Oh man, we had to gather a lot for our home study! I had no idea there was THAT much information to grab on our own background. We have had to do Child Protective Services checks on all five of us, Indiana background checks, Michigan background checks (because we lived there for three years), local background checks, National Sex Offender checks, and we had to schedule and pay for electronic fingerprinting for FBI background checks! And that’s all just one line of many, many things we’ve had to gather just to get our home study scheduled. All five of us have had physicals (we had to pay for the doctor’s visit) TB tests (had to pay for those too) and Matt and I had to do drug tests as well (extra lab fees), which we’re gathering the last of those papers today. I’m amazed at how many additional expenses we’ve had to pay that I didn’t even know existed and these are all part of the home study but the fees were not included as part of it. But we’re close to getting over this hump and getting closer to bringing our baby girl home.
I am overjoyed at the response of encouragement and excitement we’ve gotten from people after they’ve heard we’re adopting. It is SO heartwarming to know we have a community behind us! We have gotten a total of $910 donated so far through our Facebook Fundraiser and direct donations (check or PayPal). That is amazing! We’ve kicked off our Holiday Pie fundraiser, selling pies for $20 each, and have gotten orders for 10 pies already. We’re set-up to have a table at the YMCA Holiday Bazaar this Saturday from 9-2 to sell pies, cake balls, cookies, and upcycled t-shirt bracelets and headbands I’ve been making. We’re also signed up for a table during Light-Up Lanesville on Saturday, December 1, from 3-7ish to sell our goodies and hopefully we’ll have some other goods in too to sell as well. We’re getting a couple fundraiser bundles from Compelled Designs of bracelet cuffs and necklaces that we’ll be selling at the vendor shows and to whomever is interested and I’m waiting to hear back from Love Coffee for another similar fundraiser set-up where we get to keep a portion of the money when we sell their gourmet coffee. And another thing we have on our list is to design t-shirts and sell those. We’re hoping to find/create a design that can appeal to a lot of people and it not just be an adoption shirt. Oh, AND we’re doing a gift-wrapping fundraiser that we’ll kick off after Thanksgiving where we’ll wrap your Christmas gifts for you for a donation to our adoption.
So we have a lot planned (whew! I get worn out just thinking about it all!) but we just want to do all that we can to raise the money needed to help bring peace to the birth mom and a home to our baby girl. As I start baking pies and goodies for this weekend (our electricity just came back on from the ice storm), I have joy in my heart and hope of s better life for one little girl. ❤️❤️