Daniel and I spent the next several months going back and forth trying to decide if IVF was the route we wanted to take and if "now" was the right time to start. We were still definitely concerned about being approved for the IVF financing and coming up with the additional costs not included. I think that at this point my biggest fear was what if my body didn't accept the egg, we would be out of all that money, we would have no baby after going through the process and how would we be able to go a different route financially. Some days I struggled with knowing that our child wouldn't look like me, people always say "oh your baby look just like you". Daniel looks just like his sister, dad, and grandpa...would our baby look like us?? If we did IVF, it would be someone else's child growing inside of me, how would I feel about that... Daniel talked about how he didn't think it would be fair to me that the child was coming from him and someone else's egg. We talked about how IVF would allow me to experience "pregnancy" and the baby growing inside of me. If we chose not to do IFV neither one of us would ever get to feel our child kick inside my belly or hear the heartbeat. On the other hand we also knew that we would love a child no matter where they came from; whether it is from an egg donor or through adoption. All of these "what ifs" are just tiny road blocks compared to the greater picture "God's gift", but it still hurts knowing that things will be different for us. After many discussions we decided that maybe we should try adoption first. If we adopted before we did IVF (if we did IVF at all) at least we would still have "our" child if IVF didn't work.
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| I joined Premier in March 2011 to help us out when I'd be in my last semester of school. |
How do you adopt? How much does it cost? When do you have to have all the money? Who do you adopt from? What is the process for adoption? How long will we have to wait to get a baby? How do you know what agency is right for you?
These are just a few of the questions we had and some that we still have about adoption. Rebecca and I talked with a woman about adopting through DHS and their Bridge Foster adoption (if you're fostering a child and they become available for adoption we would have the chance of adopting them first). We were told that trying to adopt an infant through DHS was nearly impossible, the waiting list is so long and that there have been people on the list for YEARS. Our best option would be doing their program Bridge Foster adoption. We would basically have "first dibs" on the child we are fostering if they were to become available for adoption. One downside to their Foster adoption program is that you're not guaranteed that the child would become available for adoption. I had my friend (who use to work for DHS) come over one evening and discuss things we would need to do/change for our homestudy if we wanted to adopt and stay where we are. We were hoping we could stay where we currently live and share a room with an infant for a year so that we could save money after spending money on adoption. After talking about living arrangements it was decided we would need to move from our current home because it is only one bedroom and when adopting you must have a separate room for the child. One positive aspect about adopting through them is that it is completely FREE to the adopting parents. We wouldn't have to pay a thing! One negative aspect is that if we did the foster adoption, the child could be with us for 24 hours to many years and then be given back to their parents. We have given Bridge Foster Adoption a lot of thought. We are definitely open to the idea of this program because we know that if the child was to go back to their parents, we gave them a stable, loving and safe environment while they were with us. If we did this program we would rather do it after we officially have our own child because it's going to be emotionally hard to give up something you want more than anything and be left at square one again, not being parents.
Towards the end of summer and into the fall of 2011, I started researching different adoption agencies. I talked with a lawyer friend to see if he knew where we should start. I contacted a couple different agencies who sent us packets about their agency. One company, the first thing you do is complete their application and return it with a $100.00 check for the processing fee. Their estimated adoption fee is $17,250.00 and gives a breakdown of costs into three phases. They also included other possible adoption fees: birthmother related living expenses, medical fees, interstate compact, contract work per hour, mileage and travel, and extra legal fees. All fees are due before each service. The other company I contacted is in Colorado. Daniel has two cousins who were adopted from this agency. They included a Fee Schedule that gives a breakdown of the costs totaling $21,031.76 plus they had other possible fees included with a breakdown of the estimating costs. All fees are due as services are approved. They included a financing page; Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996, allows possible Federal Income Tax relief of up to $5,000.00, Bank of America has a Home Equity Loan Program specifically for adoptions, Grant programs are available online, local banks may be able to customize a loan for adoption, some companies will provide assistance to their employees, and some insurance companies let you borrow against an existing policy. They also included a suggested reading list; Lost and Found the Adoption Experience by Betty Jean Lifton, The Whole Life Adoption Book by Jayne E. Schooler, Tell Me a Real Adoption Sotyr by Betty Jean Lifton, Dear Birthmother by Kathleen Silber and Phylis Speedlin, and Adoption without fear. During this time I was introduced via facebook to a girl going through the adoption process with her husband. They had gone with a company that had an all-inclusive fee of $30,000. The process would be no more or no less than the $30,000.
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| My best friend, Rebecca |
Spring 2012
Will we be able to come up with that kind of money? How long will it take us to save the money for adoption? Who do we go with? What agency is right for us?
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| Easter 2012 |
