We are hopeful as we share the news that we are starting the adoption process!
This is not an easy or straightforward choice, while we have always talked about adopting, we thought it would be later in life after we had our biological children. Since suffering through 5 losses we have decided to start the adoption process earlier than we thought. We want Willow (our miracle baby) to have the sibling she so desperately wants, and we do not feel complete without another baby to love. Adoption is complicated and can be a long road but we are hopeful that God will lead us through this process with his love and grace.
There are a lot of steps to be able to adopt and we are at the early stages. The first step is to do our Home Study this is where the state decides if we are worthy of adoption. This is facilitated to make sure we are fit to adopt and also to get all the necessary education about the realities of adoption. Again, adoption is a complex choice and needs to be done with eyes wide open to its realities. As important as this step is, it is costly and does not guarantee we have a baby to adopt.
We have decided to work with Christian Adoption Consultants to match us with multiple agencies in hopes of the most ethical adoption and the best chances of adoption for our family.
Once this is complete we will be ready to adopt. This can take a few months or years to match with an expectant mother. We are hopeful and expectant to see God move as we have taken these big steps.
As of right now, we need to raise up a village to help us through this. The average adoption costs $45,000 + for domestic infant adoption. It is humbling to ask for help but it is the reality we face. I know from experience that asking for help also allows for those helping to feel the joy alongside us as we make this dream come true. We are asking for support financially, buying a t-shirt, or through prayers, sharing our link, and for anyone who might be able to offer knowledge or expertise in this area.
Thank you for reading, praying, and sharing!
The Barnard Family- David, Ellen + Willow
I mentioned in our last update the fundraiser for Both Hands Project, we have officially finished the service project portion and have raised $8k of our $15k goal! We are so close to the finish line in fundraising for this adoption. Our goal all along was $45k because that is the low end for domestic infant adoptions. There will still be a gap financially that won't be covered by fundraising grants and we do plan to take a personal loan out through a Christian Credit union that does lower interest rates for adoption but it's not much better than a car loan rate, so we are hopeful that we won't have to take on too much debt. I say this again to emphasize how grateful we are for all of you who have donated!
We know you all have donated already and want to make it clear that we are soooo so very grateful for your prayers and financial support! If you know anyone who might support our family please share the link to our Both Hands project. In the link, it shares about the project, the Widow we helped, and a short video from our project day!
We are now working with 5 agencies to match sooner rather than later. We have now presented (meaning we have seen situations of birth mothers what we chose to say yes to so that she would be shown our profile and be able to choose us if she felt led to) a handful of times and unfortunately were not selected by the birth mother to parent her child. It is hard, and I am not going to sugarcoat it, but at the same time, we are standing in faith that God knows the baby that is meant for our family. So we wait.
It could be tomorrow, we get a call, baby is born come pick them up, or it could be a year from now. We don't know. If you pray, please pray with us that it is before the New Year. We know we serve a loving God and so we ask that if it's His will, we will have a baby before 2025!
We both have been posting on social media so if you can re-share our posts, adding a personal message about why you're sharing it, so that people connect to who we are, through you, that be amazing!
We hope our next update will be that we have a baby or are at least matched with an expectant mother!
Here is the link to our project and where we are accepting donations!
https://bothhands.org/barnard-1224/
GUYS!!! BIG UPDATE!!
It has been a minute since we updated here. We have learned and done so much and had SO MUCH happen in the last few months. I can't believe we started this journey to adoption back in February. We felt called to Adopt and spent a year in fear over the cost, then we just decided to follow God and allow him to show us the way. We researched Grants and fundraisers so much and felt it was possible if it was God's will. When we started here our first goal was to raise $7500 for our Consultant fee and then the homestudy so that we would be active and able to adopt. You all did that! Your generosity got us started! Once we did that our second goal was to raise enough money to be able to match. This means a birth mother picks us and we are locked in, of course, she can change her mind at any time. But we could not match until we raised at least 15k. Then came our first grant. It was 8k matching. So we had to raise 8k and then match it equalling 16k! Just like that God showed up, a friend of Dave's reshared our FB update video and a mutual friend saw it and reached out to Dave. letting him know that He and his wife had been praying about who to donate/support and there we were! He matched the 8k!!! THE FULL THING! We were blown away and it was the confirmation we needed that we in fact were doing what God had called us to and that he was providing!
A week later we got a call that another grant we had filled out (one of the 12 so far we had filled out) was accepted and we got another 10k. The next week we had a friend donate 2k and then that sweet friend's mom donated $500 and a family member donated another $500. So in total, we have raised $29,340 to be able to match and now all we need is about 10-15k to finalize the adoption once we are matched!
All together we have raised $36,840! We are not done! We are still going to do the Both Hands Fundraiser where we put together a small team to go to a local widow's home and help with manual labor she needs done! So Dave and I, plus 10 ish people will spend a day at her home doing yard work, cleaning, manual labor, and anything she needs that we have the hands/skills for! In turn, we will be sending out letters to businesses, family, and friends to ask for support. There is a matching grant for $2500 and we hope to match that for 5k and pray that the last 5-10k comes from businesses and those who feel called to donate! We are excited to bless a widow while we finish the fundraising to bring home baby Barnard!
