We have BIG news - we are adopting a child!
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 that adoption related costs can easily total up to $35,000 or more. This is why we have set a goal of $25,000 to help ease the financial burden that often overwhelms adoptive parents.
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.
PIECING IT TOGETHER [April 2021]
We wanted a fun, meaningful way to remember those who’ve contributed to bringing our child home. Toward the end of the adoption process, we’ll be putting together a large puzzle that pictures beautiful landscape from El Nido in the Philippine province of Palawan. For every $20 donated, the donor's name will be written on the back of a puzzle piece.
After putting the puzzle together, we can turn it over to see the names of all the people who had a “piece” in our story of bringing our child home. We chose this fun idea because it will not only be a lasting memory of our donors, but it will also show our child that many people helped make the adoption possible.
THE STUDY WITHIN [5/16/21]
This week we officially launched into the home study part of our adoption. Our home study agency is based in Bozeman a few hours away, but they happen to have a social worker lives only 20 minutes away. We enjoyed getting to know her and learning more about the home study process. More questions but a few steps closer!
Introspection has been an interesting side to this adoption process. This week we also were evaluated by a local psychologist on our capacity and ability to be adoptive parents. It was an enjoyable session! Learning how the past--people and experiences--affects who we become in the future takes deliberate attention. Many of our adoption education classes have focused on a basic reset to understanding what adoption involves for the both the adoptive parents and child. From these classes, this quote by Dr. Karyn Purvis is one of our favorites:
It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
Thank you for your interest in our adoption!
PAPERS AND PROGRESS [6/13/21]
We sent another stack of paperwork off to our home study agency this week. We’ve read countless papers and books, filled out several forms, and answered an astounding number of questions about every aspect of our lives and past. We have completed nearly all our home study paperwork, minus a few loose ends. I think we now know how to sign our signatures in our sleep!
Our goal is to finalize the home study by end of June. Several organizations provide financial assistance grants to adoptive families, and once home study is complete and approved, we can start applying for grants. Please keep us in your prayers as we continue our adoption journey. We are a few more steps closer to bringing our child home!
Thank you to all our donors! Our adoption puzzle arrived in the mail a couple weeks ago, and we are starting to label puzzle pieces with donor names. To learn more about how we are using the puzzle to commemorate donors, please see our previous update. We cannot express enough how thankful and grateful we are to all of you who have invested financially in our adoption journey. We cannot do this without each one of you!
If you have any questions about the adoption process, please ask! We love to share the journey with anyone who has questions. There is a great need for families to open their homes to children from hard places.
FILLING THE TOOLBOX [6/25/21]
This week we had the second of our three home study visits. We are excited to have made it this far, and we are almost done with this stage!
The thought of a home study was initially slightly stressful, mainly because it is an evaluation of us as individuals, as spouses, and as parents. Quite honestly, the holistic approach to evaluating ourselves in perspective of our past, present, and future has been an amazing experience. We have enjoyed learning more about each other, our family, and ways in which we can prepare for our future child(ren). Needless to say, it’s been very thought-provoking and an interesting learning process.
Our social worker, Gail, is real, honest, thoughtful, and attentive. She is an adoptive mother herself, so she has shared wisdom and experience with us that we are soaking up. She has given us homework and made us delve deep into the “why” of our lives. We have been given so many tools to add to our toolbox for marriage and parenting from experienced people who have been where we are. With each visit and assignment we are learning how to best prepare for parenting our child from a hard place that we are bringing into our family.
The third and final home study visit is scheduled for next week. Once home study is officially completed, we will post another update, along with our status of expenses. Once we have a completed home study it makes us eligible to apply for grants to help with the financial costs of the adoption. This is something that we have been working towards since the beginning! We intend to apply for all grants we can find and hope to be accepted to at least a couple of them. Of course, grant awards are not guaranteed, but we are hopeful!
The next prayer request that we would share with all of our friends and family is that we will be able to raise a significant amount through grants and fundraising in the next few months. Our next round of adoption expenses are fairly significant: $2,200 for home study completion and $5,200 for international dossier completion/submission.
Excitement, anticipation, nervousness, cluelessness, determination, and sleeplessness—these are all things we have experienced in the recent months as we continue through our adoption process. We’ve said it many times and will say again that we are grateful for those who have partnered with us, nut just financially but also prayerfully. We look forward to meeting our child, and we know our supporters do too!
DOLLARS AND DRAFTS [July 2021]
We wanted to post a special thank you to those who have donated cash to our adoption. To date, cash donations are almost double what we've received through AdoptTogether donations! These dollars will be going toward our next expenses, which will wrap up our home study and pay for our international dossier going to the Philippines.
Speaking of home study, we reviewed the initial report draft last weekend! The 22-page stack made for some good bedtime reading… Seriously though, it’s fascinating to read a thorough (and detailed!) third-party report about yourself and your family. We look forward to finalizing this stage of our adoption!
Once we step over this next threshold, we’ll post with another update on where we are with expenses. To send off the dossier, our next payment to make to AGCI is $5,200. Our home study full amount to pay to Sacred Portions will be $2,200. Both of these will need to be paid as we step into September. Once we have the officially finalized home study, we'll start applying for financial assistance grants. Please continue to pray with us that finances will be met.
Thank you everyone for your support! This can sound trite and we do say this often—but we honestly could not do this without you.
[April 2021]
We are currently in the Home Study stage and wading through all the paperwork involved. We are contracted through All God's Children International to help lead us through the adoption process. Home Study is performed by Sacred Portions.
We wanted to give our donors and followers some insight on our adoption process and how we will be keeping our donation page updated. We will be updating our page with the stages that Adopt Together provides:
• Paperwork in Process
• Paperwork Complete
• Child Identified
• Travel Planned
• Home at Last
Right now we are at the Paperwork in Process stage. Along with finances, adoption requires a lot of paperwork! We are currently gathering and sending needed documents to our Home Study organization.
Using information provided through our home study and adoption agencies, we’ve totaled up our adoption expenses to be $42,700. To help ourselves and our followers understand where all the dollars go in this process, we’ve categorized expenses into 6 general categories:
• Paperwork & Processing
• Medical
• Home Study
• Adoption Agency
• Travel
• Post Adoption
The bar graph below illustrates how our total expenses are distributed among the categories and also includes how much money we have spent in each category. We will periodically provide updates to both the estimated totals and the expended total for each category.
We are raising $25,000 via Adopt Together to help alleviate the out-of-pocket expenses. Donations made through our Adopt Together page are tax-deductible, and 5% of each donation goes toward Adopt Together’s administrative expenses. In a later update, we will be sharing an exciting plan of how we will acknowledge our donors for their part in our adoption process.
Thank you for your interest in our adoption! We hope that you will consider a contribution to help make our adoption possible.
