Ashley and David Buchanan

are adopting a child from United States of America

We have exciting news to share! We are adopting!

As a family, we have always felt a deep desire to love and care for children. Over the years, we have grown our biological family and also have experienced the immense beauty of caring for babies in foster care. Although we will continue as foster parents, we also feel called to grow our family through adoption.

Because adoption through foster care isn’t possible in Hawai‘i, we are pursuing domestic infant adoption as the next step in this journey. For us, adoption isn’t just about expanding our family—it’s also an expression of the Gospel, a picture of the love and welcome God has given to us.

One of the biggest challenges we face is the cost. Adoption expenses are approximately $50,000. While that number feels extremely daunting, we believe this is the path God has placed before us. We are strongly committed to using our own finances, applying for grants, and doing everything we can to raise money. However, we know this is not something we can do on our own and that it will take an entire community coming together. This is another reality of adoption that makes it so beautiful.

Would you consider partnering with us? Your generosity will not only help us meet the financial need but will also be part of our child’s sacred story- a story of how many people loved them even before they came home.

We are deeply grateful for your prayers, encouragement, and support as we step into this new unknow and full season.

Adoption Status

Completing Paperwork

Adoption Agency

Lifetime Adoption

Updates

  • Update 2

    Adoption Update

    February 4, 2026

    ADOPTION UPDATE 💛

    Many of you know, that during the last few months we have activley been fundraising/saving, attending adoption trainings, completing grants and walking through the homestudy process. We are incredibly grateful for the love and intentional generosity of close friends, family, and people we dont even know. Because of the support from so many, we have raised the funds needed to take the next steps in the adoption process—something we are deeply thankful for and humbled by.

    Simultaneously as we began fully embarking in the adoption process, 4 months ago we got a call at 9pm for a sweet, 17 month old little girl needing a immediate fostercare placement and we were holding her by 11 pm that evening. What began as a short-term placement has become much more open-ended, with no clear timeline or outcome at this point.

    Due to homestudy liscensing requirements, we are unable to continue further in the adoption process while we are fostering her. After much prayer and discernment, we’ve decided to pause our adoption process for now so that we can continue caring for her. We are not stepping away from the adoption, but choosing to continue to care for her as long as is needed.

    We will continue to prayerfully assess the situation as time goes by and her case unfolds.
    We are so thankful to have her and appreciate prayers concerning her continued safety and that the system that we operate within would truly make decisions that are best for her.

    We will pause actively fundraising at this time so our life will slow down a little :). This will most likely be a long journey for all of us.

  • Update 1

    Why and Process

    October 1, 2025

    As I was filling out the mountains of home study paperwork, I remembered a moment a few years ago when I thought, “I could see our family adopting someday—but not through domestic infant adoption.” I smiled, took another sip of coffee, and continued on.

    Adoption has always been something we were open to. We assumed it would come through foster care, or adopting an older child, or doing something that would meet the greatest “need”. Domestic infant adoption felt like the "easy" and very expensive route of adopting.

    Through living in Hawaii, we have learned that adoption through foster care is incredibly rare but the need for foster families is overwhelming. Children are regularly sleeping in CWS offices for days at a time and many foster homes are emergency licensed without full training and screening. We knew we wanted to continue supporting our community through foster care, but we also felt a strong desire to grow our permanent family. Because of ongoing health challenges that make pregnancy and recovery difficult—and our growing conviction of the importance of adoption—we began exploring domestic infant adoption.

    The mothers who choose this path are making an indescribably hard decision—one that will change their whole being forever. These are women choosing life for their babies, and choosing to place them directly into stable, loving homes instead of the uncertainty of the foster care system. They are protecting their children from being bounced between caregivers during those critical early months of attachment formation, or being placed with extended family with unresolved trauma and generational wounds. Their gift of life to their child deserves deep respect and support. We are so humbled and blessed to be part of that.

    So here we are, officially applicants for domestic Infant Adoption! Below is a breakdown of both the cost and process. It is likely that a little under half of the adoption will be funded by through grants!! Once we pay the full 24000 agency fee, we will be “Active” and a birth mother can choose us at any time. Once active, average wait time until adoption is one year. We are working towards becoming active within 6 months.

    We have paid for our homestudy and have currently 21,000 left of our agency fee to pay before we are able to be shown to birth mothers.

    We so appreciate all of your support and prayers during this initial stage.

This fundraiser is over. Feel free to donate to our AdoptTogether fund.