The not so “fun”raising process

When it came to the subject of adoption, the subject of cost followed almost every time. How are we going to pay for this, can you take out loans, do we qualify for grants, how much does it cost to adopt??? In all honesty the financial commitment to becoming adoptive parents is sometimes scarier than the actual becoming parents part. The immediate weight of having to provide financially a rather substantial amount of money before the kid is even yours, and then you have to actual financially support them once they are yours left me reeling more times that I would like to admit.

The realization that we are going to have to fund raise was terrifying to me, but the reality was it is something we needed to do. The fact is adoption is expensive. The agency has to be able to pay for all the lawyers and legal fees that come with the adoption process, run background checks on adoptive parents, provide services for the birth mom both before and after birth. The agency also has the responsibility to pay it’s employees who know all the ins and outs of the court system to make things go smoothly for both the birth mom and the adoptive families. No matter how you sliced it, all these services cost money, and we didn’t have the resources to do these things on our own. Regardless of which agency we spoke to the cost of adoption is between $25,000 and $30,000, this does not include the expenses that the birth mom takes on during her pregnancy. While most birth moms are on a form of state or federal health insurance; in the state of Arkansas once a birth mom is paired with adoptive parents and the home study is complete the adoptive parents help the birth mom with her costs of living.

Every step of the adoption process is a step of faith, in the end regardless of funds raised, or not raised we know what we as a coupled are called to become parents. We had to recognize that Satan was using the financial uncertainty to cause us to second guess bringing a child into a Christian home. We had to recognize that the process of adoption will not just expand our family it will cause us to rely and trust on Christ in the times of uncertainty, (so like all the time). We have to step boldly, even when we don’t know what is ahead of us it is not our job to have all the answers it is our job to have faith and continue through the process piece by piece.