It this really real?

So lately I have a hard time feeling like this whole thing is real.  I feel like we are talking about it and going through the motions but nothing will ever happen.  Sometimes I wonder when will this start to feel real.  When a birthmother chooses us?  When we see the first ultrasound?  When we see the baby--our baby--for the first time?  When we bring our baby home? 

I am ready for this but I don't know how to make that connection in my brain that somewhere in this world there is w woman who is going to conceive a baby and then give that baby to us to keep as our own child.  This is all just mind boggling right now.

After doing more research we have decided to continue on with our original agency that we selected.  I received a lot of questions from individuals who insisted that we could adopt cheaper.  Turns our they are all right--but it's at a price.  After spending hours online and on the phone with agencies big and small across the US I have found that a cheaper price tag means one of a few things. 
1. Your wait time will increase
2. The agency is not quoting you on legal fees as well as thier own fees.
3. The agency does not offer much to the birthmother
4. The agency does not screen the birthmother.
5. The agency does not market you well or in multiple media formats--that's if they are willing to market you at all.
For all the above reasons I am okay knowing that I may pay $5,000 more than someone else did.

SO..... on the financial front (my least favorite topic right now) we have had to make some hard decisions this week.  Even without help we are going to find a way to make this adoption happen.  We have cut our cable and internet down to the slowest and smallest package available--big savings of $70.00/month!  We are going to see if we can get rid of our smart phones and get a basic phone package (not sure if we can do this b/c of our contract but we are trying anyway).  We set a menu and started clipping coupons--if its not on sale we aren't buying it!  I changed my direct deposit so that a large amount of each check will be saved--and we froze our bank cards so we can't touch it.

I started our first fundraiser a few days ago and its going okay.  Party lite offers you 50% of the sales--our goal is $2,500.00--but more would be great!  The next fundraiser will be a fiesta night.  We will have a taco bar, raffles, and a 50/50 drawing.  We are still working out the details but would like to have it at the end of the month.  And then we are going to have a garage sale.  I am hoping that we will have friends and family donate stuff for us to sell-but we do have a lot of our own junk to get rid of.  We have some other ideas but these are what we are focusing on right now.

Fingers crossed that all together we can raise $10,000.00. 

a very excited and tired,
Mrs. B