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For us, we have never been wealthy and we have had some short periods of struggle, however we have worked hard, and we are religious and have felt that our family has been blessed each time we have expanded to accommodate “one more”. For most of our adoptions it was not the wisest financial decision for us to add another child, and yet things have worked out better than we could have hoped for. We actually are making more money and living more comfortably... more

Before I move on from the money issue and tackle some of the other common barriers to adoption, I wanted to address the issue of being able to afford to raise “one more” child. (I've called this "Affording one more", however I do think a lot of this would apply to parents deciding to have a child for the first time as well.)

I have heard from many parents who already have children, and have considered adoption, but are concerned about the costs of having another child. There are families who have a child (or more) through adoption and consider adopting another, and... more

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Tips

-Plan and save what you can. Tax return money, Christmas bonus money, birthday gift money…any “extra” money that comes in, put into an adoption account. You’ll be surprised how fast it can add up. I know some people also give up eating out or other luxuries and put that money into an adoption account. Again, it can really add up fast.

-Research. I have written a lot on how... more

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Some random thoughts on adoption and the MONEY issue.

-Where there is a will, there is a way. I know that sounds corny, but I believe it. Like I said, it is easy to say, "Oh, there is no way," and forget about it, but there almost always is a way, you just have to find it.

-Debt is bad…we know that. BUT, I can’t think of a better reason to incur some debt than an adoption. Think about it…people take out loans every day... more

*These posts are part of a series discussing some of the barriers and issues of adoption that prevent some people from starting the adoption process, and are often still concerns for people that do move forward. The purpose of these posts is not to say or suggest that adoption is right for everyone, but to look into the issues/concerns and address them and discuss them.

Thanks to all of you who chimed in on my question about “adoption hang ups”. I have quite the list to work on now! ... more

Long time no post... sorry about that! Things have a way of getting busy around here. :)

Saturday was my birthday...good bye twenties. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and I enjoyed spending time out at a park with my family and then going out to dinner. The kids were really sweet...I must have been told "Happy Birthday" 3,000 times over the course of the day.

This week is Spring Break here, which means it should start raining and snowing any minute. Today was beautiful weather though, and we spent lots of time outside playing, cleaning the yard and burning energy. Belane had her first experience on the trampoline and thought that it was just FANTASTIC. She is tough as nails and... more

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So Josh decided to go and say something. He said hi, introduced himself and apologized for staring, and told them that their family was beautiful. Then he explained that he was usually the one being stared AT, not the one doing the staring, and he told them about our family.

Turns out they had a great conversation…This family has nine kids, including several from Haiti and one from a domestic adoption, along with their biological kids. They were thrilled to hear about our family, and they talked with Josh about raising transracial families in small country areas, different... more

As the mom of a large transracial family, I often write about our experiences being “out and about” and how conspicuous we are and the attention (both positive and negative) that we receive. We get nice comments, we get rude comments and we get down right silly ones…

Case in point…yesterday, I took all of the kids to dinner by myself. As I carried my two trays of happy meals back to the play room, a mom looked at me and said, “Birthday party?” I said, “Nope…just my family.”(and smiled at her politely.) She got this bewildered look and said, “oh…that’s nice… I guess.” And she didn’t smile…it was more like a sneer.

Whatever. (Later on she did comment nicely that my 10 kids were... more

Ok, let me preface this by saying that I have a pretty liberal sense of humor... I was raised in New York by a single dad who works in politics...

Although I am a religious gal and have become a lot more aware and sensitive to different issues as an adult, I would still say that I don't take offense easily.

Today, I am offended.

Check out this clip from Comedy Central. (But only if you haven't eaten... more

I mentioned this a while ago on my personal blog, but forgot that I hadn’t mentioned it on here yet.

Our family has been having an amazing experience thanks to Make A Wish.

We had several people, including staff at Belane’s clinic, mention that kids who are HIV+ automatically qualify for a “wish” through the Make A Wish foundation.

It all seemed a little too good to be true (and you know what they usually say about stuff that sounds too good to be true), so we didn’t get our hopes up. But I gave a call after some prompting from friends and family just to “feel things out”, and they jumped all over working with us.

To make a long story short, Belane wished to... more