Everything is Impossible

You can't have it all.

Things have been going so exceptionally well with planning for the adoption. Found the agency, found a home study place in our town, figured out some money issues. And then we thought to ask Shawn's company if they provide any financial benefits for adoption. An office I used to work for reimbursed 2K for adoption, which would nearly cover the cost of the home study, so we thought it was worth a shot.

In an attempt to be discreet, I called his HR department, this is how that call went:

Me: Hi, my husband works for your company and we would like to know if you offer benefits towards adoption.

HR: What's his name?

Me: Well, we'd like to keep this private at the time, so I'd rather not say.

HR: I can't disclose that information to someone who is not an employee.

What? It's a company HR benefit!! Those are usually "disclosed" during an interview or career fair.

Me: Oh, ok. I'll ask him to email you then. Can I assume you do offer some benefits then?

HR: I can't say that.

**hang up**

Later that day, Shawn emailed HR. Guess what the reply was?

No benefits. He qualifies for FMLA (unpaid leave).

GEE THANKS!!! So glad he told you something that we wished to keep private FOR NO REASON.

Like, I said, everything else is going very well. After our tax return and a commission payment for Shawn, we should have about 8K for this adoption. Which is oodles more than I thought we would have at this time.

It's a rough estimate as I'm not quite done with our taxes, but hopefully it's near to accurate. This would be about half of what we need.

And in the meantime, we've gotten a few snow storms that Caden has enjoyed somewhat. Not sure what he things of snow just yet. Or "snowman" which is what he thinks snow is called!

We won't be doing anything about the adoption until after we receive our tax return. But I will be cancelling our attendance at the county fostercare/adoption orientation. Turns out social services generally does not provide full reports to private agencies. Which means if we didn't go the fostercare route, we'd have to start all over with the private agency. Since we'd found an agency we like, it seems like a waste of about 6 weeks. This process is long enough, we don't need to add 6 weeks to it!