Two Years: The Financial Aspect

It's days like today that make me realize how much time has gone by since we started the adoption process.

It has been two years since we first filled out the application to join our agency. Next Wednesday is two years since we had our first meeting at the agency. (Maybe I'll send our family advocate some flowers to celebrate our anniversary.)

About a month ago, the agency sent us another application and asked us to fill it out again because it has been a year since the last time we filled it out. I had no idea when we did our first one that we would have to renew it every year. Which includes signing a new financial agreement. There is nowhere on the agreement that says it expires after a year and nobody told us. I assumed when we joined, the financial sheet was good until we adopted. What was the point of outlining all the fees if they were going to change them? They said we needed to have our money ready to use at any time. We could get a call and have only one day to get our placement fee ready. So, we took a loan out. We have the money just sitting there ready to be used and we've been making loan payments every month.

Two years later we are now signing a new financial agreement and the price has been raised so much that the loan money we took out is no longer enough. What are we supposed to do? Take out ANOTHER loan?!? Not only have we had to endure waiting this long, but it has screwed us financially. We have money just sitting there in our account waiting to be used. Meanwhile we are struggling to make loan payments every month. We didn't think we would be doing this for this long. We assumed by now we would have adopted and gotten our adoption tax credit money to help pay down the loan. It makes me so mad to think about all the interest being added on to the loan over all this time and there is nothing we can do about it. And now on top of that, it looks like we are going to have to take out another loan. I feel like my head is going to explode the more I think about it. There is no way I am taking the loan out now. We will have to try and get one last minute. I am going with the theory that there are a lot of banks out there and eventually one will have to give us the money. We have good credit. Or at least we did before we started all this mess. We always pay all of our bills on time, but with taking out loans I worry about our debt to income ratio. I guess if it were really last minute we could do something crazy like cash advance on our credit cards.

The other thing that kills me is that because we have that money sitting in our account, our agency said we have now moved up a level on the sliding scale for the placement fee. They said it's not just how much you make, but how much you have. They're actually counting the money in our account as something we own. Even though we obviously owe that amount to the bank and are trying to pay it back every month. It's not money we just have. How can that count as an asset?? It's money we owe. So, it's not just the prices going up, but also the fact that we have moved up a level on the sliding scale. It makes it a significant amount more.

I have been mad about the financial agreement so I have been putting off filling out the paperwork. I finally completed it all over the weekend (mumbled some not so nice things as I wrote them a check) and mailed it in today. We're officially locked into the new prices.

I just keep reminding myself that it will be worth it in the end. When it comes time to hand over the huge check, I will be holding my baby.