Help Fund Our Adoption by Donating to Our $5,000 Matching Grant
As many of you know, my wife and I are in the process of adopting. We recently had a failed adoption after being matched with a birth mom for about five months. We lost almost $10,000 with the failed adoption so we are in the process of trying to recoup those costs with a matching grant from our church, Sojourn East Community Church. The donation is tax deductible. Here is where we are standing now:
- Goal: $5,000
- Raised to date: $4,167
- Total needed: $833
Donate Here
Here is the full update that my wife wrote:
Our journey to growing our family began over three and a half years ago. We were excited and full of hope as we waited each month to see signs that we were pregnant. We hoped and prayed for a baby to love, a child to bring home. But, the years wore on with no signs of pregnancy and we eventually decided to pursue medical opinions. After two and a half years of trying to conceive, we were diagnosed with unexplained infertility.
After several cycles of different types of non-invasive fertility treatments, we began to seriously consider the road of adoption. Adoption is something that we have always respected, it has never been our “last resort”. We confidently believe that God will lead the child we are meant to raise into our open arms. We now know that, that is meant to happen through adoption. So, in May 2017 we began to pursue a domestic adoption of an infant. Our hearts were open and ready to love a child.
In October 2017, we accepted a match to a baby due in early 2018. We spent the next several months preparing, finishing our fundraising, and getting to know this baby’s mom. We felt like this was the right situation for us and were so excited. In late January, a week before the due date, we got a call that our birth mom had given birth and had decided to parent him. While we 100% support her decision to parent, it has been a very hard road to walk. We experienced many intense emotions as we grieved the loss of this life in our home. Experiencing a failed match is painful and hard to understand or explain to anyone who hasn’t been through it.
Through this disruption, we lost almost $10,000 in expenses that were already incurred related to that specific match. In March 2018, we were awarded a $5,000 matching grant from the Sojourn East Community Church Adoption Fund, administered by Lifesong for Orphans. The amounts raised through this website are tax deductible and will be matched dollar for dollar by the adoption fund grant. If we can raise the full $5,000, our entire loss will be recovered. This is a huge blessing to our family and we are in awe of this amazing opportunity!
Today, we are now actively waiting to be matched again with our agency. While we don’t know the exact cost since we aren’t matched yet, we estimate the total amount due will be around what our previous match was. Therefore, we would love to raise the $5,000 here so we have the full $10,000 ready when we match again!
This journey hasn’t been what we planned or expected. These last three and a half years have been hard, harder than we could have imagined. We have cried out to God and walked through intense sadness and grief. The pain and loss of being childless has been a weighted presence in our lives each day.
However, we are committed to working through the emotions that this roller coaster of a journey brings. We turn to those around us when we have no hope and try to step each day toward God. Because the reality is that this was never unexpected to Him. He is walking on this road with us and there is not a place we’ll be, he hasn’t already seen. We are working to remain open and hang onto hope as we wait. We have no doubt that this is the place God has led us to and we hope you will support us as we continue on this road!