The After Thought

This past weekend I went away for a weekend of shopping with my sisters and mom. I live 2 1/2 hours away from them so it's always nice to get together. I found some of the cutest clothes for the kids but most of all for the baby boy. I have forgotten how fun it is to buy for a baby and how cute the clothes are. The other 2 kiddos pick out their own clothes that I buy and they choose what they want to wear each day.
So the adoption of baby A was the talk of the weekend. The last day my sister asked me
"So, how much does this adoption cost all together anyway?" I thought a bit and responded honestly with the dollar amount. After all she is my sister and I don't have a problem telling people things like that. As I was driving home I was thinking about my response to her question. It bothered me that I told her the dollar amount because what I should have told her was:

The dollar amount is not relevant. What is are the true total costs......

1. You have to have ultimate strength in your marriage and be willing to have it tested.

2. You have to come up with the courage to tell others of this plan God has for you to adopt an orphan and have many people tell you a zillion reasons why you shouldn't do it and make you feel like you are going crazy.

3. You will have people worried for your choice of adopting interracial and internationally. They will ask you a million questions again and even though you have the answers they will still make you think that there will be no way you can do this.

4. You will be in constant question if your bio children's understanding of what is going on and if they are truly okay with it all even though they are acting like they are and loving every bit of it.
5. You will stay up very late filling out mountains of paper work.

6. You will have to hand over your every detail and I mean EVERY DETAIL of your life thus far and be judged on it.

7. You will need to wait and be patient, wait and be patient and wait some more.

8. You will receive a referral call and you will be so excited and filled with joy then you will be told why your referred child is an orphan and you will feel a huge drop in emotion and feel sick to your stomach.

9. You will see the baby's photos and you will oohh and aahh over them only to know that the medical records still need to be reviewed and there could be a chance you would need to turn the referral down.

10. You will wait more for a court date only to know that it still could all fall through and the court date may not go as you had wished.

11. You will need to travel half way around the world leaving your other children with someone else to care for them and worry the whole time if they are okay.

12. You will be very tired and may also get very sick.

13. You will meet your child and they may not want anything to do with you and they may also be sick.

14. You will need to get their visa to leave the country and the paper work may not be correct and you may need to stay longer than you had thought.

15. You will return with this precious baby only to tell family members and friends that you are cocooning for attachment reasons and once again they will think you are crazy.

16. You will struggle with if you should parent your adoptive child differently than your bio child.

Total Cost Being: Putting your ultimate faith in God and trusting in him.
Because without his guidance there would be no way you would be able to do it.

The amount Faith my husband and I have gained through the adoption process thus far defiantly out weighs any dollar amount listed.