Adopting!!!!

As I am sure you know, Greg and I have been struggling with fertility or should I say infertility for twelve years. It has been a heartbreaking journey, fertility cycles that have failed, a failed international adoption, two failed foster-adopt situations, and the general heart ache and break of foster care.  In November we were extremely blessed to add to our family being granted guardianship for Soph. We absolutely love her and find such joy and delight in her. We however would love to add to our forever family and are looking at adopting a child through Lifetime Adoption.


The adoption really depends on a couple of factors.  Funding of course, adoption is extremely expensive- it will be between 25,000 and 30,000 dollars.  Finding a birth mom that is a match, and then having a successful placement. Our adoption coordinator Jen feels we would probably have a match within 12-18 months, with placement being as soon as baby is born. We are extremely excited about this. But we need help...


How can you help? Several ways!


First off, like I said this is contingent upon funding. We are applying for grants like crazy- as we can. Some grants you can apply to immediately- in fact Lifetime has such a grant that we have applied for. Other grants you need to have a home study completed- a cost of $3000 in itself, and others still you need to have a match. Whatever grants we can at this time we are applying for- including match grants where people donate to us and then the company matches donations up to a certain amount.  Right now the match grants we have found you do need to have an active home study-which we are working on currently. Once we have that we will have match grant information on here and in Facebook.


We currently have a website set up for donations that you can send directly to us if it is on your heart to help us that way. http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/bringing-baby-owens-home/181884  Even if you can't help monetarily, if you could do two favors for us 1.) share this site with friends and family. The more people we have in it the better our chances are to get the funding we need. Currently it is set at $7500, but in total we will need about $25000.  2.) Pray over this, pray over the adoption in general!


 In addition to the above June 1-15th I will be doing a “Shop To Adopt” Thirty-One Event. Friends, Family, anyone can order through this event, and 25% of all sales will go towards our adoption. The hostess rewards I will use to donate bags, totes, etc to Lifetime Adoption for their Lifetime Adoption Foundation-which helps birth moms get through pregnancy, as well as provides them schooling or training to help in the future. Each birth mom is given a hospital bag that Lifetime fills with things like soap, shampoo, lotion, socks, pads, etc. Many of them do not have anything thing. So this is a really great thing for them to do, and I would love to donate as many bags as possible to them. How do you come into play? You can invite friends to the Facebook event I have set up by sharing this link or share the events link https://www.mythirtyone.com/shop/eventhome.aspx?eventId=E4570965&from=MYEVENTS
with friends, coworkers, neighbors. If everyone shared with 10 people and those 10 people each brought one bag and one special we would have a significant amount of money.

We are trying to put together a benefit either June 22 or June 29th. Again inviting all your friends, family, anyone you know, to that as well as attending would be a great help. We are looking for a restaurant or bar to donate food/drinks, and then businesses and individuals to donate for a silent auction/raffle, prizes, perhaps someone to donate music. If you know anyone or would like to donate or have your company donate please let me know. I will also need help planning and organizing this.



If you have other ideas, or know of other resources to help us with the ADOPTION - that we can use please let us know!


Secondly we need your support. We need positive support, we have enough negativity in our lives, we don’t need more. We will also need to travel, and it maybe in the middle of the night on a Tuesday, and we may be gone for 7-10 days. If that happens we will need someone to watch Sapphira while we are gone. We will probably need a shoulder to cry on, or positive reinforcement when we are discouraged. I am only going to say the following once, this is not to hurt feelings, or sound ungrateful, but commenting on how expensive adoption is -not supportive. Telling me its not fair we have to pay so much when their are druggies and "bad" people popping out kids- not supportive- especially if one of them is yourself. Asking if we have tried a,b, &c- not supportive. I guarantee you- we've tried a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z...  Saying "oh but don't you want your own baby" Is absolutely not supportive. 1.) this baby and any baby/child we are blessed with whether they are born from my loins or born from my heart- is OUR baby. OUR child. They are not second rate, second class, or second choice. They are OUR choice.  They are a BLESSING from GOD. And as such will be treated as a blessing by us and everyone in their lives. If you can not understand that, then perhaps you should not come around.

We may need a place to stay. We will have to travel to the birth most likely and can not leave the state for 7-10 days after. Since we are working with Lifetime and they do adoptions all over the states, then we could potentially have a birth in HI or Alaska. So we may need a place to stay, or suggestions on a place to stay. And Greg would like suggestions on places to eat as well.


We need your prayers. This is most important. We need prayers we find the funding needed, prayers for a great birth mom match and a smooth adoption. Prayers for our sanity, and patience. Prayers for the birth mom, who is making such a sacrifice and gifting us with our greatest wish. Prayers for the entire birth family. Prayers for the adoption facilitators (Lifetime Adoption) prayers for our legal team. Prayers all around.


Lastly we just need you to be who you are, and be there for us. Whether it is a phone call and a listening ear, someone to make us laugh, someone to hold our hands, someone to pray with us. Someone to help organize various fundraisers, or help massage our hands after we do all this paperwork. Knowing you are in the background there for us if we need you to be, routing for us, is extremely helpful. We both love you all very much and appreciate everything you do for us.


Note: I know some have commented they can not help out for whatever reason. We aren't looking for a 1000 dollar donation. That would be incredible, and very appreciated. But a dollar adds up, five dollars adds up. I have roughly 200 people on my Facebook Friends list, and Greg has about 100 more that are not on mine. So about 300 people. If each of those people donated $5 dollars we would have 1500 dollars- half of our home study fee. or a portion of our travel costs (depending where we adopt from) If those 300 people each shared with their friends list, and each had an additional 5 people donate 5 dollars, that would be 7500 the cost of our down payment. What I am saying is it only takes a small amount to make a big difference. We also need prayers, or maybe you do crafts and have something you can donate that we can auction off.  But every single one of you can help in a huge huge way! Hit share on our donation page. Pin it on your Pinterest. Email our story to friends, families, colleagues.