Intent

Yesterday, we submitted our letter of intent to adopt specific children. We are expecting to get the formal referral in October. That would put our travel in November or December. Could we have a Christmas with the whole family together? All six kids?

Yes, that's right. We're planning to adopt three more children. The ones named in our letter of intent are two girls and a boy, ages 6 to 11, from the northern part of Peru. They have moved between a couple of orphanages, but most recently have been living together in the same home with a married couple as houseparents. They are not children we met when we went to Peru, but they have interacted with other American volunteers and orphanage staff. We are not allowed to post names, pictures, or details until after the adoption is final and they are in the US.

As you might imagine, we thought long and hard about whether to adopt a single child, a pair, or the three. In the end, we chose these children for several reasons. First, they are the youngest children for which we are qualified, per our home study. With siblings in place, adopting younger children is often recommended. Second, we like the idea of getting both a boy and a girl, and that combination wasn't available in any sibling group of two. Third, we want to do as much as we realistically can, to help as many children as we can. If necessary, we would adjust other aspects of our lives to make room and time for this many children. Fourth, we believe that parenting three children who are apparently healthy and doing well in school might be no more stressful than parenting two, one of which has an established disability.

We ask for prayer that the process would move as quickly as possible from now on. We have already started to think of these children as ours, and the more time they can spend with us before starting school in January, the better for them.

One nice aspect of the process is that Peru and the agency don't require more fees for multiple children than for one. There are additional costs for medical care, follow-up visits from the social worker, etc. but nothing major. On the positive side, the adoption tax credit applies per child. With three children, we actually expect to be fully reimbursed for all of our adoption expenses through federal tax refunds over the next few years. So far, we haven't done any fundraising to support the adoption, because we know we'll eventually be reimbursed. In a sense, you're supporting the adoptions of our family and others just by working and paying your taxes.

However, the decision to adopt three children will increase our travel costs over what we had planned, and we will be getting some new furniture and educational materials this Fall. If you would like to help financially, my PayPal account is my personal, Cubs-oriented email address. If you don't know it, contact us. I don't want to put it on the blog, to prevent spam. Or, you can just send a check. We promise to spend every dollar on the kids, if nothing else, at least for more Christmas presents!