Kristin Hill Taylor

Seeking God as the Author of Every Story

Red Letters Campaign: Anticipation

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To commit your heart or not? There is much debate in the adoption world about when you throw your heart into the mix … upon first sight of that referral picture? Or not until the court date? Homecoming Date? Share your thoughts and experience!

Interesting prompt.

For me, I was fully committed from the day in mid-January 2007 that we saw our baby girl on the ultrasound screen when we were at the birth mother’s 25-week appointment. It was the first day we met the birth mother and the day we all agreed to proceed after some previous initial phone conversations.

A couple people continually cautioned me that she may change her mind or something else could happen. Of course, that was reality. But my heart was trusting the birth mother and process so much that I proceeded with everything I had.

That’s how it had to be for me. Like in all of life’s moments, we couldn’t control the details, but we trusted God to continue taking us through the process to which he had obviously led us. There were many reassurances along the way that probably only spoke to my heart. I couldn’t really explain them to the people who were being cautious.

I knew Cate was supposed to be our baby. We named her on the way home from that first appointment/meeting with the birth mother. The birth mother referred to her as our baby.

I know international adoptions, and some domestic ones, have a whole host of uncertainty because there are so many more variables. But speaking from my experience, I had to commit to this baby girl (and the birth mother), and that meant throwing my heart in the mix early.

Cate was born 15 weeks after I threw my heart into the mix, and she’s been with us every since.

Red Letters Campaign: Attachment

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How did attachment go during your first year? Describe what you did to prepare for attachment as well as the joys and challenges of attachment during your first year home.

A friend of mine who has adopted her two children domestically warned me that bonding with our baby might be a challenge. She encouraged me to let Cate sleep close to us, like in a bassinet beside our bed. Until that conversation with her a few weeks before Cate was born, I hadn’t even considered not bonding with my baby.

Sure, I wasn’t physically birthing this baby, but I had all the peace that the birth mother was carrying a baby for us. That’s even how she talked. It’s what I knew in my hard, even though a couple people tried to instill fear in me.

After Cate was born and the nurses took care of her immediate needs in the nursery, a sweet nurse brought her to me at 4 a.m. I fed her and held her for three straight hours. Greg was trying to sleep. But I was falling in love with the little person who was going to change our family in more good ways than I can ever begin to count.

I guess I should say: We bonded.

And we haven’t stopped bonding since.

We spent the first week of her life in a hotel in southern Indiana waiting for the green light for state governments to go home. That was a bonding experience in itself. Cate slept in a travel bassinet near our hotel bed. Then when we got home, she spent a night, maybe two, in the bassinet in our room. We decided we’d all probably sleep better if we had our own space. So she went to her crib, and that’s where she’s slept since. We’re just down the hall so we can hear her, but my baby likes her sleep as much as we do.

Cate is almost 15 months old, and bonding hasn’t been a challenge. Of course, she hasn’t known any other caregivers. We were there when she’s born and she’s been with us since.

How’s that for not really having an answer to the Blog Buzz question?!

Red Letters Campaign: Money

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“How do I do this, moneywise? I want to adopt, but it seems so overwhelming. We don’t really have $20,000 in the bank, ya know!” Please blog about your experience, ideas, insight, fundraisers and other ideas that worked for you while raising your adoption money.

Um, we didn’t have $20,000 in the bank when we decided to adopt. In fact, we still don’t have $20,000 in the bank! 🙂 Seriously, though, I definitely understand concerns about money, but when God leads you somewhere, he doesn’t desert you. Even financially.

We decided to adopt after a couple years of trying to get pregnant and eventually getting answers about our infertility. For us, having a baby was about having a family. Not being pregnant. So, honestly, turning our attention to adoption was a relief for me, emotionally. I felt like God was showing us another way, and that was exciting to me. I just assumed pregnancy was the way to a family, but I learned otherwise. I learned God has more than one way to create families.

OK, so, back to money. You hear about adoptions being so costly, and while that’s true, it’s not like we wrote a $12,400 check and that was it. There were lots of smaller checks throughout the process. During the process both Greg and I worked, so we earned money as we needed it and, thankfully, we had some money saved.

Adopting domestically can definitely be cheaper than adopting internationally because there’s less paperwork and more minimal travel expenses. But we still had to pay two agencies (one in Kentucky and one in Indiana, where Cate was born), two attorneys (although our Kentucky attorney is a friend so that knocked down what would normally be a greater expense), travel expenses to go to doctor’s appointments with the birth mother (who was 4 1/2 hours away), smaller costs of getting background checks and copies of important documents, and medical bills (again, thankfully, she was still on her parents’ health insurance).

Finding a birth mother through family also helped make our process less costly. We didn’t have to pay an agency or attorney to find us a birth mother. My sister put us in touch with someone she already knew who was looking for adoptive parents for the baby she was carrying.

I don’t know that I have any wise financial advice. But you can’t think about it as one huge check. It’s smaller investments along the way. And if it’s what you’re supposed to be doing, God will provide you the resources because he certainly has a heart for children.

Oh, and it’s also helpful to remember that once you can come up with the money along the way, you get it back, penny for penny, up to a certain amount, on your taxes, thanks to federal tax credits. Be sure to talk to your accountant about that.