My heart still aches

One would think that having a new baby would give you some sort of satisfaction (at least temporarily) in the absence of the adoption. Wrong. Baby M has filled a place in my heart that needed to be filled in the worst way. He has filled a place in my heart that no one else ever could. But he is not a substitution for adopting. My mind has never left that place, and my heart certainly hasn't. We were told to contact our agency when our baby was born so they could close out our adoption file. Close out the file, to me, means closure on the process. Shutting the door, for now, on a dream that will someday (hopefully) come true. So, I e-mailed our contact at the agency and told her that we would like to revisit adopting in the future. She replied with 'we don't have to close your file, we can keep you on hold as long as you are considering adopting in the near future. This will eliminate you having to pay $xxxx.xx. You can start the application process when your baby is 3 months old.'

Jaw dropping. Eyes welling with tears. This is a hard decision. Maybe completely irresponsible, but we spent all of the adoption $ on a new truck for the Big Guy. We never expected, or should I say, were never told that this was an option. In fact, I was told by the same lady that none of the $ that we'd spent on the adoption could be recovered, and we would have to start at square one. The plan, after resolving ourselves to the fact that this wouldn't happen for several years, was to buy the truck (instead of dumping thousands of dollars into the old one), and save the next 2 years worth of tax returns for the adoption. That would put us 2.5 years down the road for adopting. But now with this info placed at our feet, it would mean less cost all around. An updated homestudy instead of a brand new one, updated fingerprints, mostly updated paperwork altogether. Less cost. Holy crap, 2 small children. How does one make a decision like this?

And some baby goodness for you all to enjoy:
Born 5-16-07
One month old
Baby M and Flippity