To adopt, or not to adopt

So, my mom's best friend Cindy is really in the network as far as adoption is concerned. She has a non-profit organization called Chosen and she organizes adoption camps. This last year she helped a couple adopt a child from a woman who was pregnant.

So anyway, she knows about this other woman who is pregnant and asked Jeff and I if we were interested. The woman is 29, single and has 4 children already. She doesn't want to have an abortion, but feels like she can't afford or manage to have another child on her own.

I gave Cindy the adoption book that Jeff and I made on Shutterfly this summer. It shows Jeff and I, our interests, our house, our family and our friends. Cindy will bring the book down to Grants Pass to show it to the mother. Jeff is really excited about the opportunity and I am too, as far as adoption opportunities go.

Also, we heard back from DHS, from the woman who is writing our home study. She is now finishing it up and told us she would be back to us soon to ask us some more questions.

But, I am also having reservations. I stay at school so late. I don't think it would be very manageable to have small infant children, or toddler children and a full time job as well. I don't know how moms do it. I think I would go crazy. Maybe I am more of a type A personality then I ever knew. Would I ever be able to clean my house? Would I get to sleep? When would I cook? When would I shop? I foresee getting really frustrated with Jeff because of his clutter ... etc. Would I ever get to exercise? Jeff and I have talked about how I could work part-time, but I'm not sure that it is very realistic, just because my school district seems to frown on hiring part-time teachers and we have quite a few at my school already. Also I feel pretty attached to my money, especially now that the economy is not doing so well. I feel like my job is fairly secure. So I feel like I should do what I can to keep it, after all there may come a time when people will need some help, like my mother or my sister or my friends. Wouldn't it be nice if somebody had some extra time and money to help people out when they are in need?

Then also I have been feeling overwhelmed lately with what I am expecting myself to do in my classroom. It is already near the end of the first trimester. I am spending a lot of my instructional time giving my students this universal screening test. I feel frustrated, because I feel like there is no end in sight. Before I started giving them these tests I had already met with my students in informal reading conferences and I had talked about goals that I had for them. Now I feel like I don't have the chance to teach them because I am so busy assessing them. My prime time to teach and give individualized support to students has been eaten up by assessing. I am frustrated. And I feel like my kids are not where last year's teachers said they were, so now I need to break this unhappy news to parents at conferences. Not so exciting. And I haven't had much time to teach students on my own.