Anxious to adopt - & need ideas on how to pay for this

If you are LDS, you can use LDSFS as your agency. I'm not sure, but I think if there is no medical reason why you can not have a child, you have to be married 3 years. As far as getting the money to pay for the adoption, we just put our paperwork in and let the Lord help us. It's funny how things like that work out. We always had the extra money every month for the adoption, but as soon as we had enough, the extra income seemed to disapper. Adoption is truly a great experience. I wish you the best of kuck no matter what you decide. I am really sorry to hear about your little one. Keep us updated on what you decide! Nickie :)

emptyarms- I'm very sorry about the loss of your baby. I can't imagine how difficult that would be. Just wanted to let you know that actually the length of marriage required for LDS Family Services is currently 2 years (See Ldsfamilyservices.org and click on adoptive parents, then infant adoption for info). Adoption is generally not an easy process- I think especially if you have a long wait to deal with. Thats why I suggest being very in tune about if this is the right thing for you to be doing, as it makes it easier to keep forging ahead. Once you've decided this is the right decision for your family- go ahead and start on the process. The process is very enlightening and faith building. (The wait has been the only difficult thing for my hubby and I). As 2girlsmom suggested, don't worry about the money. Do whatever you can and the Lord will meet you the rest of the way. My husband and I are VERY slowly building up our savings, not wanting to take out loans or depend on others for hand outs. Suddenly one day my Mom approached me saying that they had unexpectedly been given the EXACT amount of money that our adoption would cost, and felt it was given to them so that they would be able to feel like they were doing what they could for us to receive a chlid, and their first grandchild. I never realized before they had felt so helpless during our infertility journey- and finally felt they could do something to help us accomplish our goals. I am grateful and swallowing my pride at the same time ;) You just never know where the money will come from but when you know its right, you can know the Lord will provide the right amount at the right time- as long as you are doing your part too. Goodluck to you and hubby! PS- To learn more about LDS adoption look through the other posts in this section, visit the lds website mentioned above, and call your nearest LDSFS agency and the case workers are usually happy to answer questions and send you an information packet.

LDS family services is great... IF.... you are married to an LDS member and both of you keep a current temple reccomend. IF however, you are like me, and are married to a wonderful and loving husband who would meet all the other requirements other than being a member you're out of luck and you get to foot the bill for 20-40K dollars all by your lonesome even though there is a mass of children needing adoption out there. I think it's really sad that your "temple recomend" is your "discount card" to a family. This has not encouraged my husband to become a member when while they are "nice to him" the reality of it is he's a 3rd class "religious citizen".

We're not LDS but we are adoptive parents. Here are some of the ways we saved money for our son's adoption: 1. We looked at our household budget and refined it so we could save without totally giving up everything in life. For instance, we're both SCUBA divers and decided NOT to go on any dive trips for a year so we could save. 2. Sold extra stuff on eBay and had a few garage sales. It's amazing how much stuff we had that we never used or didn't want but someone else would pay for! 3. Asked all our friends and family to make contributions to the 'baby fund' in lieu of Christmas and birthday gifts. It took us a year to save about $15,000 - most of which we didn't touch as we found that most of the costs were paid as we went. For instance, the total cost for our homestudy, counseling and post-placement supervision was $4000 - but the agency ASKED us to give it to them in 4 payments of $1K because it was better for them. So, we didn't tap savings. We became parents through domestic parental placement adoption, the total cost ended up being $14K (high, actually for this kind of adoption), however since we were able to pay as we went, we only used about $3K from our savings. There are also less expensive ways to adopt, such as waiting child/foster care adoption. Hope this helps. Regina