Dear Friends & Supporters,
We are beginning the process of domestic infant adoption and would love your support in this process. Since Chris was adopted (as an infant from India), we know firsthand the positive impact adoption can have on a child’s life, and have always had it in mind for part of our family building process. We persevered through the adventure that was getting married during the global pandemic and have been trying to start our family for the last couple of years. As we have navigated through infertility issues this past year, the conversation about adopting someday for a second kid shifted to the idea of building our family through adoption now. And since we have not been able to have a baby of our own, at this point in time we strongly desire the experience of raising an infant to experience all those early milestones with them.
If you know Deborah, you know she has always had a heart for kids. She can often be found making silly faces at and entertaining whatever child is in the room and has long dreamed of the day she would have a child of her own. If you know Chris, you know he has been elementary school teacher for almost a decade and is ready to upgrade from uncle status to dad.
It may surprise you that the average cost of domestic infant adoption in the United States can range from 50K to 80K. It certainly was a surprise to us! It is for this reason that we are asking our family, friends, faith community and supporters to consider donating to help ease the financial burden we never anticipated would be involved in building our family.
The fees which adoption agencies collect are so high because they cover:
You can play an integral part in helping us realize our dreams of becoming parents and enable us to provide a loving home for a child in need. We have chosen to use this specific crowdfunding platform so that any donations you choose to make are tax deductible. (You can also give to the foundation via check or charitable giving platform.)
Your love, support, and prayers mean more to us than you know.
Love,
Deborah & Chris
October 2024 Edit: The projected budget for our adoption is higher, since it is a California match, than we were initially prepared for. So we have raised the fundraising threshold.
Been meaning to post this update for a while but we have been down with Covid.
Last week, we received and approved the draft of the print version of our profile. So the agency now has everything they need, information-wise to display us as a hopeful adoptive family. There are a few contracts we need to review, sign, and get notarized, which getting Covid has delayed. Once the agency receives those documents (hard copy we have to mail) and the funds we requested transferred from this fundraising page, we can become an active family.
Once everything is live, we will share the links here. It's a bit surreal after all these months of preparing that it's almost go time for Baby Woo-Miller!
We are part way through our summer Midwest trip and were surprised and delighted to get a notification that a draft of our adoptive family video profile was ready for review! I thought there might be nothing stranger than recording interview clips and B roll footage of our life, but it turns out watching a draft video is even stranger! They collected so much from us that wasn't included in the video, so it was interesting to listen and watch and try to get a feel for if our life is represented well or if we had feedback of what was missing to paint the mot accurate picture of our daily lives. One step closer to going live, eek!
The to-do list has been long, for so long, that I keep thinking there must be something left that we still have to do. But I think we're finally DONE!
Chris triple checked our profile text answers today while I looked for photos to match our answers. It's an interesting exercise to think about what photos best capture your life and might help paint a picture for a birth mother of what life their child might have with you.
Our profile question answers have been uploaded. And to submit the photos we were required to send the physical files, so a flash drive with 100 photos will ship out tomorrow to the agency office in Kansas.
With any luck we will get the drafts of both the print and video profiles around the same time in mid-July and then it will be go time!
While searching for photos I rediscovered one of my favorite photos from my first Minnesota trip. I often refer to it as Chris' album cover. Enjoy!
We've taken turns fighting a stomach bug this week, but in the midst of that have been working on getting the content together for our print profile. Another round of reflecting on who we are, what our dreams for life for our family are, and how incredibly blessed we are to have the life, family, friends, and community that we do.
It's incredibly humbling to think about how loved and prayed for this baby already is by so many of you and how this incredible village of love and support are part of what we can point to as to why someone should choose us to raise their child.
We are hoping to get the print profile content wrapped up and sent to the editors before leaving for our Minnesota trip and then we should be on track to go live the second week of July!
If you've been in conversation with Chris, you probably have had a sports or political analogy drawn to whatever is the topic of conversation. Well for the adoption process, we are now on the 15-yard line, which in a football game would mean you are close to scoring a touchdown!
We reviewed a draft of our home study last week and sent it back to our social worker for some edits.
We filmed our interviews for our adoptive family video profile and sent the footage off to Show Pro Media who will edit those interviews, B-roll we have filmed, and photos we compiled into a 3-4 minute presentation of us that is the most likely way a birth mother will choose us.
Our last big to-do list item is the more traditional print profile for birth parents to look at as well.
Today we also hung a banner in our living room reading Team Baby Woo-Miller. It has some notes (and coloring) from people who were at our gathering last weekend. We also have added the names of everyone who has so generously given towards our adoption and any notes you sent through this platform. (If you gave your donation anonymously, we don't see the names on our end, so let us know if that's you so we can add you to the banner!)
This banner will be our encouraging reminder as we enter the waiting period of all of you that are cheering us along in this journey.
With much love and gratitude,
Deborah and Chris
