A Numbers Post

I like numbers. I've always enjoyed math. I even considered a career as a math teacher and shadowed a high school math teacher for a couple of days when I was in high school. Anyway, since I enjoy numbers I thought some of you might be interested in an adoption post about numbers. So here goes!

First I'll start with some of our agency's numbers. Our agency does this amazing thing to keep all their families updated. Each month they do a conference call for all the families with dossier's to China (DTC). During these calls they provide numbers as well as offer time to ask  questions. Our agency currently has 41 families who are DTC. The longest waiting family has been waiting since mid-November, 2015. Our family is one of 8 families who were DTC in June. Since we have chosen to adopt a young girl with minor special needs our family will likely wait 9 months for our referral.

One month down. We were DTC June 24, 2016 and our Log in Date (LID) was June 27, 2016.

Financial numbers. Talking about the expenses related to adoption tends to make me feel uneasy. It's generally understood that adoption is expensive, but just how costly is it? Our agency prepared us to spend approximately $35,000 for the adoption. Many ask why the cost is so high, and I'll try to explain a little bit. First of all, there are expenses in dealing with paperwork, applying for anything involving paper is costly. Then there are fees related to the time the social workers spend to walk us through all the paperwork, the home study, and the dossier. There are also legal fees, the agency’s cost for staff in China, plane tickets and a 2 week stay in China.

So far we have spent about $9,300. We are grateful to have received donations from friends and family totaling $2,725, meaning we have spent $6,575 of our money. The reason I feel the need to explain this is that I hope people will understand that we are very serious about this adoption. Like the old saying goes, "Put your money where your mouth is," it is my hope that this will display to you all that we are absolutely willing to spend thousands of dollars we have saved in order to bring home our daughter.

The agency spreads out the costs, so far we have just spent money on paperwork and our agency. The next bill we will receive is when we receive our referral. At that time we will have a $15,000 bill which again covers the work of our agency as well as a $6,000 payment that goes to the orphanage which has been caring for our child.

After that we have another 5-6 months until we travel to China. Before we travel we will have another approximately $10,000 to pay which will include our travel and stay in China as well as the additional paperwork required.

As you can see, we still have about $25,000 to pay towards our adoption. We are having a fundraiser in just a couple of weeks at our church. Our Ice Cream Sundae Fundraiser will have build your own ice cream sundaes, there will be live music by several talented musicians, raffle items, kids games and an all around good time! Already we have been tremendously grateful for the support we have received, from donated food, raffle items, the musicians, the games, and all the many details involved in planning this event. We live in such an awesome and supportive community, and we couldn't be more thankful.

Between the ice cream social and late in August a yard sale we hope to raise a significant portion of the funds still needed. It is our hope that those two things and our money we will continue to save that we will have the money we need to bring our girl home! Thank you all again. I hope you enjoyed this numbers post!