Life with Ababa:-)

Today was quite the day...

Ababa drove me to my Dr's appt this morning (yay, one notarized doctor letter down, one to go!)

He drove me back to work after my appointment and right after he dropped me off, while he was waiting to turn right, the person behind him decided to try and drive around him, shorted the turn, and tore off most of the front end of our car AND KEPT DRIVING.  Ababa got the driver's license plate and called 911.  The police took a full report and should have an accident report number for us tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be able to resolve this, but definitely not an ideal morning:-(

On a brighter note, here are some pics of our beautiful new glass tile backsplash 100% hand done by Ababa.  The tile is a mix of clear glass, textured glass, frosted glass, marble, and granite.  It's called Jeffrey Court Silver Tradition Mini Brick from Home Depot.  It's beautiful and Ababa did an amazing job!!!

Friday Update #3

Hey y'all, TGIF!!!!!!
So glad that it is Friday....and today was relatively calm at work so I was able to catch up on some work stuff that's been looming over my head.  Ababa's period of unemployment before stating school is well underway and it's resulting in us finishing our kitchen renovation that was started a year and a half ago:-) YAY!  He's doing the glass tile backsplash as I type this and next week we're hoping to make progress on the two big remaining items--fixing the floor in the corner (we need to find matching tile still though:-( and skim coating the wall! He certainly isn't bored:-)


As far as The Paper Chase, here's our update.

Progress on our list from last week:

• I applied for my passport.  Ababa accidentally applied for a passport card, so he needs to reapply:-(
• Still working on the bank letters.  These are definitely the biggest pain in the rear so far!
• I emailed my CFO for a mtg next week
• We're still working on the criminal clearance thing
• Our homestudy stuff is pretty much all done except for our in-person interview and our Sworn Statement of Criminal History and our Duty to Fully Disclose Form (both will be notarized tomorrow) and our medical forms which will be completed this week at our Drs appointments.
• BONUS--I typed drafts of our dossier documents!

Our list for this week (it's a doozy!):

• Continue working on the bank letters
• Have mtg with my CFO
• Ababa now has to get a letter from the Unemployment office for our dossier which he then has to sign and notarize the same day it is issued...
• Figure out how to get the notarized proof of no criminal activity form 
• Submit our final two notarized homestudy forms and push to schedule the in person meeting
• Edit dossier documents
• Have our Dr's appts and get the homestudy and dossier forms we need completed (and notarized in the case of the one for our dossier)
• Saturday we'll hopefully be getting our reference letters from our references.  We need to figure out the best way to get their letters notarized
• Ababa has to re-send his passport application

Money, money, money, money...(think the O-Jays:-)

"How much does adoption cost?"  and "How are you going to pay for it?"

We've heard these questions a lot in the past month, and we asked these questions a lot ourselves before we committed to starting the adoption process.

Adoption involves a lot of different people whose jobs are a necessary part of the process...attorneys, social workers, administrators, government workers, childcare providers, in-country workers (in the case of international adoption), etc.  Of course they all need to receive payment for their work; however, when all the financial costs are tallied it becomes a pretty big number.

One of the reasons we chose not to go with domestic infant adoption is that the fees are so high (often $30,000-$50,000+), and most of the money goes to whomever "finds" the baby (usually attorneys and/or the placing agency).  We weren't comfortable with the dollar amounts these individuals "made" on each adoption or with the profit-driven mindset that seemed to come across in conversations with several individuals.

Although the international process is certainly not perfect, the numbers make more sense to us.  Here's where our money will be going (all numbers are approximate and rounded for simplicity's sake):

1. Homestudy--$2000

2. Agency fee--$4500 (this fee underwrites our agency's administrative/operating costs)

3. Dossier Authentication and Home Study Review--$850

4. Fees to Ethiopia--$8000 (almost $5000 of this goes directly to humanitarian work in Ethiopia-which is required of all agencies adopting children from Ethiopia-and to supporting the orphanage, the rest supports our agency's administrative in-country work in Ethiopia and expenses for our child--medical, childcare, etc.)

5. Government paperwork, documents, and visa fees--$1,500

6. Travel to and from Ethiopia--$8,000 (we'll post more on this another day, but we either have to take two trips to Ethiopia or take one big trip and remain in-country for 5-12 weeks depending on our court date)

Grand Total for one child's adoption: $24,000

If we adopt more than one child then there is an additional fee of $8,000 (which is the same regardless of whether we adopt two or more children).

Grand Total for multiple children's adoption: $32,000

Money Tree

Gulp! That is a lot of cash! Since we don't have a money tree in our apartment, and we aren't gazillionaires (in fact we are a one income family now, with both of us in school), how are we going to pay for this?  Well for starters there's a hefty tax credit in 2011 that will refund about $13,000 of adoption expenses per child IF our adoption is finalized by the end of 2011. That would help a lot!

