Progress, Finances and Tough Questions

We're making progress! Our paperwork is 3/4 done! We've given out all of the documents that need to be completed by others (one of our references is already 1/2 done with their letter!). We need to go to the county jail to get fingerprinted....that will be an adventure!

Last night I sorted through 5 tubs of baby items and pulled out the things that I didn't want to keep for the new Baby T. It was so fun to look at all of Griffin's sweet little clothes and it made me very excited for our baby to arrive! (I know it will be a long wait, but I'm excited anyway!)The baby items I didn't want was added to the ever growing garage sale pile.

I sent an email out to my female co-workers and a few friends about our "Adoption Garage Sale" today and got lots of encouraging response. We're having the garage sale at my friend Kari's house on April 22 and 23. Let's hope it's a beautiful day with lots of people in the mood to find great deals!

One big icky part of my day....more bills arrived for my D&C, so we're up to $1,200 in expenses for that. YUCK. I'm sure the karyotype on our baby (genetic testing) will be a small fortune, too. The good news is that $1,200 in medical expenses doesn't seem as bad as it used to....but that's just because we spent $30,000 on medical expenses last year. How nice of us to do our part to make sure the medical community stays strong. [End sarcasm.]

Because we spent so much money last year, we were rewarded with credit card points! Yeah, us! We turned those into Wal-Mart credit cards (I know what you are thinking, I'd prefer Target, too, but that wasn't an option). Tonight Jamie, Griffin and I went to Wal-Mart to spend our gift cards on our family wish list: a dorm refridgerator for my office, and ipod docking station for home, a DVD holder for our family room and a new vacuum cleaner. So, thank you IVF clinic for 4 fun purchases!! (And, mom, don't freak out, we did pay off the credit card....no way we are paying 20% interest on medical expenses!!) I realize we should maybe be more practical and buy TP and shampoo, but we have to "live" a little!

When we left Wal-Mart Griffin saw a big family and looked at me and said, "Mom, why do they have so many kids? Why do you only have one kid?" As I was drafting the appropraite response in my head, Jamie jumped in and said, "We're working on it buddy, we are going to have more kids in our family." Gosh I love that guy. He's right! We WILL have more kids in our family! Off to sort through more tubs of clothes to bring in money to help fund our adoption!

Turning Junk into a Blessing

We've been slowing doing some spring cleaning and purging things we don't need for a great cause! We're having a "junk = blessing" garage sale some time in May at a friend's house. Jamie prepped an area downstairs and we've started filling it with boxes and boxes of "junk" that we are hoping to turn into dollars that we can apply to our family building expenses. I got the idea when I visited an adoption website and it looked like so much fun--the photos of the garage sale showed their friends helping them with the sale...and quite honestly through this all, I am looking for a little fun! I also met with another friend that adopted and she, too, had a sale and said it was uplifting and helpful. So, done deal, we're doing it!
Once we get a date finalized, we'll let some of our friends know that if they have any items they are planning on getting rid of, we'll happily add them to the sale. We've already had a friend drop off a box of stuff as a contribution!
I love garage sales, but don't really enjoy getting ready for them. However, this time Jamie and I are both having a lot more fun with it. And, we are purging much more than we have before!
Before the sale I plan to go through all of Griffin's baby clothes. I think it will be good to downsize some of it and just keep the things that we really liked and are in great condition. We must have 15 tubs of clothes downstairs--EEK!!!