Sleep? I slept all day mom, I am not sleepy

Daddy just woke up here, but Amanda insisted he pick her up. Click on the picture to read his shirt, I made it for him on Vista Print (yes, it was free), for Fathers day!

Amanda chilling with daddy that same day, she loved lying there while Daddy fanned her to keep her cool, no grapes to feed her though. :o)

So right now, it is 3:15 AM, Amanda is awake and playing, she slept the day away and since she has not been feeling well, we let her get her rest, BUT now she is wide-awake and very happy. She sounds like her old self, thank you God.

I fell asleep early but woke up to squeals and a giggle, DH Tom was watching Amanda, but if I wake up from a sound sleep, returning to it is near impossible.

Therefore, Tom, who said he would stay up tonight so I could sleep, is now sleeping in the chair, Amanda, without fever (PTL) is playing at his feet. It is almost a week since we arrived home, and Amanda is still turned around. I find I do not care as long as she feels better; I can nap tomorrow because Tom will be home.

It is summer and Tom lost his summer job right before we left for Estonia. As a teacher with a new master’s degree in educational technology, Tom had hoped to get a job teaching on-line school, so far no luck in that department. Consequently, he had to take a lower paying job to help pay the bills this summer; I usually teach fitness classes to help as well. Since he lost his summer job, he applied for over 50, and got only one call back. That one will not start until the end of August. Apparently, his summer boss, who runs a special needs day camp, did not think adopting a little girl with special needs was a good reason for him to take a few days off. She seemed to search for reasons that he was not doing his job well so she could to dismiss him, and she did, one week before we left.

Adding to his job loss was the news that our grant fell through that week as well. Such abysmally bad timing, but neither of us paused in our aspirations of adopting Amanda, so onward we went. This was when we decided to go to our credit union and take out a loan against my minivan...no we do not usually have this kind of financial struggle, and we have our summers planned out to the penny, but adopting two little ones in less than a year has drained our resources considerably. We typically use our tax returns to pay the mortgage ahead for the summer, but this year we used them in whole to adopt Amanda.

We knew we did not want to ask for help, we were so tired, so very weary, of soliciting donations, so we were relieved to have the option of a secured loan, though we hesitated to f0llow through with it until we knew that the grant would not come to us.

We had a talk about what to do next. The two days a week, Tom works for the city Parks and Rec department teaching piano and musical theater will not cover our bills. I thought about calling my old boss to sub for the rest of the summer, if anything is available. I actually plan to do that tomorrow, Tom is home and I will not have to worry about a sitter. I lost my regular classes I was teaching because I was in Ukraine 6 weeks, got sick right after, and could not return to work. I knew she may not hold the class for me when I left, but again, Kara was worth that sacrifice, but I do miss my job, I sorely miss being fit, thinner, and being able to help with the family finances. No matter what I do now, I will not be paid for a couple of weeks, so we are faced with taking out another loan to pay our bills for July. The only choice we have is loan against my minivan AGAIN, and the bank said sure, come on over and we will get you the check. I cannot even begin to tell you how much it hurts to have a lien on that van again.

I paid it off when I got my money from the US Government, Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, for exposing a two year old me to nuclear fallout and giving me breast cancer, how do we know that caused it. Well my oncologist said at that age the radioactive particles coming from Nevada would have a devastating effect on me, and they did, I was hospitalized and was critically ill following that final nuclear test, and this is the reason I adamantly oppose any new testing anywhere on this earth, the consequences are devastating. The fact that the US government admits the testing gave hundreds of thousands of Americans cancer is proof to me that it caused my breast cancer in 2003.

It was mostly because of that money that made the final decision adopt from Ukraine, and we adopted Kara, but we could only use the money left after we paid off the van, all our credit cards, medical bills, and such. The remainder did not cover the entire cost of her adoption... still I was happy not to have a car payment since bringing Kara home meant limited ability for me to work, so what a relief to be rid of a $300 monthly payment, and here we are with one again. Thank goodness, it will not be $300, but that first payment is due July 31!

I know that we will be fine, God always provides what we need and the means to get it, so being able to get the loan is a blessing, the fact that we have that asset to use to help us get through a gift.

Tom returns to his regular job early August, so we just have to get through these next few weeks. I suppose we will go to the bank tomorrow, I will sign the papers with a heavy heart, I hate being in debt, I do, but at least we can do that to help our family, so it is more than worth it.

This struggle and the difficulty raising funds to adopt will be the reason we cannot do it again, not on a teacher’s salary. I cannot understand how so many people adopt again and again, but we are unbelievably blessed to have Kara and Amanda home and as Tom said yesterday "I do not regret anything we sacrificed to bring our girls home, I love them and can't imagine life without them" Ditto for me!