We've already paid the homestudy fee ($2,000), the first part of the agency fee ($2,300), and a chunk of paperwork fees ($500), a total of $4,800.  We will need to pay the balance of the agency fee ($2,200) as well as the dossier authentication and homestudy review fee ($850) in late Nov/early Dec if things go according to plan.  Depending on how we time our tuition payments we are pretty sure we can squeeze this out of our savings account.  After that, we're stepping forward in faith, our liquid assets will be pretty much tapped out so, at a minimum, we could have some cash flow issues.

We have investments that can be liquidated if absolutely necessary, and hopefully we'll get a decent tax return on our 2010 taxes, but we aren't totally sure where the funds will come from for the $8,000-$16,000 we'll need to pay for the Ethiopia fees when we accept the referral of our child/children, or how we will pay the $8,000 for travel to Ethiopia.  Since we don't know how long we'll be waiting for referral, we could need those funds in 3 months or in 2 years....we just don't know. It's nice to know that we have investments that could be sold if we get stuck, but we'd like to save those as our back-up plan for when we are actually raising children (since we hear there are lots of expenses--like childcare, braces, college--and since we both have a significant tuition/student loan bills looming in our immediate future).

Despite the fact that I'm a "professional fundraiser" (whatever that means:-)) we're not going to "fundraise" through this blog for our adoption.  I know, I know, here I go breaking all the cardinal rules of fundraising....:-)

If you feel led to help us out with adoption and travel costs we will gratefully and gladly accept any help that is offered, but at this point, we're not planning to put a paypal link on our blog or sell t-shirts, coffee, or ornaments.  We love the t-shirts, coffee, and ornaments (in fact I own a t-shirt and don't be surprised if you get coffee or ornaments for Christmas:-) but we don't feel right about actively fundraising through this blog for our adoption, particularly since we have investments we could liquidate if we absolutely had to and because we might be eligible for the generous 2011 tax credit.  On this blog, we will just be open and transparent about the financial costs associated with adoption and where we are in meeting them.  If you feel called to help us, THANK YOU!

If we are fortunate enough to be the recipient of financial gifts for this adoption, and if we receive all or part of that money back through the tax credit, rest assured we will only use the tax credit funds for costs associated with bringing our child/children home (car seats, cribs, strollers, necessary childcare...) or for humanitarian work in Ethiopia.  Our hope is that with tax refund funds we would be able to build a well in Ethiopia in honor of our child/children's birth mother through Charity: water and to provide funding for our child's orphanage in Ethiopia. So, if you do give us money and we do get the tax credit, your money could accomplish two amazing things--helping us through the adoption process AND providing aid in Ethiopia.

Whew, this ended up being a really...long...post.  Hopefully it helped to shed some light on the financial side of the adoption process and where we are in it. We are more than happy to discuss this in greater detail (we have itemized break-downs of all line items from our agency--yet another reason we are so comfortable with them) but this should give you a good starting framework:-)

Friday Update #2

So...here we are, somehow it is Friday again!  How did that happen?!?!?!?!?

I got my case study done last week (yay!) and have my midterm tomorrow (nay!).  We'll see how it goes, there is just something weird to my little liberal arts heart about "studying" marketing:-)

Here's our weekly update:

We've initiated the name change process on all my bank accounts, added Ababa to them, and requested the notarized bank letter for our dossier. It looks like we're going to have to print out all the statements from our checking account for the year, manually tally the amount deposited for the year, tell that to our bank, and get them to include that on their letter.  Really USAA?  You are so awesome in all other ways, why  are you our only bank that is not able to pull this data out of your system?!?!?!

Ababa's wallet arrived intact:-) He's now waiting for his NYS license (but he has a temporary license) and he applied for his passport.

We sent the notarized release for clearance form to our home study agency

We sent the briefing and info to our references and asked for their letters to be done by Nov. 14


Our list for this week:

• Apply for my new passport (will do tomorrow)
• Get all of our bank letters straightened out (including the manual statement stuff for USAA)
• Schedule a meeting with my CFO (yep, that's right, no HR department at my job...) to get my notarized employment letter and notarized proof of insurance for adopted child/children
• Figure out how to get the notarized proof of no criminal activity form (somehow we need to show up at our police precinct, bring our own notary, and get this done...yeah, that's going to be an interesting experience in NYC:-) Ababa went by our local precinct today and it was full of people getting booked...
• make sure all homestudy paperwork is done and they have submitted all of our criminal and child abuse clearances

Please pray that our passports and criminal/child abuse clearances all go through quickly!  Everything else seems to be coming together to be done by November 15th.

