Today marks our one year anniversary of waiting to adopt a baby from Colombia.
At the beginning of 2008 we made the decision to adopt from Colombia. This decision was made after battling infertility for two years. Those two years were the most draining years of our lives. But, once we made the decision to adopt we began to feel a sense of peace as our battle scars faded away. As quick as we could, we collected the voluminous paperwork that is required for an adoption and in May of 2008 we jumped through our last hoop–we sent our dossier (adoption paperwork) to Colombia for translation and ultimate approval with the orphanage. We, and our adoption agency, were under the belief that our wait would be 8-12 months for our little baby. We were so excited and were actively buying baby books, checking out cribs, reading reviews of strollers…all of the things two waiting parents would do. Finally, after two looooong months of waiting, the orphanage approved our application, but with one caveat. Our 8-12 month wait had now become 2-3 years!
2-3 YEARS? Are you kidding me? How could a less than one year wait now become two to three years? As our adoption agency frequently tell us, international adoption is very unpredictable. To say we were devastated is an understatement. I think I spent the whole month of July in mourning and prayer. Prayer that the increase in wait time was a mistake. Someone must have made a mistake. Unfortunately, there was no mistake. Our new wait time was correct. Ugh.
After floundering around for a few months, Ryan and I both came to the same decision. We could either wallow in our sorrows for the next 2-3 years, or we could embrace this extra time and make it meaningful. We decided to make it meaningful. We’ve planned a cruise with our family. And, we’ve also decided to get financially straight. We’ve always been fairly good with our money. When I say “fairly” I mean that we don’t carry credit card balances. We both have 401Ks. We’ve been paying extra money towards our mortgage since its inception. Those are all great things, but we definitely have room for improvement. We eat out a lot. We’ve been wishy-washy with budgeting. The checkbook doesn’t get balanced all of the time. Ok, so the checkbook hasn’t been balanced since January!
So, in terms of getting financially straight, we’ve decided to take Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University and have set (and accomplished) some goals. In the past few months we’ve paid off both of our car loans. And we’re actively paying down our mortgage and are hoping that we’ll get it paid off before our baby comes. There are other goals too–I’ll go into more detail in future posts.
As I sit here reflecting on this past year I honestly can’t believe how fast it’s gone by. Especially with how upset I was last summer–thinking that the wait would be unbearable and would move at a turtle’s pace. I’m so proud of us that we decided to make the best of it and ride out the wait while being productive pre-adoptive parents. Hopefully what we’ll have accomplished will make a big difference in our future baby’s life. Time will tell.