Alex and I started the adoption process at the end of September after feeling confident that God was telling us to take this journey again. We started our home study right away and that was completed just before Christmas. The next step was mailing off our immigration paperwork to USCIS. That step was completed on January 3rd. On January 9th, we got an email to call our social worker ASAP, she had good news for us. We found out that night that Annie's biological sister had just been born and the birth mother wanted to start the adoption process again with her. We are so excited that we will have the honor of raising another precious little girl, Sydney, and that she and Annie will be biological siblings!
When we began the adoption process again, Alex came up with an aggressive savings plan that would allow us to cover the costs of bringing home our baby girl. We anticipated maybe being matched as early as summer but more than likely sometime in the fall. With the news of baby Sydney already being born, we are now in a bind to gather funds quicker than we are capable of doing on our own. The total cost last time was $50,000. We have already saved $20,000 but still need $30,000 to meet the known costs. The additional $10,000 that we need comes from the fact that Baby Life took custody of Sydney today. For each day she is there it costs us $200. Most families get to travel and meet their child when they are around 3-4 weeks old but with us still not being approved by immigration yet, it could be another 10 weeks before we can travel. This adds another $10,000 plus to our expenses that we weren't expecting.
We are asking for your prayers and financial support. Please pray that we can get in touch with the right people to help us expedite our immigration paperwork so we can get to Japan to meet our precious daughter and that we are able to cover these adoption expenses.
Thank you for your prayers and support!
