We are thrilled to share that we are adopting!
We have talked a lot about what building our family would look like as we have grown together since we were 21 years old. After struggling with infertility, we knew our family was meant to grow through adoption. Bob’s mother was adopted and she and her family have always instilled in us the fact that a family goes far beyond genetics. We know that Bob’s grandparents, and many other beautiful family members, are looking down at us from Heaven and are very proud to see these values being passed down!
We have an amazing community of friends and family that have been with us so far, and we cannot wait to show our new baby the amazing people that helped get them here. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but in our case it also takes a village to bring the child to the village! If you are able and willing, we humbly ask for your financial generosity to bring this baby home. Our biggest wish is that you will be a part of the community that our child grows up loving (and being loved by), learning from, and making lifelong memories with.
A significant barrier we encountered regarding finances is that adoption related costs on average total up to $50,000 or more. This is why we have set a goal of $35,000 to help ease the financial burden that often overwhelms adoptive parents. In the US, 33% of couples consider adoption; however, 79% of the families are deterred by the high costs, and in the end only 2% adopt.
We chose the AdoptTogether platform as it is a registered 501c3 non-profit organization and all of the funds raised go solely towards adoption. To receive the funds we must provide proof that they are going towards adoption expenses before funding is dispersed. Any excess funding can be moved to a future adoption, to another family's adoption, or to support birth mothers.
You mean so much to us and we are so thankful for your support. We are so excited to add baby Mason to our family, and we know our fur-babies are ecstatic as well! We cannot wait to watch our children grow up around our ‘zoo’ and love them as much as we do, and we look forward to seeing one another in the roles of mom and dad. We also humbly ask you to pray for us, the expectant mother, and our future child in this process.
We plan to add the names of our village to our future child’s toy box so they are reminded daily of the love and support that surrounds them.
This AdoptTogether page will be our central hub for our fundraising efforts and the best place to keep up with the adoption process, information as to how your donations are utilized, family updates, and more. We want to bring you along the entire process as much as possible and share each moment with you!
All our love, Bob, Kelsey & ‘The Zoo’ - Milton, Charlie, Bailey, & Winston
Happy New Year! I wanted to provide an update as we move into 2025, as this will certainly be a rollercoaster year for us.
We updated in October that we've been officially approved! Since then we’ve had many family and friends reach out for updates, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for that. As of now, we have been presented once to a birth mother, but have not matched. We are told that the first one is always the hardest, and I hope that is true. This part of the process is definitely a roller coaster, mentally and emotionally. I explain the process a bit more below. As of now, we are featured as a waiting family on AAU’s website!
https://aauadoptions.org/meet-the-m-family-kelsey-bob/
For those unfamiliar with the process, now that we are approved, it's a lot of waiting. Our agency, All About U Adoptions, works with expecting birth mothers from ND, SD, and NE. If those birth mothers choose to go through with adoption, we are sent a generalized summary of health history, societal history, and circumstances. We then say yes or no to proceeding with presenting our profile book to the birth mother. Our profile book is submitted among others to be reviewed and chosen by the birth mother. If chosen, you are then "matched" and proceed to meeting in person with an AAU representative present. Due to the confidential and emotional nature of this, we will not be providing specific updates everytime we present, but more generalized ones after the fact as we did in the first paragraph.
From there, it really depends on the relationship and amount of support the birth mom wants, state requirements, etc. The big thing is that we will have to stay in the birth state for up 2 weeks due to ICPC laws. You can read more here on that:
https://consideringadoption.com/adopting/legal-process-of-adoption/what-is-icpc-and-does-it-apply-to-your-adoption/
As for the financial side,we are able to cover a sizeable chunk of it thanks to everyone’s financial support. In an effort to be transparent, I wanted to provide a detailed update of the use of finances so far. Total number of donations is 89 individual donations, totaling $15,285. After AdoptTogether’s 5% transaction cost, that leaves $14,520.75 to be distributed upon proof of needed expense for adoption. From this fund, we've had $3250 distributed to AAU to cover the cost of the home study, which is actually then refunded to us upon approval from the state of ND. Due to the logistics, we can't really put that back in the donation fund, so it is sitting in savings to be used for the next adoption expense.The bulk of expenses happens after being matched with a birth mother and at time of birth/placement. All expenses require proof for distribution, and are distributed to the agency or governing body directly.
While we continue fundraising, we are also doing our own savings to get to this goal, and applying for grants. We are infinitely grateful for anyone reading this, donating, or supporting us from the sidelines emotionally. I also want to shout out my wife. Kelsey has taken on all the work regarding applying for grants, finding grants, etc. She’s written many bio’s, gathered all the detailed information we need, etc. It has been a lot of work for her. Despite that, we have currently not been approved for any.
Thank you so much for reading and have a happy new year!
-Bob
It is surreal to say that we are now an official ‘waiting family’! While we have been waiting for a while to start our family, we know that this time has more promise. We are now eligible to be ‘matched’. When there are expectant mothers choosing to place their child for adoption, they are presented profile books of potential adoptive families. If we are chosen, then we will be considered ‘matched’!
We cannot thank our village enough. We are so grateful for everyone that has donated, helped, supported us, checked in on us, prayed for us, and just been there for us!
We know the waiting from now on will be very difficult, and ask for your continued support and prayers for patience during this time!
We are excited to share that we have officially started the adoption process! We are so humbled and appreciative of all the generosity that has been shown to us, and because of that generosity we were able to officially start the home study process! The home study is much more than just visiting our home - our time will be spent on paperwork, training, reading, and overall preparations. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated to our fundraiser, our garage sale, reached out to us, supported us, prayed for us, and everything in between! We are so blessed to have such an amazing village. We ask for your continued support and prayers as we take the next step towards growing our family. Love, Kelsey & Bob
