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IRA Financial Group Announces Customized Solo 401(k) Plan for ...

With a solo 401(k) plan, self-employed real estate agents can make higher contributions than Wall Street executives as well as invest in real estate and much tax-free!

Miami, FL (PRWEB) August 17, 2012

In recent years, a wave of white-collar professionals have cut ties with the corporate grind to pursue second careers as real estate brokers. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), more than one-third of realtors report that they had a prior career in management, business, finance or sales. Furthermore, the majority of these real estate agents classify themselves as self-employed. Eight of 10 realtors are affiliated with their firm as independent contractors, qualifying for a solo 401k retirement plan. ?The solo 401(k) plan has surpassed the SEP IRA as the retirement plan of choice for the majority of real estate professionals," stated Adam Bergman, a tax attorney with the IRA Financial Group.

In 2002, the Economic Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act granted the solo 401(k) equal benefits to a traditional 401(k), greatly popularizing the plan. The flexible retirement plan quickly gained widespread praise and recognition-- mainly for its substantially higher contribution limits, which include employee deferral contributions as well as profit sharing contributions. For 2012, the maximum 401(k) plan contribution is $50,000 for individuals under 50 years old and $55,000 for those over 50 years old. Whereas, most corporate 401(k) plans only allow their plan participants, including executives, to make employee deferral contributions which is limited to just $17,000 for those employees under the age of 50 and $22,500 for those over 50 years old. The solo 401(k) plan also allows self-employed individuals, such as realtors to make non-traditional investments with their solo 401(k) funds, including real estate. Whereas, the majority of the large corporation 401(k) plan only allow for traditional types of investments, such as mutual funds. ?The high contribution limitations couples with the investment opportunities provide self-employed real estate professionals with a far more attractive retirement option than most corporative executives," stated Mr. Bergman.

IRA Financial Group?s self employed 401K plan is unique and so popular for real estate professionals because it is designed explicitly for self-employed professionals. With IRA Financial Group?s solo 401K plan, self-employed individuals or small business owners with no employees can benefit by making high annual contributions ? up to $50,000 - with an additional $5,500 catch-up contribution for those over age 50, make traditional as well as non-traditional investments, such as real estate, as well as borrow up to $50,000 or 50% of their account value tax-free and penalty free. IRA Financial Group?s solo 401(k) plan is a trustee directed plan meaning the trustee and not the custodian is in charge of making investment decisions on behalf of the plan. With a solo 401(k) plan, in most cases the trustee will be the plan participant providing the plan participant with greater control and investment authority over his or her retirement funds. In addition, with IRA Financial Group?s solo 401K Plan, the plan account can be opened at any local bank, including Chase, Wells Fargo, and even Fidelity.

IRA Financial Group?s solo 401K plan is easy to operate. There is generally no annual filing requirement unless the fair market value of the assets in the solo 401K Plan exceed $250,000, in which case a short information return will be required to be filed with the IRS (Form 5500-EZ).

The IRA Financial Group was founded by a group of top law firm tax and ERISA lawyers who have worked at some of the largest law firms in the United States, such as White & Case LLP and Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP.

IRA Financial Group is the market?s leading ?Checkbook Control? Self Directed IRA and Solo 401k Plan Facilitator. We have helped thousands of clients take back control over their retirement funds while gaining the ability to invest in almost any type of investment, including real estate tax-free and without custodian consent!

To learn more about the IRA Financial Group please visit our website at http://www.irafinancialgroup.com or call 800-472-0646.

Jaclyn Baily
IRA Financial Group, LLC
800-472-0646 9
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Source: http://www.ustaxnews.com/state-tax/real-estate-tax/ira-financial-group-announces-customized-solo-401k-plan-for-real-estate-professionals/

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Zuckerberg fortune drops $600 million as Facebook flops

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Facebook Stock Falls to New LowThe fortune of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Inc.'s co-founder and CEO, dropped to a new low Thursday. The 28-year-old's net worth fell to $10.2 billion, its lowest point since the company's May 17th initial public offering.


