The "Price"

My husband's Lifeproof case failed on his iPhone. We tried drying the phone out, but nothing worked. With all these adoption costs, we delayed about 10 days to figure out what to do. Thankfully, he had an upgrade. $ It comes with a cost, but it's much better than no upgrade, right?

Then his truck stopped working. It wasn't driveable. We were down to one car. It had to go in the shop. $

Then our garage door broke. My kids and I were stuck inside until I could get it up. The garage door man told me that for a garage door our size, it usually takes 2 grown men. He was impressed that I lifted it, not once... but thrice. $

Then my car had to go into the shop for some tire/strut work. Thankfully, my mechanical husband was able to do some work at home, saving us about $400. $

Then my phone... my lifeline... my source of all the adoption stuff, including the scanner (it's the easiest way we could figure out to work with these 300 pages that we're filling out), all my photos of our kids (don't worry. They're on my computer and Carbonite, but they were always there for me to look at... and miss), my translation apps (can't Skype with my host kids without them and Google Translate isn't the best for this particular language), and my actual Skype app (what if I get a call from my kids in Eastern Europe???) fell to the bottom of the lake in a fluke accident. I am not eligible for an upgrade. We are currently figuring out our options. $

Then our A/C broke. No worries... it was the upstairs A/C and the kids were gone this week. The repair man came last night, and as he was leaving, he asked if he should check the main A/C. I had just been figuring out our adoption expenses and I was in my "quiet panic mode". I told him no, because we're counting pennies. $

He left.

Our big A/C stopped working last night. $

Now, before you go thinking he might have done something.... he's a good guy. He works for a good company. He was excited about our upcoming adoption. He didn't do anything.

You want to know how I know?

Because, this is what happens when you are trying to come up with funds for an adoption. This is "normal". 

Don't believe me? I met a lady yesterday who just brought home her adopted son from China 6 months ago. She didn't know anything about me or my story. She just told her story. She said, "I had to go alone to China because we couldn't afford for my husband to go. We thought he would, but then our A/C broke and we had to pay $10,000 for that." It was then that I chimed in with, "Our A/C is broken, too!" Thankfully, the upstairs A/C was a small repair that wasn't anywhere near $10K!

So, if you're a betting person, you might bet that some more expenses are heading our way. And I'm not talking about the estimated $60,000 to bring our incredible three children home.

It has been 10 days since they left. It has been 10 days of missing them, terribly. It has been 10 days of broken air conditioning, cars, garage door, and phones. 

They drew 8 vials of blood from me this morning. If I could sit through that (eek!) and focus on my kids being here with me, I feel I can deal with these other things being thrown my way. I feel incredibly blessed to know that I will be mom to these kids by next year! I am also blessed that my $1,400 bill for all the blood work and urine analysis that immigration needs from me for this adoption is covered by insurance. I am blessed that the cop that pulled me over because I was speeding and had a bad trailer situation decided to give me a warning. Those are blessings. We can still see God in this. We aren't giving up. We are trying to keep our heads high and fix our eyes on what matters!

p.s. The doctor told me that my back alignment showed signs of "muscular stress". She asked if I had lifted anything heavy lately. I told her it was nothing that 2 grown men couldn't have done. ha. Bring it on, garage door! I can handle you!


So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18