Why are you adopting instead of having “real” children?

We love our girls, Jasmine and Madelyn, but with them came very difficult pregnancies and deliveries. Each following pregnancy is expected to carry more risk than the previous one. After a lot of prayer and many discussions, we’ve made the decision to pursue adoption as an alternate method of having more children. There are many children around that world who are just as real as our biological children. An orphan needs a loving family and home just as much as our own children do.

What gender are you hoping for?

Although we already have two girls, we do not have a preference for a boy or a girl. Also, the Philippines does not allow us to specify if we would prefer a boy or a girl. We want to be open to the child(ren) that God has for our family, even if that means we have only daughters. We know that God has a plan for our adoption already—we just don’t know the gender yet.

Are you adopting one child or more than one?

We have been approved to adopt a single child or a young sibling group. Birth order is extremely important to the Philippines because they do not want to disrupt the biological family hierarchy. We are therefore unable to adopt a child older than our biological children. One exception would be if we are matched with a young sibling group, with one child younger than both our girls and one between them. Either way, we cannot adopt a child who is older than our eldest.

Why are you adopting if you do not have the money to do it on your own?

This is something we asked ourselves before our initial application. The short answer is that adoption is expensive, and money is the most deterring factor to would-be adoptive families. Adoption (international, in our case) costs about $40k for a single child and about $48k for a sibling group of two. There are grants for which we can apply to help off-set some of the costs, but most of the amount is up to us to provide and raise. Several organizations provide crowdfunding is a method of fundraising that allows others in our community of friends to chip in and participate in funding an adoption. We have set up a fundraiser page with Adopt Together as a way that people can donate to our adoption. We will be providing updates with our expected and used numbers as we continue through our process.

If we donate money to help with the adoption, do we get a say in how you raise the child?

This is a humorous question, but it has been hinted at. While we deeply appreciate the help and investment in our children and family, our children are ours. We are committed to loving our children and making them all part of our family.

Why should we donate to assist with the adoption costs?

We do not guilt-trip people into doing things. We never want you to feel as if we expect or obligate you to financially support this process. If you want to be part of our adoption story by supporting us with your prayers, we would love that. If you feel lead to financially contribute to our journey, we would deeply appreciate that as well. Our adoption has many stages and we will be keeping our Adopt Together profile updated as we walk this path. We do encourage you to consider that the cost of adoption is the Number One reason that families do not adopt, and we simply ask that you consider a contribution to our adoption.

Side Note: We have an exciting plan for commemorating our donors! Keep an eye out for this update on our fundraiser profile to see what we have in mind.