Today feels like a great day to complain.
Why you ask?
Because today is a very significant day in our adoption journey.
Today these are our realities:
- We officially finished paying for about half of the costs of our adoption.
- We still have another small fortune to pay and we are not entirely sure how we will do it.
- We are paying nearly all our adoption bills in US dollars and the Canadian dollar is currently sitting at an 11 year low. Effectively this is upping the cost of our adoption by about 1/3 more then we ever anticipated.
- We still are not matched or placed. We are just waiting day in and day out.
Today, I feel ridiculously broke and I have nothing to show for it.
Needless to say, I think today is a good day to complain about adoption. My complaints are rather simple:
- I will never understand how the adoption agencies can in good conscious quote us $25,000-$50,000 USD for an adoption and then continue to raise the fees once we agreed to the initial price and are essentially forced to work with them and pay whatever they say.
- I will never understand why people like Mr. MPB and I, who will do almost anything to love and care for a child are forced to pay about $80,000 USD to adopt 1 child. I will never
understand how our system accepts this as reasonable. I will never understand how our society is letting lawyers and agencies profit off the complex situation that is adoption. - I will never be okay with the fact that we are financially able to adopt (it’s not easy but we are making it work, at least so far), but many others will never even be able to consider it. The financial aspects of adoption make it nearly impossible for many people to even consider it and it does not treat adoptive parents equally. In my humble opinion, the system is horribly broken.
- The Hague Convention is in large part designed to protect vulnerable children and birth parents in respect to international adoption. And yet when I see our bills continually rise, I cannot help but feel like we are participating in some sort of human smuggling ring. It literally makes me sick to my stomach and makes me question our choices.
- I will never be okay with the fact that every penny we are spending right now will directly correlate to the amount of money we will have for our child’s future and education. It’s just not okay.
- I hate that one day my child will ask me how much we paid for them, because nearly all adopted children do at some point. I hate that any child will ever ask this question.
- I always wanted two children, somehow I just cannot see that as being part of our future. And I hate that our decision will be based in solely on money.
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Just a little story about a conversation that recently occurred in the MPB household:
Mrs. MPB: It’s not everyday a Canadian wins a Physics Nobel Prize. So, I decided I needed to read more about it. But i still have one tiny question, why is it such a big deal that neutrino’s flip and have mass?
Mr. MPB with eye brow raised: What?!
Mrs. MPB: Seriously, you know drastically more about physics then the average person, so help me understand. I’m not sure I get why this is such a big deal, a Nobel Prize winning achievement.
Mr. MPB, clearly confused: Google it.
Mrs. MPB: I did that. I actually read a lot about it, but I still don’t see how knowing something has mass is worthy of a Nobel Prize. It’s not like he discovered penicillin and will save millions of lives. Clearly, I’m just not getting it, I’m missing something.
Mr. MPB: Okay, I’ll explain it……blah, blah, blah, blah. (That’s not actually what he said, it’s just what I heard).
Mrs. MPB: Okay, can you try again, but using MPB language?
Mr. MPB: Okay, I’ll try……blah, blah, blah, blah. (Again, not what he actually said, just what I heard).
Mrs. MPB: I’m still not getting it. You’re telling me that a thing from the sun bounced around in a giant thing under ground somewhere in Canada and that means something super critical to the field of physics and the world as a whole? How did the thing from the sun even get into the long tube under ground? How many years did it take to get there? How do they even know it came from the sun? Are you sure the sun is even involved in this? Can these tiny things just go straight through me? How come I cannot feel them? And seriously, does this mean teleportation is the next step for humans?! I want to teleport!!
Mr. MPB: You know I love you MBP. But, I think it’s best that I take care of teaching our kids about science…and math too.
Mrs. MPB: I love you too! Maybe I’ll just let this one go and trust that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences knew what they were doing when they determined this years award recipiants. And I’ll stick to doing what I’m best at, which is certainty never going to be physics!!
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My Perfect Breakdown 