Source: http://news.yahoo.comfinance.yahoo.com/news/zuckerberg-fortune-drops-600-million-211903540.html

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U.S. Should Make 'Life-Long Homes' A Priority

Former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros

Former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros speaks at the Center for American Progress in Washington in 2009 (Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press)

By Judith Graham (original article at Kaiser Health News)

What will it take for Americans to age successfully in place? This question has immediate importance for policymakers and families as an estimated 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 years old every day. It?s the subject of a new book, ?Independent for Life: Homes and Neighborhoods for an Aging America,? authored by more than a dozen leading aging and housing experts and co-edited by Henry Cisneros, a four-term mayor of San Antonio and former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Cisneros, who now runs a company specializing in urban real estate, spent an hour discussing his thoughts about aging in place with reporter Judith Graham.?That interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q.?You start this book talking about your elderly mother.? Tell me about her.

A. My mom and dad bought the home across the alley from her mother?s home in 1945.? It was a lower-middle-class neighborhood of civil service workers?? all Latinos.?It had the feeling of a Norman Rockwell picture, only all the faces were brown.

My dad passed away in 2006 at age 89, having had a stroke some years before. But my mom, 87, lives there still. The house is essentially the same as it was, with some adjustments.?We put a ramp on the side of the house leading to a deck.?We raised the toilet, lowered the sinks, created a walk-in shower.? Changed the lighting in the den so my dad could read.?Put in window guards, an alarm, and outdoor lighting for my mom because the neighborhood is somewhat in decline.

Q.?Do you see her often?

A. I try to visit her about every second or third day, but I talk to her every day by phone.? She is a classic case of a person aging in place.?She?s a healthy, lanky, tall woman who?s always been physically strong.?? But in recent years she?s started to slow down.?She manages all her own affairs. I don?t think there?s a tractor strong enough to pull her from that house.

Until recently, on three sides, all her neighbors were her age or older. The lady to the left died this year at 97. The lady to the right went to a nursing home and died in her late 80s.?And the lady across the street died at 90-plus.?All stayed in their homes until very late. Aging in place in that neighborhood means older women living on their own.

Q. What lessons do you take from your mom?s experience?

A.?Seniors fear being unable to communicate, being lonely, feeling insecure.? Especially people who all their lives have had other people around them?? family, neighbors?? and now they go entire days and never see anybody.

Imagine being older, a step slower, a bit more fragile.?Add to that being lonely, edging to depression, and unsure about how you?re going to get everything done that you used to do.?But wanting above all to stay in your own home and keep on being independent.?That?s hard.

Learn about or buy the book - Independent for Life: Homes and Neighborhoods for an Aging AmericaQ.?What kinds of policies do you think are needed?

A.?First, I?d like to see us commit as a nation to creating lifelong homes.?Only 4 percent of the 65-plus population goes to a nursing home. Most are at home for a long, long time. We should make this a priority, just as we did with creating more energy efficient homes.

This could involve certifying a package of?age-related home improvements?? the kinds of things we did for my parents ? and coming up with public and private strategies for financial support.

Second, we ought to be thinking about how we accessorize communities for an aging population.?Today, we build parks for children.?Imagine a park where older people would have stations for exercise. Think about age-appropriate recreation facilities.?Think about how we make transit available, so people who no longer drive can get to the doctor.

As we build new communities we should focus on walkability?? making sure that older people can walk to facilities they need, like groceries and pharmacies.

Q. Can you point to examples?

A.?There are communities that are now rethinking zoning policies so that granny flats can be built on the same lots as larger size homes.?Davis, Calif., has rethought its zoning codes with that in mind.

There are places using the high school library as the community library. So, elderly people can work there or volunteer there and interface with the next generation.

I think we?ll be recycling older communities in many parts of the U.S.?? clearing away obsolete buildings and reconfiguring them as elderly housing.?The recession has created a lot of sites that are no longer economically viable.?Strip centers, even regional malls are being remade with housing for the elderly in mind.

We also need to generate prototypes for new age appropriate homes for people who are leaving McMansions and looking for a smaller home.

Q.?What about affordable housing?

A.?We need to double down on very successful programs that have produced affordable housing for the elderly.?Low-income housing tax credits?? we need more.?And HUD?s Section 202 (supportive housing for the elderly) program?? we need more of that.?In some respects, this is the least problematic area because we know what to do?? we just need to do more of it.

What we don?t know how to do very well is help people who are middle-class but who are about to fall off the dual cliff of aging and frailty while living on fixed incomes and aging in place.

Q.?Yet, this is an era of budget cuts. How do you make the case for more financial assistance for programs of this kind?

A.?As a country, we owe it to our seniors.?It?s the right thing to do. It is unacceptable to leave a large segment of the population on their own at the most frail time of their lives. I also think we can make the case that cost savings can be achieved by keeping people living independently as long as possible instead of going to assisted-living or nursing home facilities.

