I think God definitely has a sense of humor

Matt and I are so appreciative of all the emails, FB messages and comments, texts that we receive from you all containing all sorts of encouragement. I have been blessed by pretty much my whole graduating class by everyone's individual adoption stories. Stories of being adopted, placing a child for adoption, surrogacy, infertility issues, miscarriages, the list is endless. We have been receiving tons of advice and questions as to "have we tried..?" I promise we haven't left a single stone unturned. We have gone down the road towards international adoption, private domestic adoption, "word of mouth" adoption, friend having a baby for us turned huge mistake adoption, friends of friends who know of friends giving up their baby adoptions, CPS foster to adopt adoptions and surrogacy adoptions. The common denominator to the above list is lots and lots of money. Like $30K+ kind of money due all at once. I suppose it would be morally unethical to place your child on a lay-a-way plan. ;) At this point we have 2 bullets worth of ammunition remaining, although I am most certain God has way more than we do. At times when I've just about had it, I look up to the sky and purposefully roll my eyes and shout some pretty harsh words towards the One who knows me and my life best. Have you ever done that, said some pretty loaded words to God that it automatically sends this electrical shock of "oh crap, I'm so going to hell" too late to take back reaction? OH COME ON...NEVER?? I know I am not the only one?! I was told this was actually a pretty healthy relationship to have with God. He would much rather hear from you come rain or shine, than to never hear from you, and that is how a relationship with our Lord begins. Ha, fancy that! Allow me to quickly brief you on how some adoption agency's function; some charge you by the specific race, age, based on your last 2 income tax returns, others are "free" and some charge a flat fee. We initially signed on with an agency here in DFW that, after we had filled out half a tree's worth of papers, informed us if we wanted to adopt a Caucasian infant it would be $40K, a half Caucasian half Hispanic infant $35K, Hispanic infant $30K, Half Caucasian half African American $28K and so on and so forth.. Yes, I am serious. For some educated reason or commonsense of another I would have said that sounds like child trafficking or the black market to me, even then I bet we would have gotten a better deal from the black market. (Horrible humor, but when you have lived through all the "wonderful" things we have, it's important to be able to laugh about them)! Some agency's require you to have life insurance, health insurance (duh), make a certain amount of money a year, credit report, 2-5 reference letters one must be from a Pastor, drug screening, letter from your school districts Superintendent, letter from the elementary school principal in which your child will attend according to your current residence, fire & health inspection of your home, pediatrician, pediatric dentist, 401K/IRA/money mutual accounts, 3 copies of a scrapbook of your family & life, FBI fingerprints taken, copy of HS diploma, college degree, drivers license, SS, blood type, birth certificates, etc...BUT EVERY AGENCY REQUIRES A CURRENT HOMESTUDY! dun-dun-duuuun! Can you imagine retaining all of the above to have some rookie CPS caseworker who just graduated from college (A&M @ that ;)j/k, but not really kidding) LOSE IT ALL. Yes LOSE as in "misplace it ALLLL!!!" Can you tell it happened to us? So to all my fellow adopters: fax/scan/email your original copies to agency, make an extra copy of your original copy, file a copy of the originals w/your originals and scan your original copy onto your desktop with a folder titled "DO NOT LOSE IT ALL AGAIN MISS LADY!" Yeah, soooo all those floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and hurricanes that have happened in the last 2 yrs along with the extremely over dramatic FB status updates, were all due to my reaction of the above scenario that happened TWICE!!!! Grrrr..makes my blood pressure rise even when I think about that one instance. Yes, you read correctly, that 1 instance. Oh yeah buddy, there are so many more. But that may require dinner and drinks, free mobile to mobile minutes, a short 5 hour drive to Midland or a very long 2 hour drive from Midland to Lubbock! I will not go into detail about our 12hour, non-stop interview with our social-worker called the Homestudy that we bombed. That is for another day, when God graces me with the forgiveness that I have yet to ask for regarding that lovely lady and the board in which she answers to. So I will end with a funny lil story that took place during our Homestudy! One of the questions our social-worker asked us was, "would you change your child's name if they are under the age of 2 and placed in your home?" I immediately said no, never. Then Matt counteracted with, "pssshhhh, uh YES!" I gave him THE look. You know, THE look you give your other half when they need to agree with you because you are always right? Yeah, that one! So of course she tells Matt, the charmer, "now that's what I wanted to hear right there, that's the answer I was looking for." Matt then shot me the "I-am-mocking-your-look" kind of look. Grinning like the Grinch who's heart grew 2 sizes more. Matt continues explaining how if a child who came into our home had an offensive name he would elect to have it changed. I chimed in with my 2 cents worth and said if that was the case then we could come up with a nickname or abbreviate it no need in changing the whole thing. Matt began to tell her of his cousin in Iowa who fostered and is now adopting an infant who's name is Aryan. And she was placed in CPS because her father was a leader of a white supremacist group and purposefully spelled and named her Aryan. Again, I added, "well if that was our case we could just call her Ariel." At this point the social-worker was completely over it and me. She then told us that a few weeks prior, she had to place a small boy in foster care who's name was United States of America Gonzalez. I covered my face and tried not to laugh as I said under my breath while shaking my head, "aye mi gente!" Translation, "oh my people!" Matt laughed and looked straight at me because it was referring to my people and said, "boom miss thang! what are you going to possibly do with that." I said chuckling that we could just call him USA, Matt suggested us calling him Estados Unidos! Alright Alright..I get it. You can't possibly salvage every name. The social-worker continued and told of several idiotic parents who curse their children for life by the names they give them. She had to place a young boy whose name was spelled S-H-I-T-H-E-A-D. Now how do you suppose his name is pronounced? If you said the obvious you are in the 99.9 percentile, however it is pronounced "sha-theed" oh yeah there's more. A little girl spells her name "La-a" this one is tricky but take a guess at how it's pronounced. ERRRRRNT, wrong! Pronounced Ladasha. There is one more, but I cannot for the life of me remember it. All in all, God has a sense of humor and blesses us with one when it comes down to shutting one door to bust open another. We are moving on and forward with a hometown adoption agency called Addy's Hope Adoption Agency of Midland, TX!! It is exciting to know that one day, even a year from now our little boy will be a fellow Midlander just like his mommy! Yep, I said it..a little boy! I will tell you how I know for a sure it will be a boy next time :)

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