House of Lloyd

Since 1990, November has been designated as National Adoption Month. The goal of National Adoption Month is to promote adoption in a positive light and to educate the public concerning the adoption of children currently in the foster care system. (more…)

For years adoption has been shown in a negative light in the media. Each year numerous movies and television shows are released that show violent adopted children and psycho birth parents coming to reclaim their relinquished children. Rarely does the media present adoption stories that portray well adjusted adoptive children or birth parents. (more…)

When David and I were planning and working toward adoption the question that made me cringe the most was “Why would you adopt instead of having your own child?” (more…)

When considering adoption one of the toughest choices you will make will be which adoption agency to sign with. Most people make mistakes during this process that end up costing them emotionally and financially. Prior to signing with any agency you should research the agency to make sure that you are making the right choice for your family. Listed below are some tips that I wish we would have known prior to starting our adoption journey.  (more…)

Last week I posted suggestions on how to save money in order to fiance an adoption. Several people asked me why adoption is so expensive and why there is such a big difference in the possible cost of individual adoption situations. There are many factors that affect how much the adoption of a child will cost. These factors can include which state you live in, which state you are adopting from, the type of agency you are using just to name a few. (more…)

There is no question about it adoption is expensive. Most people who adopt have to save for years in order to be able to afford adoption.  Some people prefer to take out personal loans in order to finance their adoption more quickly. The average domestic adoption in the US can run between twenty to thirty thousand dollars.

Some people falsely believe that David and I had a pile of money just sitting in the bank and were able to finance our adoption without any financial struggles. Our adoption finance story is nothing less than a miracle. After researching and praying about adoption for our family we began to save money in an adoption account. We applied for adoption grants, but were not approved for any of the grants we had sought out. After months and months of saving and getting nowhere fast we had basically given up on adoption being a reality for our family. I remember telling David one afternoon that if God wanted us to adopt he was going to have to make a check turn up in our mailbox, because without a financial miracle we would never be able afford adoption. We were not willing to go into debt for adoption, we had been there and done that during our efforts to conceive Caleb.

No more than three days after I told David that a miracle check would have to arrive in order for us to adopt we received a check in the mail. We were both shocked and puzzled. The check was from the IRS for overpayment of taxes. After contacting our tax accountant it was determined that a transposed number on our tax forms had been detected and corrected and the IRS had sent us a repayment check. Since David pays his taxes quarterly we did not realize he was overpaying. We knew we were paying a lot of taxes but we assumed our tax accountant had told us the correct amounts that we should be paying. The check was large enough to cover 1/2 of the average cost for adoption. This check gave us the hope we needed to continue  our adoption quest. With our hope restored we began to be more aggressive with our savings and monitoring of our spending. We were both ecstatic when we finally had enough money squirreled away to move forward with our adoption plans.

Most people will not have a financial miracle occur and will have to find other ways of raising funds for adoption. Listed below are ways that others I know have raised funds to help offset the cost of adoption. You should also open a separate account in which to maintain and monitor your adoption funds, this will help you track your saving goals more easily.

• Spending Habits– Make changes to your spending habits buy only what you have to have. We were able to save about $500 a month just by evaluating every dollar that we spent, and only spending what was necessary. If you are unwilling or can not do this you will probably never be able to gather the finances needed to peruse adoption.
• Employer donation– some companies will pay a small amount toward the adoption of a child.
• Yard Sales/silent auctions– family and friends donate items and all proceeds are used for the adoption fund
• Arts/Crafts– Are you and your family into arts and crafts if so you can you make stuff to sell on-line or at farmer markets, or antique shops.
• Host Dinners/breakfast– you can do this at your church and ask those who attend to donate to your adoption fund.
• Product Sales– donuts, fireworks, candles etc. It has been rumored that with TNT fireworks you can make up to $5000 profit for just a few days of work if you sale during peek season (4th of  July and New Years).
• State Adoptions– check you states Foster-to-Adopt program. These adoptions cost much less than other adoptions
• Home Refinance– several years ago people could refinance their homes and use the savings to beef up adoption funds quicker. This option may still work depending on the type of home loan you have.
• Adoption Grants: These can be located online and many adoption agencies have information concerning grants that can be applied for.
• Church donation– some churches will help pay adoption cost as part of their charitable giving.

Hopefully this list will help to get your creative juices flowing if you are trying to raise funds to pay for an adoption.

The number one question David and I get about our adoption of Madilyn is “Will she know?” The answer is yes she will know. In a family like ours there is no way we could keep this information from her if we wanted to. Keeping the fact that a child is adopted from the child really serves no purpose. The real question is, “when will she be told the details surrounding her adoption?”  (more…)