We have had a few emails and comments about our financial needs. I would like to clarify where we are right now and what we will do if we do not raise what we need in 9 days.
At this time, we estimate our adoption will cost $51,492.58; that is up to the time we come home with our Angel in September. We will have additional adoption related costs once we bring her home. The main reason our costs are so high is that we have been in the process for over 3 years due to the reaccreditation halt 2006-2007. Essentially, we made no progress in our adoption from May 2006 through January 2008. Yet, we still kept our homestudy and dossier updated during that time period.
Our agency, and I am sure others, provides a fee schedule reflecting the costs of adopting from a specific region. These fee schedules are also based on completing the adoption in about 12-16 months not 3+ years. Since we began our process in 2005, the fees and expenses have increased about $13,000. In addition, the required documents have changed several times during the process resulting in increased costs and every document we submit to the State of Florida for apostilling costs $10.00 each. As of August 1, 2009 we have spent $1230.00 in apostille fees and we still have another set of documents to be apostilled before we travel (we are waiting on the final list from our agency). I have not included here the costs of a courier, overnight mail, or FEDEX which are expenses not accounted for on our fee schedule. Once we are home with our Angel, I am going to compile a complete expense sheet to share with others to help plan for those unexpected costs.
I think it is important for you to know that when we first submitted our dossier in May 2006, we had 2/3 of the funds needed for our adoption saved. And we had a feasible plan to save the final 1/3. We did not know or anticipate the financial challenges we would soon face. On one hand, we were fortunate we had the money saved to deal with lost jobs, underemployment, and a few medical issues. On the other hand, we tapped every resource we could (including our adoption savings) to meet our living expenses, bills, and mortgage. Just as many of you reading this blog, we were hit hard by the economic downturn.
Honestly, when we received the first call about a little girl in September 2008, we had no idea how we were going to pay for the rest of the adoption expenses. Don is in real estate and he had several deals come through that provided the money for Trip 1 to meet our little girl. In January 2009, we believed Don's work would bring in the final funds to get us back to Russia to bring our little girl home. Unfortunately, his deals fell through and we have been working on raising the remaining money since.
The goal of $25,000 on our fundraising thermometer is actually what we estimated we needed for trip #2. Of that, we have currently raised $6,907.00 by fundraising alone. In addition to fundraising, we have saved and tapped into and tapped out other financial resources such as a personal loan, IRA, and credit cards along the way.
Right now, we are still short the needed finances to complete Trip #2. As of this morning, we were short about $2,000.00. Sadly, around noon today, we found out that a real estate transaction Don has been working on fell apart and he will not get the commission before we leave next week. So, we are now short a lot more - about $5,000.00 more.
We feel like the rug was just pulled out from under us. Once again, you know who is meddling in our lives. Sometimes it feels as if we just can't get a break. So, there is only one thing left to do: we are laying it at the cross. We are continuing to prepare our home for a little girl and we are continuing to prepare to leave next Saturday.
QUESTION: "What will you do if you don't raise the money you need?"
ANSWER: "We are going to Russia regardless - we believe that God will provide."
QUESTION: "Don't you think you are being irresponsible and reckless?"
ANSWER: "We call it being Faithful and Obedient."
In Christ,
Elizabeth
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Today, we took our Angel shopping for an outfit for Gotcha Day. We went to a large children's store with clothing, books, shoes, games, many other items. We told her she could pick out an outfit (any kind) for when we pick her up from the orphange. She picked a pretty party dress and fancy flower print shoes. She also wanted a pair of heavy weight tights. Now, I know it is typical to bundle-up children in Russia but she would die wearing those tights in Florida. It took a little doing but I managed to talk her out of them. One day, she'll thank me. While she tried on her dress, I found myself thinking, "this is a milestone, we are shopping with our daughter." There will be many more milestone shopping days in our future as we watch her grow to become a young woman. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself here - let's get her home to the USA first!
Well, we have 11 days until we travel. We are still 
