It may mean I’m absolutely neurotic, but I calculated the number of seconds from when we found out about the adoption to the due date for our son. I was driven to do this because it was exactly the same amount of time I spent on bedrest with my girls: five months. Twenty weeks. 141 days. 3,384 hours. 203,040 minutes. 12,182,400 seconds. When I was on bedrest, I drove myself crazy with worry and I would swear that every second felt like an hour. I’m not sure I took a deep breath until we made it to 28 weeks and I knew the girls had a fighting chance to survive. Every moment after that was a second I held dear as I knew it was a stronger chance that they would be healthy and it meant less time in the NICU.
I can’t help but compare that to the five months that is flying by with this adoption. The first two weeks were a blur. Days felt like seconds as I consulted attorneys, chose a home study agency, and found a counselor. There were a couple of days where time flowed normally, but as we realized we would need to fundraise to help meet all of the costs, time entered warp speed.
Sell baby gear and odds and ends around the house, fill out paperwork for the home study, line up counselors, meet with the birth mother, fundraise, apply for grants, and research loans. Find a place to have a pancake feed–check. Find a place for a community garage sale (still working on that), make flyers, send emails, write PSAs, get the word out, network, connect with friends to see if they can help, and line up every dollar we can. There is still at least $10k that we know we need to bring to the table, plus we need a plan in place to fill any gap if our fundraising falls short.
And today, I received the final paperwork that I have to complete to prove how we will fund this adoption in order to get approved as a prospective parent. Please don’t let this be a roadblock. Our medical hardship from our 401(k)s fell through. My new employer doesn’t allow it, nor does my husband’s, much to our surprise. We were counting on that. No time to mourn or think. It’s time to explore other avenues. More phone calls, more emails. Luckily, I have friends in the right places to get answers. We think we have a plan in place to replace the money we were counting on from our 401(k)s. I will juggle, I will dance, I will sing–anything to bring my son home.
In some ways, this is no different than someone with a surprise baby. Can anyone really afford a first child, a second or a third? Maybe not, but we can love him. More importantly, we are willing to take on the challenge of affording him for the rest of our lives. Three kids in daycare doesn’t make me bat an eye. Three in college at the same time? I’m game.
I’ll stay up late and crunch the numbers. I’ll call banks and line up possible loans all week. We’ll have a plan in place to gather our 10k (or more) and be able to answer all of those questions to get approved as adoptive parents. I will squeeze the life out of every one of those seconds we have until our son arrives.
Cancer Ever After 
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