You know how people say that you forget the pain of childbirth, because otherwise, you wouldn't knowingly put yourself back in that situation again? Well, I guess it's true of an adoption too. Only different. Six months ago, when we decided we were going to adopt Hallie, I really thought that having to tackle mountains of paperwork, once again, was going to be the painful part of our adoption. Somehow I had let myself forget the degree to which we were humbled during Jordan's adoption process and how excruciating that humbling can be. We went into Jordan's adoption knowing we did not have enough money to bring him home, but we felt at peace that it was what we were supposed to do and that it would work out. As it turned out, it "working out" meant having to accept the fact that we couldn't do it on our own and allow help from others. Not a lot of fun, but an amazing lesson in how many people cared about Jordan before they even met him. And that's how the Jog for Jordan came about.
Again, we've gone into an adoption without having all of our funds needed, but this time we had a smaller deficit, thanks to our tax return. We felt sure we could make up the difference on our own between Ryan taking on extra paid work, and me filling out grant applications like a ninja. How does a ninja fill out applications? I don't know.... But, we thought we could avoid being humbled again. Ha! Life has a way of wreaking havoc on our nicely laid out plans. Between Jordan's surgery, and far too many visits to doctors' offices (for all of us) we have spent thousands of dollars more on medical care than we usually do in a year... and we're only halfway through the year! Add to that major car repairs (x2) and dental work (x2). We've also decided we can't put off taking Mason and Jordan to see Dr. Harbison, the RSS specialist, in Chicago this summer. They have both had some blood work results that are troubling and our local doctors are not able to give us any clarity. It's really terrible timing, financially, but we need to have answers before traveling to China to pick up Hallie. While we did qualify for a scholarship to cover most of the costs associated with the visits to see Dr. H, we still have the expense of driving ourselves to Chicago to add to our list of setbacks. So, as we inch closer to being able to bring Hallie home, we still don't have all the funds we need to get her home and we're running out of time. And that's where Christmas in July comes in... We've decided to make and sell Christmas ornaments to raise funds to bring Hallie home. If you would like to purchase ornaments, you can use the form below. You'll have the option of personalized ornaments, made from any image you'd like to provide, or some ready made ornaments with Chinese characters, scenes, and zodiacs. If you would like to look up the zodiac that corresponds with a particular birth year, you can click HERE.
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