Q.?What about the suburbs?

A.?The baby boomers are the first American suburban generation. But the suburbs are the worst place to age because they?re so unwalkable and totally dependent on the automobile.?Living in a cul de sac is really hard when you lose access to your car.?So these communities have to think of new strategies.

Q.?One of the authors in your book writes about his personal longevity plan.?? Do you have one?

A.?I turned 65 this year and I do have a plan that involves daily exercise and fitness.?My personal role models are people who don?t think about retirement but have created either businesses or activities that will allow them to be active until the very end.

I will always be based in San Antonio.? I live in my grandfather?s old house, which I refurbished, one mile away from where I grew up and one block away from our neighborhood church.?When you give this much to a place it becomes part of you and there are a lot of things you don?t want to abandon.

Kaiser Health News?is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.


Related articles

Dozens of Getting Ready articles discuss universal design concepts and home modifications.

Source: http://www.mhealthtalk.com/2012/08/make-life-long-homes-a-priority/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=make-life-long-homes-a-priority

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Writing the book in DNA: Geneticist encodes his book in life's language

ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2012) ? Using next-generation sequencing technology and a novel strategy to encode 1,000 times the largest data size previously achieved in DNA, a Harvard geneticist encodes his book in life's language.

Although George Church's next book doesn't hit the shelves until Oct. 2, it has already passed an enviable benchmark: 70 billion copies -- roughly triple the sum of the top 100 books of all time.

And they fit on your thumbnail.

That's because Church, the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and a founding core faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biomedical Engineering at Harvard University, and his team encoded the book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves, in DNA, which they then read and copied.

Biology's databank, DNA has long tantalized researchers with its potential as a storage medium: fantastically dense, stable, energy efficient and proven to work over a timespan of some 3.5 billion years. While not the first project to demonstrate the potential of DNA storage, Church's team married next-generation sequencing technology with a novel strategy to encode 1,000 times the largest amount of data previously stored in DNA.

The team reports its results in the Aug. 17 issue of the journal Science.

The researchers used binary code to preserve the text, images and formatting of the book. While the scale is roughly what a 5 ?-inch floppy disk once held, the density of the bits is nearly off the charts: 5.5 petabits, or 1 million gigabits, per cubic millimeter. "The information density and scale compare favorably with other experimental storage methods from biology and physics," said Sri Kosuri, a senior scientist at the Wyss Institute and senior author on the paper. The team also included Yuan Gao, a former Wyss postdoc who is now an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

And where some experimental media -- like quantum holography -- require incredibly cold temperatures and tremendous energy, DNA is stable at room temperature. "You can drop it wherever you want, in the desert or your backyard, and it will be there 400,000 years later," Church said.

Reading and writing in DNA is slower than in other media, however, which makes it better suited for archival storage of massive amounts of data, rather than for quick retrieval or data processing. "Imagine that you had really cheap video recorders everywhere," Church said. "Just paint walls with video recorders. And for the most part they just record and no one ever goes to them. But if something really good or really bad happens you want to go and scrape the wall and see what you got. So something that's molecular is so much more energy efficient and compact that you can consider applications that were impossible before."

About four grams of DNA theoretically could store the digital data humankind creates in one year.

Although other projects have encoded data in the DNA of living bacteria, the Church team used commercial DNA microchips to create standalone DNA. "We purposefully avoided living cells," Church said. "In an organism, your message is a tiny fraction of the whole cell, so there's a lot of wasted space. But more importantly, almost as soon as a DNA goes into a cell, if that DNA doesn't earn its keep, if it isn't evolutionarily advantageous, the cell will start mutating it, and eventually the cell will completely delete it."

In another departure, the team rejected so-called "shotgun sequencing," which reassembles long DNA sequences by identifying overlaps in short strands. Instead, they took their cue from information technology, and encoded the book in 96-bit data blocks, each with a 19-bit address to guide reassembly. Including jpeg images and HTML formatting, the code for the book required 54,898 of these data blocks, each a unique DNA sequence. "We wanted to illustrate how the modern world is really full of zeroes and ones, not As through Zs alone," Kosuri said.

The team discussed including a DNA copy with each print edition of Regenesis. But in the book, Church and his co-author, the science writer Ed Regis, argue for careful supervision of synthetic biology and the policing of its products and tools. Practicing what they preach, the authors decided against a DNA insert -- at least until there has been far more discussion of the safety, security and ethics of using DNA this way. "Maybe the next book," Church said.

