The day we got our puppy, about 10lbs of pure love and fur, I was all smiles. So was Mr. MPB.
As we left the puppy foster home, we hopped into our vehicle. Mr. MPB was driving. I was hugging our adorable little puppy who was shaking uncontrollably.
As I stared at our little furball, petting her and hoping she would calm down. My only words:
“Hun, if you don’t like her, we can just return her”
The look on Mr. MPB’s face was priceless. He knew in that moment, just as I did, she was never leaving us. Clearly this dog was already a forever member of our family.
.
Mr. MPB still likes to tease me for that fact that I said we could returned her. We knew we made a lifelong promise to love and protect her. She’s an innocent rescue puppy who had a rough start 
in life, and when she joined us at about 9 weeks old, we knew she’d never live that way again. And now that she’s part of our family we are fully committed to giving her a life that all dogs dream about – lazy afternoons sleeping in the sunshine, walking around the block, playing in the park, always having healthy food and clean water that just appears in her dish, a lifetime supply of snuggles, regular medical care, the odd treat and the pure enjoyment of chasing a green laser light that dances across the floor.
Until I started the process of adopting a human I didn’t realize just how horrible my naive statement was.
The fact was, with the rescue organization we chose, there was a three week clause in the contact that said we could return her. There is a lifelong clause that they will take her back if we were ever unable to care for her. (And there was also a clause that states we cannot eat her…)
At the time, I didn’t mean for my comment to be anything other then cheeky and funny (I’m rather sarcastic in my real life). But now I realize that it’s just not the type of comment you make, there is no humor is suggesting any living thing can be returned. I’ve learned and I know know better. I now realize there are some things you just don’t say, and this was one of them.
Now that we are adopting a child I’ve been educated and my perspective has drastically changed. I never want my child to know that I said this about our puppy. Because, I never want our child to ever, not even for a millisecond, think that they could be returned.
For us, having a child(ren), adopted or not, means we are making a promise that is life long, just as it was/is for our puppy. So long as I am alive, so long as Mr. MPB is alive, they will be our first priority. And even through our wills, our child will continue to be our top priority We will forever do our best to protect them, educate them and love them. Nothing, absolutely nothing can break that promise.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
Mr. MPB and I, well, we both love spreadsheets and data.
Truthfully, it’s a problem.
We both make spreadsheets, charts and analyze results. Sometimes it borders on obsessive – like when we bought our house, the spreadsheet that Mr. MPB made about what we could afford comfortably would put most financial analysts to shame.
I love lists. Heck, I often write lists on my blog. I simply love organization and structure (although don’t look at my desk right now, I’m not even sure what’s going on with the chaotic mess directly around me).
When we started the adoption process, I started an adoption cost spreadsheet. As we chose international open infant adoption we knew it was going to get costly. So, I started keeping receipts for everything – police background checks, medicals, home study invoices, USA agency fees, USA adoption lawyer fees, courier bills, fingerprinting, international money wire fees, profile book design fees, profile book printing fees, profile book reprinting fees, etc.
Then one day, I stopped.
First, I realized that none of these activities were refundable. Adoption is not quite like buying a new sweater or shoes that can be returned. So, keeping receipts was useless.
Also, and more more importantly, we realized that knowing the exact cost, to the penny, of adopting our child, would not bring any good to anyone’s life. It is already giving me heart palpitations. It will cause Mr. MPB to have a nervous breakdown. And, it may even cause great distress for our child one day.
What matters the most here is our future child. Clearly.
Apparently at some point almost all adoptive children will ask their parents how much they paid for them.
If I keep a spreadsheet, we could actually say the exact figure, to the penny. And what child needs to know that? So, the sentence could read like:
We didn’t pay for you. But, we did pay $71,234.56 USD in legal bills and social worker bills to to enable us to legally be a family.
If I don’t keep a spread sheet, I will not be able to answer this question precisely. We will be able to ball-park it, because we both know have an idea. And leaving out the details wont be a lie, it will be the truth. Not lying to our child is very important to me/us. And so by not knowing our truthful response might be something like:
We didn’t pay for you, we paid quite a bit of money in legal bills and social worker bills to enable us to legally be a family. I honestly, don’t know how much we spent exactly, but we know it was worth every penny!
And of course if I create a spread sheet, what if our child found it one day?! I’d be heart broken that they knew that number and we weren’t there to talk to them about it.
And so, while it goes against everything in my logical and pragmatic brain, I’m not counting every penny. I will keep the final payment receipt in order to get our tax credit, but that’s it. Anything else is irrelevant and I just don’t see how it can bring good to our lives today or in the future.
So, as for all the other pennies, as much as they are crushing us right now, in the long run, they just wont matter.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
My Perfect Breakdown 