Thank you again to all those who have donated, prayed, and reached out to us personally to share your love and support. Asking how we are doing, asking about the process, and just genuinely checking in on us mean so much!
We are praying that our next update will be that we are matched and waiting to bring baby home!
We have officially made it to the active phase of adoption! We have our profile book complete, home study complete and we have started to sign up with agencies. We have even started to file our first grant. When our consultant said we would be filling out a lot of paperwork, I could not have imagined THIS much paperwork!
We have signed up/ applied with 3 agencies so far and plan to sign up/apply for at least 3-4 more. Each agency has different requirements, processes, and fees so we are taking our time getting things filled out!
To those who have donated and know me (Ellen) well, know that I have always wanted to adopt. I have volunteered in many capacities with children and have even spent time overseas working in an orphanage. The idea that there are children in the world who need loving and stable homes was something that I knew I could not look past. When I met Dave we had talked about that desire and that it likely be AFTER we had our biological children. After our most recent miscarriage in January of 2024, we decided to give my body a break from trying to carry our babies and to love whatever baby God brought into our lives! We have no fears about our ability to love an adopted child, we just pray this baby comes to us sooner rather than later!
After spending 6, almost 7 years trying to grow our family and 3 almost 4 years trying to make Willow a big sister, we are SO ready to have a sweet baby in our arms. I wanted to update those who have donated here, but also to share with others who have maybe waited, and want to support our adoption, that we are now in a critical time to start raising MAJOR funds.
The first grant we are filling out is a matching grant, up to $5,000. So if we raise another $2500 Lifesong will match that! We also plan to do a Fundraiser called Both Hands where we will create a local team to help a local widow in our church community, who needs help around their home. We will complete any tasks, yard work, or honey-do list they have and at the same time, the money we raise will go towards our adoption. Most Both Hands fundraisers raise $ 20+k. We are so hopeful to be able to bless a widow in our community while funding our adoption.
We will need strong support from our church, family, friends and even strangers as we get everything going. We will continue to update here and through social media to make sure you see how your donations are changing lives!
You have the opportunity to change a widow's life, change our lives as parents, Willow's life as a very excited big sister, a baby's life who gets to be loved so deeply by us, and the lives of the birth family who we will honor and support through this process!
We are humbled to be a part of a much bigger plan that God has to bless and bring redemption to our painful losses and the loss the birth family will experience. This is not a simple story, it is full of pain, loss, and sorrow but it is also full of love, hope, and courage! We know God has a plan and we ask that you pray on how you may be able to help in this process!
Thank you for praying, supporting, and loving us!
We have officially started our home study! We are collecting all the paperwork and getting all the background checks and fingerprints done. We will have our home study visit on March 25th and should be complete
by April 1st! The process went much smoother and faster than we were told, and we feel really blessed.
We submitted our 14-page questionnaire to our Christian Adoption Consultant for our profile book and will be doing the next set of edits this week. A local photographer offered to do our photos for our Profile book and we had a blast getting those done to be able to show future expectant moms who we are! The photos should be edited and back to us around the 19th of March and then we can add them to our book, the final edits for our Profile Book should be done around the 1st of April!
Our first goal was $5,500 and we reached that, then our next goal was an additional $1500 for the homestudy and we did receive that via check from Dave's mom and my Mom's!
We currently need to raise another $3000 which will go towards printing the Profile books (you have to send 5-7 books to each agency) this will cost around $200. Then the agency application fees, which we plan to apply with 3-4 agencies to increase our chances of matching. Each agency is around $500-$1500 each to apply. There have also been small fees for fingerprints, background checks, and things the home study requires us to by like fire extinguishers etc.
The big expenses will come later once we match with a mom. Then we are looking at around $17,000 to the agency and another 20-30 thousand to the legal fees and support of the birth mother.
We do plan to start filling out grants like crazy once we get our homestudy done, as this is a basic requirement for most grants. We will also be taking out a line of credit to be able to front the money when it's needed and then pray the grants and other fundraising cover the bulk of the costs to adopt. The reality is we will be traveling to pick up this baby when they are born, most of the time staying there for a week or so until things are finalized and we can bring the baby home. So this will be all out of pocket as well. Hotel, rental car, and figuring out the logistics of what we will need for this baby. I say all this to remind everyone that we are taking a leap of faith in this process. There are a lot of unknowns and none of it is easy or cheap so we continue to ask for prayers and support!
Enjoy a sneak peek of a photo from our profile book with our amazing photographer!
We are so excited to update everyone! We have officially signed up to work with the Christian Adoption Consultants. This first step means we will be getting our family profile put together by a professional who knows how to share our family story in a way that helps expectant birth mothers know what their child's life would look like with our family. They get to know us, our values, our hobbies, and why we want to adopt. This agency is also our support/coach through this whole process. They will help us pick the right agencies to work with so that our story is shown to more expectant birth mothers to up our chances of finding a match. They also help us start our Home Study, which takes 2-4 months on average. We will be filling out lots of paperwork, taking classes, and sharing every detail of our life and home through this process so please continue to pray for a smooth process.
Our next financial goal is to raise $2000 for the Home Study fee. Once we complete this we can apply for grants to start raising the BIG money it will take for when we place with a birth mother/baby. We are so thankful to all who have given so far and have shared our story with others!
