When One Door Closes, Another One Opens Up

I honestly don't think that having to say no to potential birth mother matches will ever be an easy thing to do, not just for me, but for anyone going through the adoption process. I mean how does your heart not leap with joy over the excitement that "this could be it!" Pretty much impossible I would think. So although I was kind of bummed that my investigations into loans didn't work out for us yesterday, I really was okay with it. See when Alya and I first began this journey we really wanted to commit to not going into more debt just to bring home a baby. Which is why we didn't want to get a loan to pay for our adoption in the first place. I recently discovered that supposedly the adoption tax credit is not a credit anymore but a refund ... and also it has been bumped up to $13,000 instead of 12. When I was looking at the numbers of our adoption fund so far I saw that at the end of the summer we should hopefully have around $8,000 saved plus the amount of the tax credit we would have the amount that we would need to go through with our adoption. So getting a loan to pay for the initial payment wouldn't really be putting us in debt because we would be able to pay it all off by the end of the year with money that was already designated for our adoption and not just coming out of our other finances meant for bills. So I prayed really hard about it this weekend and just asked the Lord to shut doors and to make things really clear if we were NOT supposed to pursue this path. I made several calls and had face to face conversations with multiple banks but without even looking to see if we would be approved the interest rate they were quoting me was just not something we were looking for. So, I just figured that this was our sign that it wasn't meant to be. I did find a no-interest loan from a Christian organization online yesterday. They seem really great, however, you don't know if your exact amount needed will be met and/or if you will be approved in the first place. This also takes 4-6 weeks to find out. So, with a sad heart I had to tell the newest agency that we have been talking to that we wouldn't be able to be considered for this particular birth mother. I am at peace with the decision and know in my heart that ours is coming soon. Still I pray for this birth mother and her sweet baby growing inside of her and ask God to give her peace and direction in who to choose to be the parents of this precious baby.

A friend of a friend of mine emailed me this weekend to give me some information about the agencies that she went through. I called them today ... The agency is called Catholic Charities and they are located in Pensacola. I am very very excited about them. The fees are only $13,600 and you don't have to pay until after you are already placed (baby is born) with your child. There are a few fees that we have to pay up front ...like another $500 application fee and close to $500 for a home study update and additional background checks. However that $1,000 is all that is due up front ... and that is totally do-able for us! Now we will have a chance to be matched with a birth mother as we continue to raise/receive grants/and save money. I really can't even describe how excited I am for a new step. So please dear friends just pray that the Lord would open doors wide for us as we continue this journey. We are so blessed by His faithfulness and we are so excited to continue one step further on this journey to our child.