This work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (N000141010144), Agilent Technologies and the Wyss Institute.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Harvard Medical School. The original article was written by R. Alan Leo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. G. M. Church, Y. Gao, S. Kosuri. Next-Generation Digital Information Storage in DNA. Science, 2012; DOI: 10.1126/science.1226355

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/rPXu7_0iVaQ/120817135601.htm

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BPL chairman admits to having made mistakes ? Cricket News ...

BPL chairman admits to having made mistakes ? Cricket News Update

Gazi Ashraf Hossain, Bangladesh Premier League?s governing council chairman, has admitted that the first edition the league was flawed on many counts ? however, he went on to promise that the second edition of the competition would improve on these mistakes, stating that the entire tournament would collapse if the franchises involved were unable to survive.

?It was the first time and people learn from their mistakes, but it was a costly mistake,? Ashraf admitted.

?We are now considering issues which we should have thought of before the tournament. I won't deny that we made mistakes, and I think emotions ruled over our actual ability to stage the tournament,? he added. ?In the second edition, we'll try to create a win-win situation for players and teams. If teams aren't sustained, the tournament will collapse and along with it will go the cricket standards and players' futures.?

Following the culmination of the BPL?s inaugural edition in February this year, the tournament continues to make headlines. In addition to criticism regarding a lack of organisation and pre-planning, the tournament has also been financially unstable, with extended delays having occurred in paying contracted players their salaries.

Faced with the gargantuan task of organising an event on such a large scale, the organisers, predictably, made several first-time errors. Lacking knowledge regarding drafting a budget, and the selection of players, the organising committee counted too heavily for sponsorship on companies which were venturing into such an event for the first time.

The result was that players? salaries were inexplicably delayed, with cricketers such as Pakistan?s Shahid Afridi and Dhaka Gladiators coach Ian Pont confirming that they had not been paid their full amount.

Bangladesh and Duronto Rajshahi skipper Mushfiqur Rahim also spoke out to criticise the tournament, claiming that in addition to the payment delays (Rahim claimed players had been promised 75% of their contracted amount before the culmination of the tournament), there had been a severe lack of organisation, with his team remaining in the dark regarding which team they would be facing in the first semi-final.

Deadlines in May and July were set up for the clearance of player dues, but the franchises failed to come good on their promise, despite repeated reminders by the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the Federation of International Cricketers Associations (FICA). The board has finally been forced to step in and handle player payments, in addition to the tax issues raised by the National Board of Revenue.

Source: http://blogs.bettor.com/BPL-chairman-admits-to-having-made-mistakes-Cricket-News-Update-a181013

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Bankruptcy: A few troubled cities have fallen, but most are ...

For a while, it seemed as if the sky was falling ? three California cities in quick succession headed toward formal bankruptcy, bringing the total number of U.S. municipalities filing or declaring intentions to file bankruptcy this year to nine. Still, though it?s clear that many cities are facing financial challenges, the full picture of cities? fiscal health is a lot murkier and more complicated than a simple Chicken Little tale.

Consider, for example, this number: 19,000. That is how many municipalities there are in the United States. In that context, nine bankruptcies is not very many.

In fact, since 1980, less than 0.5 percent of all localities issuing debt have gone through bankruptcy, according to a report from the Pew Center on the States. That rate remained unchanged even during the Great Recession, which officially ended in 2009.

?These have always been rare cases,? says Chris Hoene, research director for the National League of Cities. ?It?ll be a little less rare [now]. But in a country with 19,000 municipalities, the total numbers in the end won?t tell a story that?s indicative of most of the rest of the country.?

Take the cases of those three California cities. Stockton, Mammoth Lakes and San Bernardino declared they would seek bankruptcy protection, all within about a month. Stockton, with almost 300,000 people, is the biggest U.S. city to file bankruptcy.

But all three cities fell victim to particular circumstances, Hoene says. In Mammoth Lakes, a tiny tourist town, a major contract went awry. Stockton and San Bernardino, meanwhile, ?represent the more extreme end of the impact of this recession on cities,? he says. ?They were struggling cities before the recession? And they were extremely hard-hit by the housing market.?

Stockton and San Bernardino are located in regions that are among the top five areas hardest hit by the housing bust, Hoene says. Stockton has the second highest foreclosure rate in the country.

