::spread some love!::

$13k a week.

$35k in 4 and half months.

$4k in one morning.

We read many successful adoption stories with the use of community resources. One amazing story was when a family raised 13k via sharing their adoption story on Facebook. We keep thinking to ourselves, how is that even possible!? No way. A second story was when a couple had a pancake breakfast fundraiser and earned over $4k in one morning.  Many other stories involved large earnings towards their adoption funds. We are skeptical. It just seems too good to be true for us. It's feels as if we need to make six figures a year, have an enormous inheritance, or win the lottery in order to adopt. Regular families like us making modest incomes can adopt, too, and if you’re reading this, you likely fall into that category.

Then.... it just occurred to us that the type of community does make a big impact when it comes to providing assistance. We are facing a  “disadvantage” with our connections. We are affiliated with the deaf community, which is small compared to the general “hearing” community out there (if you are hearing and reading this.... this may sound strange). When involving a “hearing” community, words/ideas/stories spread to people of all walks of life like wildfire and reach out to a much larger crowd- such as "my co-worker's friend's sister went to college with this guy who works with his best friend's girlfriend's neighbor from.......".  The “six degrees of separation” in the hearing world is only “two degrees” in the deaf.

Thus, our resources feel limited. Our connections are smaller. It feels as if the process will stretch out longer if we continue to seek for outside adoption support. We are trying to stay optimistic as much as possible and hoping the light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter and brighter. The adoption expense has been all over our minds as of late.  "How can we pay the next bill?" "What should we do to pay this off?" "Where the heck am I going to get another $9k?"  It's difficult to feel less stressful and anxious about this because, eventually, the money aspect of all this should work itself out somehow.........(or so we’re led to believe!)  If you have ideas, we’d love to hear from you!  Brooke can only do so much sewing of scarves.  Brian is quite helpless in that department but at least he’ll bring in some money from coaching girls basketball.

We are applying for Gift of Adoption (http://www.giftofadoption.org/) to hopefully receive a grant towards our expenses. There are other grants that we in the process of applying for as well! We are not going to sit around idly because we are committed to bringing our boy(s) home as soon as possible and to reduce our boy(s) waiting time at the orphanage, too. This definitely encourages us knowing that we actually have a child out there waiting for us.  It's almost not fair to BOTH of us.  But we’re working hard.

Speaking of the "two possible little boys"- some of you have asked us about more information. Currently, we are being told that our placement agency has found a second boy recently released from his parents because he is deaf. However, they do not have enough information on his background yet and they are working on translating all of his paperwork from Spanish to English and we should have more information by end of this month (hopefully by Christmas!?). The first little boy is approximately one year old with a minor (non-threatening) heart issue. He is at the orphanage and the agency has been working on translating all of his medical information and history before sharing his file with us. They feel that both boys would be a great match for us. We cannot wait to receive more information on them! Waiting sucks, but we are excited! :)

If you cannot contribute financially to our adoption, you can still be a big factor by, simply SHARING our story with anyone and everyone. You have to throw a stone to make a ripple. Spread the story. We are throwing a stone right now and hopefully, the ripple reaches out further than we could have imagined.  Oprah or Ellen, if you’re reading... :)

Spread some love!

Brooke & Brian