A breakdown of our adoption costs, if you're curious

I always knew international adoption = $$$, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across a breakdown of that, so I’m going to try to do so in this post. {But first, let me be honest: we need $1,870 $100 by the end of the weekend. See more info about that at the end of this post.}

Before I list the costs, though, consider this: if someone you know bought a vehicle for $20,000, you might say, “hey, nice car!” You probably wouldn’t say, “Geez, that’s a lot of money. How can you even afford that?” (I know some of y'all are impressively frugal, so you might think that, but most of us wouldn’t say it.) However, when someone is adopting and the cost is the same, that censor of "maybe I shouldn't say that" seems to disappear.

I don’t mind. Actually, I expect it. Because we’re having to ask others for financial support, we're opening ourselves up to a little more scrutiny. If I have to ask others to consider supporting our adoption, I want to be as transparent as possible. So feel free to ask away, and I’ll do my best to answer your questions about the cost! 

{And for your reading pleasure, here’s my all-time favorite post about the cost of adoption from Stephanie at Ni Hao Y’all. She uses a vehicle cost analogy too, but hers is much better than mine.}

Before I list our expenses, let me add this disclaimer: these are just our costs. Every adoption is different. Every country is different. Two adoptions in the same country can have different costs depending on the region, the agency, the orphanage, the judge assigned to the case, and a whole host of other factors. That disclaimer given, here's the breakdown for us...

Expenditure	Cost
Home study fees	$1,400
US CIS paperwork fees	$890
Translation fees of documents from English to Chinese and vice versa	$400
Wiring fees	$150
National insurance in Taiwan	$170
Paperwork and agency fees in Taiwan	$6,600
Cost of full-time care in the children’s home for Zoe Amanda from her birth until the time we bring her home	$9,000
Travel for me and Lee (5 day trip, including airfare on short notice)	~$4,000
Re-adoption paperwork in US (required because we won’t meet Zoe Amanda before the adoption is final)	$400
Required post-adoption visits from home study social worker	$500 (2 at $250 each)
TOTAL	~$23,000

Yes, that's a lot of money. Some of it will come from our savings, and some may be recovered via tax savings (though the exact amount won’t be certain for a while because part of it may be on the budget chopping block), but we still need to raise a big chunk. We had planned not to have to raise many funds because our timing would have given us another year or two to save, but God's timing was different from ours. We've had to take several huge steps in faith as we work to bring Zoe Amanda home, but we think she's worth more than a car, don't you think?

Please pray that the exact amounts we need will come in as we need it and that God would increase our faith in His timing and provision throughout this process!

If you'd like to contribute toward these expenses to bring Zoe Amanda home, instructions are provided in the upper left-hand side of the blog. You can donate directly to the children's home - which goes toward the Taiwanese costs (childcare, paperwork, translations, etc.) - or to us via the Paypal link - which will go toward the US-based costs (travel, paperwork in the US, etc.). Of those costs, nearly $9000 need to be paid by the end of the weekend; we have a sizeable chunk of it, but

we still need $1,870 $100. Before Monday.

And then - assuming the car being sold by our friends for our adoption funds sells for what we think it will and assuming our fundraising night goes as well as we're hoping - we'll need to raise another $6,000 via donations before we travel to Taiwan.

Would you consider making a donation? If you could help in any way, we'd greatly appreciate it! 

{And if you can't give but would be willing to add a fundraising button to your blog, you'll find the code you need here.}