[SvdByFaith]

Hello everyone! My name is Tina and my dh and I have already begun the process of adoption. We're waiting to see if we will be be approved to start the rest of the process.

Let me start by telling you our story. We have three biological children that are 18, 13, and 11. I am 37 and I had a hysterectomy at 29. My dh and I began discussing adoption afterwards because we didn't feel like our quiver was quite full yet.

Even though we began reading everything we could about adoption, we felt like we needed to wait until we had our debts paid off. We had made some poor choices before we were saved, which resulted in enormous credit card debt. We also did not have insurance and were left MANY large medical bills from the surgeries.

Here we are, 8 years later and we are still in debt, although it is down to around $6000. But our credit rating is shot for awhile. We definitely do not have the money for an adoption.

We are in a little different situation now than most people who adopt. We always wanted a baby, never an older child. That, we knew for certain. We are not out of debt, and we were not even entertaining the idea of adopting at this point in time when the Lord impressed onto our hearts that He wants us to bring an 8 year old special needs child into our family.

The way it happened will take too long to write out, but it is definitely the Lords doing, not ours. I even struggled with the Lord, asking him to find a really good home for this little one, but He reassured me that He was serious! (I was a little nervous for not taking Him seriously!)My dh and I have never had the Lord impress anything on our hearts in this way. That, in itself, is exciting for us!

My questions are:
Will a bad credit rating keep us from being able to go any farther? Who looks at the credit rating, the adoption agency, or the social worker who does the home study?

If the adoption agency only sends someone out to do a home study in their state (we're not in their state) and asked me if I already had someone to do the home study, can I go ahead and hire someone local to to the home study to get it underway?

Is it possible to request or find a Christian social worker? (central Texas area) Does anyone have a referral?

Has anyone here started the adoption process that DID NOT have the money, but trusted the Lord to provide the means?

I have a gazillion other questions, but I don't want to go on and on. I appreciate everyone who is here to give advice that has already gone down this path. It's nice to know that I'm not alone!!!

God bless all of you!
Tina

[kidmd2b]

We are just starting the homestudy process for an international adoption and although I can not answer all of your questions, I can try to relate some of what I have found with my situation so far. We will be working with an agency out of our state and so we had to find an agency within our state that was licensed within our state to do adoptions for the country that we picked. Our agency actually gave us a list of partner agencies to consider using. Before you do the homestudy, you should make sure that the agency that the social worker works with meets all qualifications. I have come across many Christian agencies in my searching and although I can't speak for Texas, I am pretty sure you can find one. As for financial stuff, my husband and I have some assets and a decent credit score, but we have a lot of debt as well. He just finished chiro med school last year and so his past 4 tax returns aren't great and loans are astronomical. With every agency I interviewed, I made sure that I told them of our situation up front and asked if they thought it would be a deal breaker for the homestudy. All said they couldn't guarantee anything, but said that what they look for is stability in your current situation. They really want you to prove that in your monthly budget, you have more coming in than going out and that you will have enough flexibility to pay for medical insurance and the medical needs, schooling needs, food etc that an extra body would add to the family. I can't say expressly for your situation and my homestudy is not completed or approved yet so I will be praying that this info is accurate as well. My best advice is to talk to the actual agency that you will be going through or the homestudy agency you will use to see what they can predict.
Sorry so long.
Good luck and God bless,
Cindy

[bajj]

Tina,

We didn't have the money to adopt either time, but we've adopted twice so far. We were able to pay both adoptions off within a year and a half (mainly due to tax break w/adoption). We don't have bad credit, and our only debt is house, van (almost paid off) and student loans...but oh those student loans are so high. They are higher than our house payment and we had to consolidate and stretch them out for 25 years, and now we don't qualify for the lower interest stuff! We were still able to adopt.

Usually, when adopting a child with special needs, the state will aid in the cost. I am in Texas (near Dallas) so if you want to know who I used, pm me and I'll let you know.

Keep us posted!

I almost forgot, the agency I use is a Christian agency.