30 more profiles

I talked to Cathy M last night about our profile. She had some minor changes here and there that she suggested. Some were changes to the text and others were suggestions like - lighten such and such photo or make it bigger. So I made some changes last night and the rest this morning. I had a few ideas on my own of changes like I took a photo of Paul with Fergie (the dog we are pet sitting this week), of a deer in our backyard this morning, and of a vase of stargazer lilies in our living room that are from my flowerbeds. The profile is now 12 pages long.

So I ran those off at Staples today (which cost about $200) and then bought some pink ribbon at Walmart that has a string of pearl intertwined. I think it's very pretty. So tonight Paul and I will have what is hopefully our LAST experience of assembly profiles (punching holes, stringing ribbon, signing our names on the last page). After tonight we will have assembled at least 180 profiles over the last 31 months (we have 30 to do tonight). Then I'll get those in the mail to Cathy tomorrow. She said she'll use these 30 up first and then if she runs out she'll switch to the first 10 we sent. I hope one of these 30 is "the one." I can send our profile as a PDF file to anyone who wants me to email it to them.

Altogether we have now spent $10,000 on adoption in 2007 (between Ukraine and domestic newborn adoption) plus over $8K on IVF. It's a bit overwhelming for me the penny pincher! (just ask my dad to tell the story of when he gave me $$ to spend at summer camp, LOL) I know kids are expensive once you have them, but I never dreamed I'd spend over $30K just trying to have or adopt one, but we've already spent that much and will spend a lot more if we actually get matched with a birthmother or do ever travel to Ukraine. 2007 has definitely been the year of spending the most on adoption and fertility treatments. We spent $10K in 2004 on adoption but only about $4K total on adoption in 2005 & 2006. People are always quick to point out the adoption tax credit. Well...you only get that (especially for int'l adoptions) if you actually complete the adoption. So if we don't ever adopt from Ukraine, we'll never get a tax credit for the thousands we spent creating that first dossier that wasn't able to be submitted before it expired. And if we stick with our plan of me becoming a stay-at-home mom after we adopt, we probably won't be able to claim much if any of a tax credit over the 5 years you have to claim it as Paul will make very little as a FT grad student so we won't owe much if anything in taxes to the IRS so again no way of claiming the credit. Bottom line is that if we do adopt or get pg from IVF that child will be worth every tiny penny we spent trying to become parents, and I am thankful that the Lord has provided me with a job that has enabled us to come up with the money for these expenses the last 4 years. Of course we cannot keep spending money at this pace toward our efforts to try to become parents, so I am also glad that there is one free option out there - adopting from the foster care system. It's nice that there is a free option so that even those with very limited incomes are able to adopt even if they couldn't afford int'l or other adoption options.

Well I'll let you know tomorrow how I make out at the doctor. Tomorrow we should start to get an idea of how many eggs they might be able to retrieve from me next week.