Friday Update #1

I think I am going to try to give an update of where we are in The Paper Chase each Friday (if nothing else it will give my procrastinating-self a deadline to get that week's stuff out:-)

This week was a little touch and go as I've been sick with a nasty sinus infection and Ababa has been figuring out his next steps following the lay-off. Also, his wallet was left at a Taco Bell en route back to NYC from Virginia last weekend, so we can't get forms notarized or apply for his passport until we have his license (we spoke to the manager 3 hours after we left Taco Bell--when we realized it was missing--and they are mailing it, it's just taking a while to get to NYC.  We're monitoring our bank account closely just in case:-)

So...here's our first official Friday Update.

1. YAY! We got an email today saying our escrow release has been approved.  This is awesome as it means we can send the next big check to our homestudy agency and apply for our passports (first one ever for Ababa and first one with my new married name for me)
2. We are all set for our Drs appts in mid-Nov to get our homestudy and dossier forms signed and notarize--the appointments are made, our Dr takes our insurance, and we have a notary lined up to come to our appointments with us.
3. All of our criminal and child abuse clearances have been sent off and are in process, I sent the final one to PA today.  (We do need to get a form notarized ASAP and send it to our homestudy agency to   release the results of these clearances to them.)
4. We sent in the request for more notarized copies of our marriage certificate today

I have a big marketing case study assignment due at school tomorrow so this will be short, but goals to be done by next Friday (provided Ababa's wallet shows up) are:

1. Mail letters to our other two banks to change my name on the accounts and to request the notarized bank letter for our dossier.
2. Apply for our passports (Ababa's will have to wait until his license arrives)
3. Send notarized release for clearance form to our home study agency
4. Draft briefing for our references and give them the info to write our reference letters

*Sigh* This definitely makes my head hurt, but I know in the end it will all be worth it!

Weddings, lay-offs, and paperwork

We've had an interesting past few days....

My little brother got married this weekend (congrats to D&A!).  It was an awesome wedding and a great weekend with family.

We're still slogging through the paperwork for our adoption.  We need to make a trip to the notary, so that we can send in the latest round of paperwork, which is difficult given both of our demanding work schedules...but our schedules may have just become a little easier as Ababa was unfortunately laid off today.

Ababa knew that a large round of lay offs was happening at his company during October, but his boss thought Ababa's job was safe.  Well, at the last minute his whole division (except his boss who is very senior) was added to the list.  Obviously this is not ideal,  but it may be a blessing.  He was starting school part-time in the spring semester to prepare for his career transition into medicine and now he has more flexibility in terms of classes/schedule/school...and may even be able to go full-time. So, we'll see what the job market offers and what school situations seem best for our family.

We are still moving forward with the adoption (Ababa may even get to be a daytime stay-at-home dad/nighttime student for a while:-) but obviously this does change the financial picture for our a family.  Many thanks to those of you who have offered direct financial support, funding from tax returns in the spring, hosting yard sales, etc. over the past few weeks.  We would probably have taken you up on it either way, but we are definitely going to be taking you up on it now:-)  Thank you for your amazing generosity!  I'll post more details about the financial side of adoption later this week so that you have a full and transparent view of the costs and how that money is spent.

We knew adoption would be a big adventure.  It's shaping up to be an even greater adventure than we thought, but we know that we are so blessed in every way possible and believe that even if our financial situation is a little less flush that we have much to offer a child/children and that God has given us much to share--financially, spiritually, and emotionally.

Fingerprinting

Status Update: We both got fingerprinted today and we scheduled our physicals for early November.  Ababa's birth certificate arrived in a record 24 hours!  We got our money's worth out of that express service fee! I changed my name at Social Security and submitted or bank letter requests...but...I am sending in some additional paper work so that the letter will have my new full legal name b/c apparently foreign governments are even more picky about names matching than the U.S. government. We'll give another update on Friday but it's looking good to accomplish all our tasks for this week.

For fingerprinting we each went to different places near our work.  Gone are the days of ink fingerprinting, it's now all done via a scanner.  I took a cab to my appointment, but traffic was horrible.  I needed to get to 36 and 7th Avenue.  On the west side of 9th Avenue and 34th my cabbie decided he was off-duty and refused to go any further.  So I speed walked/jogged to the appointment.  Needless to say my usually sweaty palms were out of control and the technician and I were both uncertain if the scan would work...but it did!  Thanks to some persistent paper toweling:-) For some reason we'll have to get finger printed again after our I-600A form is filed.  That's called biometric fingerprinting. I'm not really sure how that's different than what we got done today, but our home study agency said for sure we'll have to get another set of prints done then.  I'll keep you posted:-)