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I had a really nice visit today with a friend who is adopting from China for the second time. We talked about how most people don't just have $30,000-40,000 sitting around to pour into an adoption, and yet, when the money is needed, it comes. She knows the boy she's working on adopting is meant to be her son. So, even though they don't have all the money they need right now, they are working hard on various fundraisers and trusting that the rest will come when it's needed. Have you or someone you know started the adoption process without knowing for sure how it was all going to work out? DID it work out for you?
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My husband and I barely had any savings to speak of when we started the adoption process. We had enough at first to just turn in the application and start the home study. Then we had a fundraiser and had enough to get our profile launched and get an agency. We both worked full time, sold our dirt bikes, did extra side jobs like flipping cars and selling crafts, and we did have a lot of help from our family and friends. We kept a separate account just for our adoption so as soon as we put any money into it, we paid towards the adoption. You can also get grants and loans, but we wanted to stay away from loans. We now have a beautiful son that we adopted in March and it was financially stressful, but it was completely worth all the hard work.
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With many international adoptions taking at least two years -- in some cases far more -- from homestudy to homecoming, and with fees spread out over the time period, many families have the ability to continue to save up money while in progress.As an example, airfare -- which can often run $1,500 to $2,000 for an adult -- isn't usually paid until shortly before travel. The Chinese orphanage fee, hotel charges, guide/translator charges, and U.S. Embassy fees are not paid until you are overseas. And so on. If you set realistic goals for what you can save between starting and completing the process, you should be able to begin without having every cent in the bank.It is not fair, however, to start the process if it's very unlikely that you will be able to save enough to complete your adoption. That just wastes staff time and may even cause a child to spend extra time in an orphanage. Taking an extra year or so to put together most of what you need is what you should be doing instead.Sharon