pregnancy vs adoption

I've been asked if I think adoption or pregnancy is harder. My friend was surprised when I said adoption is harder. But yes, pregnancy is so hard. These are some of the things I don't like about pregnancy:

1. eating so much protein + extra calories
2. no sugar
3. so many many vitamins and supplements
4. back pain
5. maternity clothes
6. nausea
7. rude comments from strangers
8. exhaustion
9. sciatica nerve pain 
10. labor(!!!!)

But for all those things I can't stand about pregnancy, there is something awesome about (in my experience) pregnancy: certainty. I know I'll have a baby. All of the work and pain and exhaustion is worthwhile because I know in the end, there will be a sweet baby.

With adoption, we have a lot of work but no certainty. For example:

1. paperwork (mountains of it)
2. book reports on chapters upon chapters of ohio foster care/adoption training
3. fundraising, a lot of it.
4. waiting. waiting. waiting. waiting with no certainty that at some point there will be a child for us.

In contrast, we could get pregnant and be guaranteed a baby in the next 10 months(ish). Pregnancy is hard, but the certainty makes it easier, in a way.

I'm still thrilled to be adopting though. We've wanted to adopt for almost 10 years and I'm so glad that we had the $ to begin the process and that our wonderful friends have donated the funds for us to be able to continue this process.

I am much too easily discouraged.

Show Hope Grant!

It came!

We received a grant for $7,000 from Show Hope! 

This means we are up to $14,000 in our adoption fund!

What an answered prayer, we are so incredibly thankful for this grant. Our agency says this adoption might cost up to $25,000 in which case, we're over halfway there!

Now excuse me while I take my excessive exclamation points and go make dinner... While dancing... :)

***
In other news, our digital family profile is currently being designed by the agency while we work on the hard copy of the book.

Five Iron Frenzy Themed Fundraiser!

Five Iron Frenzy has a new album called Engine of a Million Plots with a track called "Battle Dancing Unicorns (With Glitter), and Isaac McNary has created this awesome desk art for the song! 

He graciously donated this piece for us to give away to someone who contributes to our adoption fund. This is the post he made to describe it:

We are having a fundraiser to give away the Battle Dancing Unicorns Desk Art! If you want a chance to win go here and make a tax deductible donation to help raise funds for the Maher Family Adoption! Then Email the amount you donated to unicorncontest(at)gmail.com. Every $1 you donate gets you one entry so if you donate lots and lots of money you will get lots and lots of entries and increase your chances of winning. We will also be having Second Place and Third Place drawings for other good stuff. The Drawing will be held on Friday December 13th and the goodies will be mailed out in time for Christmas!

American Girl Doll Giveaway!

Britt and I have been discussing how we can raise $2,500 so that we can sign the contract with our agency and start getting matched with a birth mother. Today we decided to have an American Girl Doll giveaway! 

How it Works:

• The winner of the giveaway will get to pick a doll from the American Girl Doll website (value=$110)
• The raffle starts today (October 14th) and ends at 11:59pm, November 14th. 
• A $10 donation=1 entry, a $25 donation=3 entries
• Click on the Donate link to the right side of this page. Please make sure to leave your contact info in the notes section on paypal so that I can contact you if you win! ------->
• Once the donation goes through on paypal, you'll get an email with your entry number that looks like this:
  
• The winner will be picked via Random.org and announced on this blog.
• If you're the winner, I will email you to find out which doll you'd like.  I will order and ship her to you through the American Girl online store (dolls can only be shipped within the 50 states - see their shipping policies here).

**Please share this giveaway on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, via email, and everywhere else! If we sell enough tickets to get up to $2000 we will add a second doll to the giveaway so that 2 people can win!**