Barnes, Party of Four | Adoption Update

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It just occurred to me the other day that I haven’t yet shared our profile video in its entirety and I’m also overdue for an adoption update. I shared a short snippet on Facebook and Instagram, but here is the full thing. Hannah from Milk and Hannah Photo did such an incredible job at capturing our family’s craziness. I looked at tons of adoption profile videos ahead of time, but I felt like our profile book did such a great job at saying everything we wanted Expectant Mothers to know about us. Doing more of a lifestyle video felt right. And it’s perfect.

And since we’re on the subject, we have some exciting news to share. We’ve been MATCHED!

If it sounds like this went pretty quickly, you’re right. Our home study was finalized at the end of December and we’ve now been matched for about a week or so. We knew that matching quickly was a possibility, due to our openness about various potential situations and our agency’s average time for waiting families. But now that it’s official, it feels like there’s so much that still needs to be done.

There’s still many details we don’t know and many that we do, but may or may not decide to share. I’m generally an open book about…pretty much everything. But the Internet is a living, permanent thing and honestly it’s not necessarily my story to tell.

But what I can tell you is that the baby is due soon. As long as everything goes as planned, we will be a family of four before Easter this year. EASTER!!! Which means that there’s so much to do in a really short amount of time!

A lot of people have asked about what our needs are. Thankfully, we have a lot of the big things taken care of because we kept everything from when Liam was a baby. I need to go through his old baby clothes to see if we need anything additional, since Liam was a fall baby. But most likely we have all the major necessities.

We’d like to provide breastmilk to this baby as long as possible. I’ve already begun collecting some milk in our basement freezer, so if you know of anyone in our general local area who has breastmilk to spare, that would be greatly appreciated. I’d especially like to get a hold of a little colostrum to use early on. But since that’s pretty much liquid gold, I know it’s hard to part with.

The baby will be born in North Carolina, which makes things just a little bit more complicated. Basically, it means that not only will we have to travel there, but we will also have to stay in that state until they can tell us we can leave with the baby. Which makes sense. It just takes a lot of time. One of us, probably me, has to plan on being in North Carolina for a minimum of two weeks. Longer, if the baby needs some time in the NICU. We are trying to figure out all the logistics and whether or not we’ll all go or if Jamie will return with Liam to give him a little bit of normalcy.

Because of this, we’re also saving up money for our travel expenses and things we’ll need while we’re there. We will need to find an inexpensive (or free) place to stay while we wait in addition to food and gas. We also need to buy diapers and formula to get us through these first couple of weeks.

Our agency says that because this will be a North Carolina adoption, there’s a good possibility we could finalize everything sooner. But that also means that we need to come up with all the money needed earlier than we’d planned. We’re looking at around $37,000, not including our travel, food and lodging while we’re in North Carolina. The cost break down looks like this:

$25,000 – our agency fees (we’ve already paid a portion of this, but the rest will be due at finalization)
$8,000 – legal fees (both for us and the Birth Mother)
$4,000 – Birth Mother’s living expenses

A domestic adoption through an agency is really expensive, as you can see. But we love that our agency has made “C” a priority and will make sure that she has support and everything she needs to make the right decision for her. We’ve already had a chance to chat with “C” and I already like her a lot. She seems really sweet and we’re looking forward to getting to know her a little more these next few weeks.

We’re working hard by taking as much overtime (Jamie) and extra freelance jobs (Kim) as possible. In addition to our YouCaring campaign and Just Love Coffee fundraiser, we’re also busy going through the things in our house. Basically, we’re planning to sell anything that isn’t anchored to the wall. 😉 If you’re local to us and would like to help, I will definitely take you up on it. I need help photographing things and listing them online. It’s so time consuming! We’re also thinking about other fundraisers we can do or things we can make to sell. So if you have any ideas, we will gladly hear them.

Our t-shirt fundraiser brought in nearly $1,000. We were just blown away by the support. And it’s been so fun to see everyone proudly wearing their shirts.

Aren’t these great? We still have a handful of women’s slouchy and adult unisex tees left. You can purchase them here and here.

Prayers are obviously the most needed thing right now. Pray for “C” and her family. For peace and clarity in her decision and for a healthy pregnancy. Pray for the baby and the upcoming delivery. Also for us the next several weeks as we prepare our home and make travel plans. And for my sanity, because it feels like there’s not enough time to get everything done.

I promise I won’t wait as long to make another adoption update next time. I have a feeling there will be plenty to share in the coming weeks!