Thanks for following along in our adoption journey!
We are so excited to open our hearts to adoption and cannot wait to see what God has in store for our family.
A little background: we met at North Greenville College in 2000. I (Crystal) knew right away that Matt was the man with whom I wanted to grow old. We married in December 2007 in Flat Rock, NC. It was the Christmas wedding of which I had dreamed. We decided to start a family right away. Over the next seven years we experienced three miscarriages, a set of stillborn twin boys, and one amazing little miracle, Bella, who will be four in November of this year. Infertility has been hard for both of us and we have had to trust that God knows what is best for our family. This year we began to talk about growing our family and over and over adoption came to the forefront of our minds. We have prayed and both feel like God has placed the call to adopt on our lives and trust that God has great things in store for us.
We have chosen to adopt through Bethany Christian Services. You can check our their website for more information. They have been around for since 1944 and place more than 100,000 children annually! One of the mean reasons we chose Bethany is because of their support system, not only for adoptive parents but also for the birth parents offering counseling and support 24 hours a day. At this time we are working on our formal application which means lots and lots and lots of paper. When we submit our formal application, we'll also pay a $2,000 application fee. After that we'll complete training in Columbia. Our home study is next as well as a $2,000 home study fee. Once our home study is approved, we wait! We have friends who have gone through this process and we know the waiting is hard but will be worth it in the end.
Some of you have already contacted us to ask how you can contribute. We are grateful that you want to help. We know that without our friends and family adoption would not be possible. We need your love and support. We have set up a YouCaring page. Most people are familiar with GoFundMe pages. We did our research and have decided to use YouCaring. While GoFundMe charges a percentage of each dollar contributed, YouCaring does not which means more money goes to the cause you have chosen to support. If you would like to donate, you can follow this link. Thank you in advance!
Thank you for checking in and we ask that you pray for our family as we prepare our hearts for the child God has chosen for us. Also, please pray for the mothers who love their children enough to make the difficult decision to place them for adoption.
We'll do our best to keep you updated on the process as well as our fundraising goals.
2 comments:
Congratulations! What an exciting adventure for you all. What other fees do you have to pay after the application and home study?
Erin, After that comes the legal fees and fees required by Bethany. We also have to plan for any funds we may need to support the birth mother (prenatal care or living expenses) and we'll need to cover my pay for six weeks or so while I take maternity leave.
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