Extending our Alphabet: A (Allsup), B (Burnell), and C (Child(ren))
We moved to Illinois and were married in December of 2018. We bought a historical house and have made it into a comfortable and loving home for us and our two dogs, Yvette and Charlotte. However, we have long lamented not having children as part of our nucleus.
So, we have officially started down the path to grow our family through adoption! We are in the middle of the home study process and once that is approved, we can apply to placement agencies.
Growing a family is never easy, whatever journey you are on; adoption is certainly no different. Most domestic adoptions cost between $30K - $60K. These funds pay for consultants, home study and placement agency fees, medical costs for expectant mother (if adopting a newborn), travel costs, and legal fees. While we were able to put some of our personal savings toward these expenses, along with a couple very generous family donations, we need to raise an additional $15K.
If you are so inclined to donate in support of our family growth, we’d so appreciate it. We intend to find a way to thank everyone who donates, no matter how small the amount. Many people have already helped us by donating to our fundraising garage sales this summer or sending us monetary gifts. Thank you for your kindness and help, please don’t feel obligated to give again.
If you cannot donate money, we completely understand. Your support can be felt in so many other ways: compassionately asking us about our adoption status, praying for us and our future child(ren), or reaching out once we have a placement to share a meal or playdate; all are blessings.
Thank you, Maegan and Jonathan
November 23rd was National Adoption Day!!
To be honest, this time last year we had hoped by now to have our adoption placement. However, that hasn’t happened yet. And that’s difficult and bewildering but it’s also enabled us to continue to fundraise, learn more patience together, and grow our support network.
Before starting our adoption process, we knew that a strong community of support would be a key component in the ultimate success of family building. In the spirit of the recent National Adoption Day and this season of giving thanks, we want to attempt tell you all how much your support means to us - we know we are continually in your thoughts and prayers. We appreciate all the questions, and every time each of you check in with us to ask about our adoption journey. We often wish we had more updates throughout this process, but that is not always possible - every journey and every situation is different! In this time of waiting, we continue to learn to have more patience, and we are trying to take every opportunity to prepare as much as we can! For example: we spent some time last week re-arranging furniture to create flexible spaces for whatever age of child(ren) is placed with us. Most people on their journey to become parents try to ‘nest’ in their preparations (although it is advised not to be too specific in your room decor as that can lead to difficult emotions when there are fall throughs).
Some weeks we live in the unknown of two situations that are currently pending for us, but other weeks we are presented with multiple other situations which we then read, discuss (and often need to look up medical terms), and ultimately decide to present to or not (in the past year we have presented to just over 15 situations). There is a lot of mental and emotional work that goes into this part of the process. However, we ask you to remember that every situation, every child, every bio mom, dad and family is going through their own journey. When we get a placement, our joy will have a equal counterpart of heartbreak in the homes of the bio family as they live in their circumstances without the child(ren). We ask you to hold room in your hearts for the variety of emotions experienced by all involved.
In all these things - for our journey, for your thoughts and prayers for us and all the families involved, and for you - we give thanks.
Maegan and Jonathan
Recently, we scheduled a visit with our Home Study Case Worker in order to re-new our home study. If you know or remember from the vocab words we posted on our facebook group page, a home study is only valid for one year. As we reflect on the past year of seeing, discussing and presenting to situations, our brains looked for some statistics and numbers (it’s the logistician in us) that we thought would be fun to share to help, in-part, quantify this journey.
‼️*DISCLAIMER* These numbers are specific to our journey. If we have learned ANYTHING over this past year and change, it’s that every journey is different and so specific to the person(s) adopting. However, we tend to find some community when we talk about our experiences, so here is another peek into ours.
💜 We’ve seen and discussed about 65 different situations. (It’s important to note that we do often receive situation that don’t fully align with our hopes and dreams as prospective parents, but we discuss them in any case)
🧡 We’ve presented to 6 situations so far; we did not match with 4 of them and 2 are still pending.
💸 We’ve spent just under $15,000 so far on adoption needs.
📝 We’ve applied to 8 grant foundations and have been denied 4 times. (It’s important to note that we were able to re-apply to some of these grants.)
💰 We’ve raised just over $39,000 towards our adoption (This has been through various fundraisers, generous gifts, and money we’ve earned through various side-jobs)
We share these facts for a few different reasons; these have been questions we’ve gotten most recently and they are helpful for our brains to remember where we are in the process. We are not sharing these facts to garner pity by any means. For many couples, the adoption process can take about a year or more to complete, so while we hoped we could know our family sooner, there are certainly those who’ve waited longer. Again, each process is unique to the hopeful parent(s), but these are a few ‘stats’ from our 17-month journey to date.
Updates during this part of the process are different. Because there’s nothing and everything happening at the same time.
After many hours of classes, interviews, locating copious amounts of documents, and installing 4 baby gates, our home study is approved; we’re legally ready to adopt! In December, we signed with two placement agencies and are now receiving situations from those agencies and through our consultant.
For the past six months we have been seeing situations and have chosen to present to a handful of those presented. Although we are grateful that the children and birth families have been able to find adoptive families we are simultaneously sad that we have not yet been chosen. We are confident that our family is waiting for us and will come together soon. Anxious as we are to find us and their forever home, our faith reminds us to be patient and wait upon the Lord to reveal our family to us. In the meantime, there is still a few child locks to put on cabinet doors and more funds to raise!
We continue to apply, and in some cases re-apply, for various grants as we, so far, haven’t been awarded any (there are lots of folks in need of financial assistance).
TL;DR: We are still waiting for our perfect situation to find us, but for now, we continue practicing paciencia y fe (to quote “In the Heights”) and continue fundraising!
