Adoption or Bust???

It has been one crazy week around June Bud land. We decided to go ahead and lay laminate wood floors in our house (well, in the living room, family room, dining room, and our two hallways). It was my last week of summer, so we figured why not? I would be home and that would make it easier because Mr. June Bud nor I would have to take time out of our busy schedules to ensure it got done. WRONG! First off, the minute we signed the contract with the contractor to do it, my BIL decided to come into town. So, we warned him that he would have to deal with a torn apart house. Then, they were supposed to start laying the floors on Tuesday. They called Tuesday to say they were coming Wed. instead. OK----Wed rolls along, and it turns out the warehouse sent the wrong floors. So, now they were not going to start til Thursday. THURSDAY rolls around, and they come up with some god awful excuse I cannot even recall at this present moment. So, they worked Friday and all day today. Now, at 3:36 pm, they are STILL not done, but are probably a couple of hours way from being done. THANK YOU!!!!! Trying to have this done with a 3 year old running around was a BAD BAD idea...I should have waited til I was back at work next week, Lil June Bud was at the babysitter, and let Mr. June Bud deal with it :-) :-) :-) Lesson learned! Here are some pics of the process so far!!!


Okay, I am done with my tyrant, and can now focus back on my life of TTC. Hehe. Well, I remember in my first post that I mentioned about fostering and adopting our son. Adopting is something Mr. June Bud and I have decided to look into again, so that we have explored all of our options in the event that we cannot have children naturally. So, I reached out to a friend of mine who actually works with a local adoption agency here. We met with her a few weeks ago, and got all of the information and timelines and such. Something else we also got was the price. WOW! I never would have thought it would be so expensive! It is a total of $15,000. Phew! Mr. June Bud and I do not make a lot of money, so this is a long shot for us. But, there are some pros to the private adoption option.

First off, the agency only works with about 5 couples at a time. They have two other locations that work with this office, so in total their are 15 couples, and birth moms can pick from any of us. But, our specific counselor would only work with us and four other couples. Nice. Then, they also don't put our names on a list. As soon as we do our life book, and have done our homestudy, our book is available for any of the moms to look at. We are at an advantage here, because we already had a homestudy done a year ago when we were still fostering, so the agency would just update that one. Also, the counselor informed us that we are on the young end of her couples, so that may be helpful with some moms. Also, our son is biracial, and some birth moms prefer that. So, things could work well for us with this particular agency.

Cons? The price for one. We would have to pull together every last penny and probably ask for loans from our family, which we are not totally keen on doing. The Adoption Tax Credit does help, but that is after the fact, so initially we would have to come up with a big chunk of change. Cons is also the waiting to be chosen, and the heartache that goes along with that, as well as not knowing if birth mom will decide at the last moment to parent her child. It could just be a lot of heartache for us. But, when you think about it, this whole TTC process is heartache no matter which way you do it. Which brings us to another option...fostering again.

Let me just tell you that Mr. JB and I had four foster children before lil JB came to join our family. Each one of those darling children came into our hearts and never left. They still hold a place in our hearts, and it was TORTURE saying goodbye to each and every one of them, because if given the chance, we would have adopted them! Even lil JB caused a ton of heartache for both of us, as well as our extended family because it took over 2 years to finally adopt him, and there was a lot of doubt along the way...we would think things were going along fine, and then WHAM! Someone or something would come up where we thought we would have to kiss him good bye. I am not sure if I am ready for that again...but, it is an option, and one that we really need to think through, because it does have a lot of positives that can out weigh the negatives...BIG TIME.

All in all, Mr. JB and I have decided to give TTC the old fashion way another shot this month and see what happens. Today is CD 10, so I am gearing up to ovulate in the next few days. This our 14th cycle. My HCG Ultrasound is scheduled for Sept 2. So, we are also moving along in that arena, and if need be we will add IUI or IVF to the exploration process. I am just glad that I have all of you to lean on, and that I am not going through all of this alone! Thanks again!

June Bud