We're Number 1!! We're Number 1!!

Wahooo!!  After more than 19 months of waiting, we are FINALLY #1 in line!!  Well, at least we are first in line for a sibling group or twins, and first for a boy in our age range.  We are, however, fourth in line for a girl.  Isn't that amazing?  We could potentially receive a referral for a child or a sibling group in the next month or two!!  We are so thrilled, but we also have a lot of work to do.

If we receive a referral for twins or siblings, we will be required to wire the agency $13,860 in order to accept the referral and start the process to appear before the Ethiopian courts to formally adopt our children.  Here's the thing...our total adoption expenses will be over $35,000 and we can't do it alone.  I know our Father in Heaven will help us bring our children home, but we need your help too.  

See the link at the right to 100 Good Wishes...it links to our page where family, friends, and other well-wishers can send our children a good wish and make a small donation via Paypal to help us bring them home.  We are also applying for adoption grants and squeezing our budget to continue to put in as much of our own money as possible.  Thank You in advance for your loving support of our family and our children. 

If you are interested in the breakdown of adoption costs, there is a new tab at the top of our blog entitled Adoption Expenses, which will show you the first page of the financial agreement we signed with our adoption agency. 

Dossier en route to Ethiopia!!

To our absolute delight, our case worker from Children's House International shipped our dossier to Ethiopia today! She provided us with the FedEx tracking number so that we can follow its progress. For those who are interested, the tracking number is #7971-8975-7096. Now we just need to wait for a referral for a child or children. Our case worker gave us an estimated time table of 3-9 months. Based on what I have seen from reading families blogs working with other agencies, this is actually a pretty good wait time. Some families wait an average of 13 months. I can't believe we started this process in January 2010 and we are finally getting our dossier to Ethiopia. But I must say.... HOOORAYYYY!!!!!!

I finally totaled up our adoption expenses thus far and we hit just over $14,000 with at least $22,800 left to go (if we get a referral for two children). We are still moving forward with adoption t-shirt sales and sewing-craft sales from my Etsy site: www.myladybyrd.etsy.com. So far (thanks to friends and family) we have raised $188. I know that may not look like a lot, but it is better than zero!! That is enough to cover the medical visits for two children required for them to obtain visas. Thank you!!

All of our adoption fundraising money goes into our Zion's Bank adoption account. That means that all proceeds from t-shirt sales, etsy, and donations are deposited there so that adoption funds do not mix with our normal checking account with USAA.

Fundraising T-Shirts!! Pre-Order now!

Hello, Hello Everyone! First, I apologize that it has been so long since my last post. Matthew and I had a very busy weekend but I am back now and I have some excellent news. The fundraiser t-shirts are here and they look amazing (in my not-so-humble opinion). I asked a friend to help me make these and so far they have turned out great. I am only posting pictures of one color tonight because it is after midnight and I don't have time to take pictures of all the other colors.

The T-shirts are 100% cotton Slub Scoop-Neck Tees from Aeropostale. We have used fabric paint to spray on an outline of Africa with a cute heart where Ethiopia lies. If you are interested, please let me know your color preference and size so that I know how many to buy and make up. Again, more t-shirt colors will be posted tomorrow. They are $20 each and if they require shipping (which most will for family), the shipping is $4. More to come on how I am going to take payments and also a sizing chart. Thank you and please, take a moment to let me know what you think or if you have any ideas for improvements or more ideas for fundraising!

**Variations do occur because they are all hand-painted.

Fund Raising

Just a note up front...this topic is very embarrasing for me because I don't like asking people for help, especially with something I feel like we should be able to do on our own. As I said in a previous post, we did pay off our debt and save up just over $10,000 for the adoption. Unfortunately, adoption costs for Ethiopia are around $27,000. We took out a loan to cover the rest (hopefully my husband doesn't mind me sharing this...) but I am starting to think it will be more feasible to try and raise the funds so we can pay off the loan. I hate debt!

Now, I realize it may seem like I am a walking contradiction considering we just bought a house. So I am going to lay out the details in order to bring more clarity to our financial situation. I am a veteran, so I qualify for the VA home loan which means we don't make a down payment, don't pay mortgage insurance, and we aren't paying closing costs. So basically, we are using the Basic Housing Allowance alotted to us by the Army to go towards a home instead of rent. Look at it this way...instead of paying $52,800 in rent over the next four years, we will be putting it towards our first home. That's right! We finally bought our first home after 7 years of marriage. Hooray!

Anyway, the point of this post is to let my family and friends know that we are going to start doing some fundraising to help get rid of our adoption debt. I need some help with ideas though...like I said, I get embarrassed by asking for help and I am not very good at thinking up effective fundraising ideas. I have researched what some other adopting families have done and mostly I have seen adoption t-shirt sales. What do you think...is that a good idea?? The picture above shows fabric outlines of Africa with the heart over the country of Ethiopia. I was thinking about using a cute stitch to sew then onto t-shirts or shoulder bags or something. I also thought about making a template to spray paint Africa onto shirts or allowing the boys to use fabric paint and paint Africa on. At the very least I need to make shirts for myself and my fam. Gotta represent!

Below is a breakdown of our adoption expenses as it was given to us by our agency:

Home Study - $1500

Home Study Update - $800

Application Fee - $600

CHI Agency Fees - $7000

Ethiopia Program Fee - $9000

Post Adoption Report - $500

Adoption Education - $120

USCIS Filing Fee/Fingerprints - $860

Passports - $194

Ethiopia Visas - $130

Document Authentication - $250

Round-trip Airfare (2 Adults, 2 trips) - $7200

Child's one-way Airfare - approx. $800

In-country transportation costs - $420

Medical for Child's visa - $80

1st Trip in Country (guide, food, lodging) - $800-2700

2nd Trip in Country (guide, food, lodging) - $1350-2700

Child's US Visa - $400

Okay, so I was waaayyyyy off. The low-end of those numbers is a grand total of $32,000. The high end is $35,250. We are looking to adopt one child but if she has a sibling we have also been approved for a second child. If we do end up adopting two children, our total expenses will be approximately $39,280 - $42,530. Annnnnnd, that is why I have decided to try and do some fundraising. Have any good ideas?? PLEASE!! Send them my way!