We have BIG news!
We are adopting a baby girl this December!
We are beyond excited and are doing everything we can to be prepared to welcome a beautiful new life into our home. As part of our adoption process, we have started a crowdfunding campaign. It may surprise you to hear that adoption related costs can easily total up to $35,000 or more. We have been fundraising for the past 3 months and have been able to set aside almost $19,000. Our adoption budget with our agency, American Adoptions, has been set at $39,000, however additional agency fees , home study fees, lawyer fees have increased the cost of adoption and this is why we have set a goal of $20,000 to help ease the financial burden that often overwhelms adoptive parents.
We are asking for monetary donations to help ease this financial burden. Every dollar helps and is appreciated. We have taken out a loan to cover the costs and our goal is to have a debt free adoption. With your support big or small we are hopeful to achieve this goal!
We hope that by inviting you into this process, you will see yourself as part of the community we hope to build around our child as he/she grows up.
Here is a sneak peek at our Birthmother letter:
Dear Birth Parents.
Families define themselves in different ways, they don’t need to be genetic and may be blended by race. Adoption is a blending of 2 families: birth and adoptive families. It’s a lifetime bond and appreciation of emotions. We chose adoption to help us build our family and we’d like to tell you a little bit more about us.
We met while working at the same grocery store when we were in our late teens. Merle kept talking to a coworker of ours who introduced us because Merle was shy. While working a similar shift a couple of our coworkers told us it was our turn to bring in shopping carts. We couldn’t stop talking outside and I asked him out on a date later that day, we watched the movie Dodge Ball and talked at Taco Bell until 1am.
We married at 21 and talked about how our family would be created. We wanted 3 children and foster care, adoption and having biological children were options we discussed. We decided to wait until we were done with college and a few years into our careers before trying to start a family. We tried for 5 years to conceive and it led to me having surgery for endometriosis. Four months later we were pregnant, only to lose the pregnancy 6 weeks in. After we both grieved, the idea of adoption resurfaced. Since we never defined family as being genetic, adoption was the perfect fit for us. Additionally, our family and friends have supported us through 13 years of marriage and are excited for us to adopt.
We’ve dealt with many obstacles but remain resilient. We like to spend our time together and it was most obvious that Merle puts family first when I was hospitalized for pneumonia. He stayed with me for my 4 day stay.
We enjoy traveling, though Merle loves road trips and I’d rather fly. We’ve been to Europe twice, Bahamas for our honeymoon, Nashville, and Kansas City for a couple of road trips. We plan to continue to travel and include our children in our adventures. We enjoy cooking meals at home, trying new recipes but we do enjoy having our restaurant date nights, especially BBQ!
Merle’s known to be the human encyclopedia of movie and TV show trivia. He’s very close with his siblings; playing video games online and recording movie podcasts with his brother. His sister visits often and recently they created a short film. Merle works for a university teaching English composition and literature, is also a writing tutor and instructs at risk youths for an Upward Bound Math and Science summer program. He goes above and beyond for each student. He has a passion for writing and his dream job would be a full time writer.
I love watching sports, especially college softball and movies like The Hunger Games. I even dressed up as Katniss Everdeen for Halloween. DIY projects keep me busy and I’m the organizer and planner of the family. I’ve been working as a Surgical Technologist for 11 years at a local hospital. As a child I became interested in medicine, which led me toward a career in healthcare. My mom tells a story, when I was a kid I would be eating Mac n Cheese while watching a show on surgeries.
Our hopes and dreams for your/our child is to be happy, have lots of laughter, support from family, creating new memories, and be kind to others. We want the word adoption to be part of normal conversation and not brought up later in childhood. We’ll talk to the child about their adoption starting when they are an infant. As the child grows and matures we’ll explain what adoption is, about their birth parents and how we chose them in ways they can understand.
We intend to send you letters and photos twice a year, create a private Facebook page and meet in person at least once before the child turns 5. When the child is older, we would like to ask them if they want more contact with you, if it’s in their best interest and you are open to it.
Sincerely,
Merle and Katie
