Adoption has been a conversation that Mike and I have had since the first months that we met one another. As God grew our family, we were always listening and waiting for the Lord to tap our hearts and say “It is time”. God has richly blessed us with 4 beautiful sons and we are very grateful. We have always believed that we would have a daughter, and it has been a longing and a knowing that has captivated our hearts. We believe the desire was planted there by God! We know that adoption is God’s heart, as we recognize that we are adopted into God's family by believing in His Son, Jesus. He went to great lengths and paid a great price to bring us into His family. We are following His example as we pursue the adoption process. We are overjoyed that the season is here for us to grow our family through adoption.
Since we met, we have been surrounded by adoption; whether it was friends that adopted their children or our adult friends or family that were adopted themselves as children. Their experiences have positively shaped our lives and hearts. We are close with many foster parents and have had the opportunity to be a Safe Families host for three children over the past year. God has used all of these beautiful people and experiences to shape our decision. Our boys have longed for a sister just as Mike and I have deeply desired to have a daughter. We feel that our family has so much love to share with another child. We want to open up our hearts and home to make room for the special daughter that God will place in our family.
Last year we began to seriously pray and ask God for direction. We have felt led to adopt domestically, and moved forward in faith to complete our Home Study, which was completed on October 28th, 2015. We moved forward with Christian Adoption Consultants, a group that works with multiple agencies, allowing us to spread our profile to a greater audience. We understand the process to take between 6 and 12 months to find a match. All of this is a great task, as well as extremely expensive, and it would be overwhelming without knowing and believing with all of our hearts that God is our Provider. We are thrilled to partner with God and our family and friends to make this dream a reality.
From our discussions with various agencies, we understand that the potential cost of this process is between $25,000 and $40,000. We have prayed and set an initial goal of $25,000. We hope to reach the goal by personally saving, fundraising, and applying for grants. We appreciate more than words can ever express anything that you can give to allow a little girl to be a Swaggerty forever!
Adoption is expensive! Like crazy expensive. This has for a long time been the wall between us and our dream.Unfortunatly this reality keeps so many amazing couples from taking the steps to adopt. In the last year the Lord has touched our hearts and said to no longer let finances be a reason to not move ahead with what God is asking us to do! We sensed Him nudging us in the direction of fundraising. There are not many more humbling things in the world than asking others for money! It stinks, it’s uncomfortable, it makes you become very vulnerable. As we think and pray more about it though, we sense the Lord showing us that it’s not asking others for money . It’s allowing others to be a part of something huge! It’s asking others to be a part of our story and our daughter’s story! We know that there is no way we can do this alone, but the Lord has encouraged us that it is the Body of Christ that He will move into place to bring a child to us.
That brings us to the part where we want to always be totally open about all the costs.
Here is a cost break down of domestic adoption.
Homestudy- 2,200- PAID!
Christian Adoption Consultants- 3,000 –PAID!
( including fees to make our family profile book)
Agency Fees- 13,000-35,000
Birth Mother Fees- 0-10,000
Travel Cost- est 3,000-5,000
Finalization- est 1,000-5,000
Post Placements Fees- est 1,500-2,500
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