sick

That is what I felt today as Angela and I drove to a county office to pick up the last of the certified documents we needed for the homestudy, and my car started making the kind of noises that can't be ignored.

I noticed as soon as we got on the highway that the car didn't have much power, and when we got the the first stop light it threatened to die. This is where the sick feeling hit me, as $$$ flashed before my eyes.

Thankfully the light turned green so I was able to give it some gas. We limped it to our first destination (the UPS store to drop off an urgent package.) then I called our mechanic to let him know we were on our way over. It was only about 4 miles away, but I wondered if we'd make it. It's a busy area with lots of stop lights and signs, which were NOT my friends right now!

I took lots of back streets, avoiding as many major intersections as possible, and eventually made it to the shop. Angela and I hung out for an hour or so while they diagnosed the problem, which turned out to be relatively major, and is going to cost half of our homestudy money. It's a $1000 repair. (plus tax)

I want to vomit.

We had $7000 worth of financial commitments to take care of before we started the homestudy process.  We didn't want to go into the homestudy with small outstanding debts, so those were taken care of. Then we got the $2500 put aside for the homestudy, which is due next week (or whenever they come to the house, we're waiting for them to call to set the appointment.) This car repair is going to have to come out of that money, leaving us $1000 short.

So what's left after that????

Once the homestudy is paid for, we have another $2000 due to the adoption agency. (assuming Ianna has been legally registered for adoption so we can commit to her! ) Once we get to that point in the adoption there are a couple of grants we can apply for that, if we qualify, can help us with some of the additional (approximate) $10,000 needed for the adoption.

.................sigh.................I'm trying really hard not to feel discouraged right now. The other day I had a whole bunch of adoption related PDF files that I was working on my computer. I had them running in the background, waiting until Dean got home so I could ask him the questions he needed to answer. The forms can't be saved because of the format they're done in. You just fill them out then print them. Anyway, A certain 14 year old girl decided to use my computer without asking for permission while I was in the shower, and X-ed out of everything.

POOF!

Three hours of work gone.

It feels like I will never get this stuff done to get this child home.