  We currently are $12,000.00 away from our goal, and we now are contemplating moving UP our goal date, instead of moving it back.  Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, let us know of any helpful information you might have, and bear with our fundraising efforts over the next few months.  We are so excited about what's coming up!