Indeed, while many cities are suffering financially, some are hurting more than others. The difference, Hoene says, ?depends almost entirely on where the city is. There are certain regions that are doing better than others. And within regions, it often depends on what part of the housing market you?re in... Geography matters here.?

It matters, too, the state in which a city is located. Some states prevent local governments from filing bankruptcy ? it looks bad for everybody, including the state. So when a city?s finances look shaky, the state will step in.

That?s what happened in Harrisburg, Pa., after the capital city?s debt service on incinerator bonds grew to $68 million, more than the city?s entire general fund budget. In 2011, the state appointed a receiver for Harrisburg and blocked the city from filing for bankruptcy.

Michigan also seized control of several struggling communities, including Flint and Pontiac, and it forced Detroit to cut a deal to avoid takeover. Rhode Island took control over finances in three troubled cities.

Even if a city declares bankruptcy, that doesn?t mean it?s off the hook for its bills. A court or other arbitrator decides who gets paid, when and how much. Bondholders are almost always protected in that process, though employees and retirees may fare worse.

The bottom line, Hoene says, is that assessing cities? financial health these days is tricky. ?It?s hard to aggregate across the country because situations vary so much,? he says. ?But generally speaking, after a recession of this magnitude and several years of downturn for recovery, most cities are facing some heightened level of fiscal stress.?

Source: http://americancityandcounty.com/finance/bankruptcy-few-troubled-cities-have-fallen-most-are-weathering-storm

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Microsoft debuts revised SkyDrive website and desktop apps, Android app coming soon

Microsoft debuts revised SkyDrive website and desktop apps, Android app coming soon

Microsoft just recently gave it's web-based email offering a sweeping overhaul, and it's now also done the same for its cloud-based storage service. As detailed in a typically extensive blog post, the company has today launched an all new as SkyDrive.com (rolling out over the next 24 hours), one that now defaults to a tile-based layout and boasts new features like instant search and a contextual toolbar. As the company notes, it's also designed with tablets in mind, in addition to desktop web browser. What's more, Microsoft has also rolled out updated SkyDrive apps for Windows and OS X, which promise faster uploads and other performance improvements, and it says it'll finally have an Android app in "just a few weeks." Hit the source link below for a look at it and all the other changes.

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Adoption 101: A tutorial in heartbreak | ChicagoNow

So Mary Tyler Dad and I are adopting.? Yes, we surely are!? I've been keeping it on the down low, so this is our official "coming out," if you will.? We are excited, nervous, tentative, joyful -- a lot like we were at the prospect of the birth of our two gorgeous kids.? But now, after our first visit with a prospective birth family, we need to add heartbroken to the list.??The visit was so jarring and hard core, that I write this both for the opportunity to make some order out of chaos, but also to shed light on the bitter and cruel reality of so many of us in America.?

Just four weeks ago, we got a call out of the blue that a birth family, out of state, was looking for the best family for their soon to be born child.? Baby was due in October, but there was some distress in the family and the first family they had?interviewed was not a good fit for them.? They were working hard to locate another family that basically "fit" better.? Were we interested in learning more?? Why, yes, yes we were.? BAH!? Because we had recently switched adoption agencies (a long and boring story), we were early in the process of applications and preparing for licensure and home study.? Our adoption counselor was supportive, though, and encouraged us to pursue and explore, confident that all the necessary hoops that adoptive families go through could be complete in time.?

And oy freaking vey, some day I will share more about those hoops.? But not today.

Looking back on this whirlwind four weeks, I am trying to make sense of the timeline and what happened when and how we missed what was so glaringly, patently, sock you in the gut?obvious in?our face-to-face visit.? It is exhausting.? Our first contact was with the birth grandmother, who was researching adoptions and looking for a family on behalf of her daughter, six months pregnant.? Birth mom has another little one at home, a toddler boy, just 16 months old.? She is 20.? Later, we learned that this is her third child, the oldest is in the care of paternal grandparents.? Birth dad is 30, unemployed,?but actively with birth mom and in agreement that they simply can't provide for another child at this time.?

Birth grandmother was our main point of contact, but from the get go, communication was complicated.? Sometimes I hate cell phones, especially in life and death situations.? The cutting in and out while talking about the welfare of a child smacked of the same kind of life and death calls we used to have with our daughter's oncologist.? Those conversations should never be had on a cell phone.? Truth.

