No Twiddling Thumbs Here

A few months ago, I wrote about entering what I called the "twiddling thumb" stage of our adoption process.  I meant this because it seemed like at the hectic pace of getting all the documentation together to get active with the agency, all done in the span of less than two months, that the waiting for a phone call stage would be interminably long, and we would not have anything to do.

While the pace of our lives, as it relates to adoption related stuff, has definitely been slower than April and May of this year, I would not say that it has been a true time of just twiddling thumbs.  Jackie spent most of her summer scouring local furniture stores and other places for good deals as we worked on our furnishing and decorating the room that would become our nursery (hopefully some pics soon).  We continued to constantly analyze our finances to figure out ways to reduce our monthly expenses.  This resulted in us adding to our list of cost savings measures switching cell phone providers and an even more basic (read cheaper) plan; some of those other measures are that we switched vehicles earlier this year to put more miles on the better MPG car, traded in a car for a cheaper payment, and me getting my haircuts at home from Jackie, among other things.

As we started and continued these measures throughout most of this year, we also attempted some fundraising.  Through family and some wonderful friends, we had a multitude of items that were donated for garage sales, and we held two sales (one at our home, and one at Jackie's folks), with both sales going tremendously well.  This summer, we also applied for an adoption grant through HelpUsAdopt, and applied and set up fundraising pages on two sites, Adopttogether.com and Village to Village.  It will be in December before we hear anything on the grant, and the fundraising on the other sites is ongoing. As there was no one big thing we could cut out to save a bunch of money, individually these fundraisers probably won't be significant; but as all the small things you cut add up to make a difference, so too does exploring various little ways to raise more adoption funds.

But as that is ongoing (and we just finished most of the paperwork associated with the grant and fundraising sites), it really hasn't been a twiddling thumb stage since May when it comes to our adoption process.  And with the continued amount of money we need to save due to the costs of adoption (especially considering many birth mothers do not have insurance), every little thing we do makes a difference.  Thus, each and every day we strive to make those decisions that will put us in the best possible situation for whenever our child will arrive.  So really, there's no twiddling thumbs in our household these days - everything is focused on that future child; which I guess is more good preparation for parenthood.

"Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it." - Ralph Waldo Emerson