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So much for decision making

Perhaps the last post was made in haste, but we had no clue that our decision was not one to be made...

Let me back up a bit. 

Two days ago we wrote that we had decided to leave the Ethiopia program and, due to changes at our agency, part of our fees would be transferred into our Philippines adoption which would help cover our current costs. We emailed our agency with the plan we decided on, just to get an email saying that the money may not be transferable.

Say what!?!

Our stomach's dropped. Flabbergasted. Speechless.

And then ticked.

Very, very, ticked. 

Jon did the honors of writing an email asking for more details, especially since previous emails from our agency explicitly stated we could transfer the money. Now, a couple days later... I received a call tonight with more explanation. They had told us that the "agency fees" would be transferred to a new program; however, since we have already Started in the Philippines program and paid the Philippines' agency fees, we can no longer apply the Ethiopia money to the Philippines program. 

Makes sense. Doesn't make sense. And is just altogether really frustrating. 

So back to the drawing board we go. We will call their accounting department to double-check everything, and still praying that they will let us transfer the money. If they do not, then we will either:  A. stay in the Ethiopia program, or B. transfer the money to yet a different program, such as Bulgaria. As long as the Ethiopia adoption program doesn't close on us, we could get used to the idea of adopting from there again, despite the long wait time. But if it does close on us then we would be devastated.

I know it had only been 48 hours, but I had started imagining what our family would be like if we had the two boys and then did domestic adoptions in a couple years, thus having a couple older and a couple younger children. I could "see" it, and it posed as such a "happy" picture in my head. 

Now that picture is fuzzy once again.


Of course no one knows what their future will look like; I definitely wouldn't have guessed that today would have ever turned out this way! But oh how I wish we had a more clear picture of what our family will look like ten years from now. 

Now on to the positive part of the day - we received our letter in the mail today from the United States Citizens & Immigration Services stating that we are cleared to adopt from the Philippines! We were very happy to receive this important looking document (that came in a normal looking envelope) from "The United States of America". Made the day bittersweet.

We will keep you updated, who knows what the next post will say!?! This process sure keeps throwing us curve balls and surprises.

Hope all is well where you are. Talk to you soon.

In Christ,
Mara
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