June 20th 2007

Adoption is all about building your family, finding your child that you can love and cherish forever but adoption also involves rather large sums of money, certainly adopting internationally from Russia into the UK. Now this is in no ways for "buying" a child as I've so often had thrown at me a la Madonna or Angelina Jolie, it's just about funding the process. Travel to Russia alone will run into the 1000's by the time we've completed 4 trips. You pay for the homestudy, the preparation course, the notaries, the legaisation, the agency fee and even the Program fee for the orphanage. When I first heard about the program fee I was a bit thrown by how much it was but then I visited the children's home. It only receives 10% of its funding from the State and the rest comes from International Adoption. And you know...some other adoptive parents have had to pay the fee in the past to allow my daughter-to-be to continue living in what is a lovely children's home. So frankly it's my turn and I fully support it. It's just, well, it all comes to rather a lot....

I'm now having to face the dilema that it may be time to return to work full time, especially as it would only be for the period of time I'm waiting for the referral. Once we complete on the adoption I will be heading off on adoption leave quicker than a herd of turtles heading to water. So in real (hopeful) terms this would be a year maximum. Ok I work 4 days a week but it is still rather a large financial penalty. The extra day a week would pay off the credit card bill in a couple of months and allow us to start increasing our savings at a respectable rate. Not only would it fund the final part of the adoption but the more savings I can build the more pleasant a year's adoption leave would be! God we might even get a holiday! And then when I return to work I can, fingers crossed, come back part-time again. The reason I work part-time now is so that I can spend as much time with Princess Toodles as possible and allow her to go to some after school activities. The downside would be that Toodles is the one who looses out. Hubby reminds me she's now 6 and frankly doesn't want to do ballet anyway - Not The Point!!

So yesterday I was a big girl, took a deep breath and went to speak with my boss - bearing in mind he doesn't know about the adoption yet - he was really helpful. It looks like they are going to try and work it so that I can come back full time but still keep some flexibility in going home early on some days and making up the time at home. Can't argue with that so fingers crossed it all works out...