What we could piece together in those first few days was that neither parent had a cell phone, the family was in great financial distress, they were living (together?? apart?? who knew?) in sub-standard housing with too many roommates, too many holes, and too many termites, and wanted to move to a safer location.? All of that is?not unusual?in adoption.? I mean, if you can care and provide for your kids financially, there is really no need to offer them up to another, is there?? Living with that financial reality sucks, for both parties.? You become, in effect, the haves and the have nots.? They have a baby.? They have no money.? We have money.? We have no baby.? You see what I'm getting at?? If you want a crash course in American poverty, go through the adoption process.? It will wake your eyes up and fast.?

Following advice of our counselor, we each arranged for attorneys that were local to the birth family.? One for us, one for them.? What we were told was that the attorney for the birth family would represent the interests and needs of them, while our attorney would do the same for us.? The courts oversee all adoptions, private and public, so all of us were accountable to them.? It seemed clear cut and simple.? State law (mind you, each state is different) allowed for?us to cover six months of pregnancy expenses and two months post-pregnancy.? We were skeptical, of course, but assumed that once we were presented with their budget, we would know if this was a scam or not, a money making venture, the baby a commodity traded to the highest bidder.? The truth is, you never know.? You truly never know until a birth mom signs over her child after birth.? It's all a risk, a gamble.? You go all in, and hope for the best.

The first plaintive text came six days after our first contact.? They needed $ and they needed it fast.? No milk for the baby.? No food for the family.? Mama needed a bra.? This creates tension, confusion, fear.? You don't want $ to enter into this conversation, but of course, $ is at the crux of this conversation.? They have none.? They need some.? After consulting some friends who have adopted and our attorney, it was decided and approved that we would wire some cash.? A good faith effort on our part.? An indication, that, yes, we are interested in moving forward and getting to know one another.?

We had a few more conversations, each leaving me excited, hopeful.? We learned the baby was a girl.? We started talking names, tentatively.? And there were signs -- manufactured or not -- they felt like good signs of good things to come.? We learned of the baby the week of Donna's birthday.? The baby was due the week of Donna's remembery.? That's a sign, right?? The Universe is looking out for us!? All was nerve wracking, but good.? So very good.

There were some glitches, of course.? The birth family could not make contact with their attorney quickly,?as she was on vacation.? Their first appointment? was scheduled for August 7.? While that made us nervous, we went ahead and purchased air tickets for a visit August 11-12.? The week before, I got a text from birth mom asking that I have no contact with birth grandmom.? Awkward, but understandable.? It felt bad, as she had been my primary contact, but I felt like I had to respect her wishes.? After that exchange, I heard nothing for almost a week.? Radio silence.? I texted and messaged, but had no response.? We came to embrace the thought that this was not happening, not moving forward.? Sadness.? Emptiness.?

And then, the day of the scheduled visit with her attorney, texts!? The family in total had sat down with the lawyer?and all was well.? Oh, and they needed money.? Fast.? Could I wire some?? I generally hate the metaphor of? the emotional roller coaster, but damn, do I get it.? Up, down, up, down, twists, turns, up, down.? I have always hated roller coasters.? They scare the brownies out of me.? Elation to hear that the family was still interested in pursuing adoption, confusion and concern that they wanted money.? Again.?

We had naively and ignorantly thought that when the attorneys entered the picture, all the pesky things like budgets and legalities would be off our plate, leaving room to concentrate on getting to know one another.? Except they didn't seem too interested in getting to know us.? I sent photos and a letter introducing our family.? Yeah, no confirmation it was received, or questions about us.? Of course not.? They had no food or roof.? How in the hell were they supposed to care that we value books and cultural opportunities for our little ones??

With approval from our attorney, we sent more money.? The thought was that since we were moving forward, all of this would be accounted for with living expenses.? No harm, no foul.? A day later, I got another text from birth mom.? She needed more money.? Today.? But not a lot, just a little, enough for an ID so she could pick up Moneygrams (?!?!) and transportation to the doctor.? At first I ignored her request, hoping it would go away.? Then I said no.?

Me feeling pressured by these requests turned into our attorney feeling pressured by these requests, which?would turn?into her attorney feeling pressured by these requests.? Or so I plotted, thinking that if the?lawyers could simply get off their?esquire asses, we could establish a budget, bring these repeated requests out on the table, get the family linked to much needed services, and I would stop feeling so oppressed by the gaping needs of this family I had come to care for in so short a time.?

Tomorrow:? The Visit

Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/2012/08/adoption-101-a-tutorial-in-heartbreak/

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