So where are you going to get the money?

The shopping carts with steering wheels are the best.

They tell you to expect an international adoption to cost between $20,000-$40,000.  (Yikes!)  Research about adoption shows that most families who consider adopting find the costs too intimidating and stop pursuing it.  So why does it cost so much?  Who get's all that money? 

Great question!  And one of the first ones we asked as we considered adoption.  It's a different from agency to agency and country to country.  Most agencies have some info about this on their website.  One thing we loved about our agency was their transparency about the breakdown of costs and their willingness to answer my (endless) questions about the schedule.   I love a good schedule.

For the program we will be a part of, the breakdown looks about like this:
-One third of the money goes to the agency for their services (homestudy, reports, facilitating a match, etc)
-One third goes towards "international fees" that include the orphanage donation that China requires, translation fees, etc
-One third goes towards travel, essentially, plus all the things we will do while in China for two weeks like medical exams, travel paperwork for our new child, etc.  Oh, and food, I guess. 

As it turns out, there's a lot of people and a lot of organizations involved in making a child of one country a member of a family in another country.   

Even with all that complexity, there are basically four steps to the process for us:
1. Complete home study
2. Gather and submit dossier (paperwork for China)
3. Accept a referral (being matched with a specific child.
4. Travel to China!!

There is a waiting period before each step, and a set of fees associated with each step too.  The hardest one is the first one.  Because we don't have our home study complete, we can't apply for any grants to help us with the upfront costs.  That means we are relying on our savings (which is limited) and money we can raise from fundraisers such as our Pure Charity campaign.   (By the way, our very first donation was anonymous.  If that was you, thank you so much!!!  I did a happy dance when I saw that on Monday.  Also, if you can bear to reveal yourself, I have a little gift for you.)

We have a plan to get it done.  The plan includes extra hours at work, less spending, Cackleberry Studios, fundraisers (t-shirts, anyone? yard sales? coming soon!!), and applying for lots and lots of grants.  Please pray for us as we work the plan, and if you want to get involved, our Pure Charity account is a great place to give.  You can find out more about it by visiting the Fundraising part of our website.  

It's expensive.  It's more money than we can imagine.  A child, our child, is worth it.