UPDATE: We have a travel date! We are leaving for Colombia on Nov 29th and meeting Mirlo (the little girl we are adopting) on Dec 3rd. We will be in Colombia anywhere from 3-7 weeks to complete the adoption process. This year adoptions have typically been taking about 3 1/2 weeks to complete but since we are traveling around Christmas ours might take longer. I have been told things really slow down around the holidays. This also means we are flying at the most expensive time of year. Flights are 2-3 times the cost of what they were a month ago when I was looking. We could really use some support covering our final expenses. We so appreciate the generosity of everyone who has helped us get to our girl.

I am pleased to officially announce I am in the process of adopting a little girl from Colombia! Many of you remember how hard it was for us when Ramona's little sister Zoelle had to leave our home to live with biological relatives (we fostered her for 4 years). Ever since then Ramona has been asking me when she can have a sister again and hopefully, we're getting closer to that day when we will indeed get to meet to newest member of our family. In the process of trying to adopt Zoelle I ended up spending over $15,000 on lawyer fees which put a big dent in my savings. I have been fully funding our current adoption process through my own savings but the time has come to do some fundraising. Adoptions (domestic and international) can cost well over $40,000 which can make it hard for families to afford and leaves kids waiting in orphanages or foster homes with no forever family. We're hoping, with a little help from our "village", we can bring Ramona's little sister home sooner rather than later.

I have not been matched with any specific child yet but I have specified that I am open to children with special needs. I will most likely be adopting a "waiting child" who is preschool age and has some special needs (medical, behavioral, developmental or all 3). To be able to bring this special child home I could use your support! Please consider donating towards our adoption expenses. All donations made here are tax deductible and eligible for corporate matching if that's something your employer offers! Donations big and small are appreciated! Our current goal is to fund the $6000 fee for our dossier to be processed. A dossier is a big file with all the necessary documents to show we have been approved as a safe and appropriate home for a child and it contains photos and biographical info about us so Colombia can “get to know us” and match us with a child. Our agency here in WA helps us make sure everything is in the dossier that needs to be and has it translated then delivered to Colombia where it is processed and reviewed by Colombia's Children's Services agency. All of this requires time from a number of professionals which is why there is such cost associated with this step -and each step along the way. Just as there are costs throughout a pregnancy there are costs throughout the adoption process but unfortunately, adoption is not covered by an insurance plan. Hopefully once this step is complete, we will be approved and ready to be matched with a waiting child! Wait time between dossier approval and matching with a child vary greatly but we are praying that it happens quickly! And we are hoping that some of you all are able to support us in getting there!

A lot of people have asked me why I chose Colombia for our next adoption. I chose Colombia for a number of reasons. First of all, I needed to know that the next child we brought home would definitely be staying. I was a foster parent for 7 years and had 15 kids placed in my home during that time and was only able to adopt 1- Ramona! I feel so blessed to be her mom and I don’t regret being a foster parent. I wasn't hoping to adopt all 15 of those kids but the two little ones who were with me long term (Krissy, my first placement and Zoelle, my last) were incredibly hard to part with when they left. My heart couldn't take saying goodbye to another child I had hoped would be a part of our family forever and more importantly I didn't feel it was fair to Ramona to risk the chance of losing another sibling. In any domestic adoption, whether through foster care or private adoption there is a chance the child may have to leave after they are placed with you. With foster care this can be years later, with private adoption it can vary from a couple days to a couple months depending on which state the baby is born in (different states have different timelines for how long biological mothers and fathers have to change their mind about terminating their rights). In some states there are legally free kids waiting in foster care for families to adopt them (kids who's biological parents have already had their rights terminated); in WA our foster care system moves so slowly that it is rare for legally free kids under age 6 to be in need of homes (by the time they become legally free most have been in foster care for years and end up being adopted by their foster parents if they are not placed with a family member). I’m not interested in adopting a child older than Ramona as disrupting birth order can be very hard on children. That left International adoption as the best option for me. When researching the programs in various countries I was most interested in finding a country in Latin America with an ethical and active adoption program because Ramona is Latina and I thought it would be beneficial to my kids to share a similar cultural background with each other. I believe whenever possible it is best for children to grow up with others who share their race and cultural background. Since I don’t share Ramona’s the only way she can have that is through a sibling. I also chose Colombia because their child welfare system seems pretty decent. Children are fairly well cared for in foster homes or orphanages and birth families are given a chance to regain custody of their children similar to the foster system in the US. It breaks my heart when poverty and poverty alone is the only reason a child is removed from their biological family. While I’m sure poverty is a huge factor in the need for adoption in Colombia (as it is everywhere) there do seem to at least be efforts made to reunify children with their biological families when possible. There is an active adoption program within Colombia so kids who CAN stay in their country DO stay in their country which I believe is best whenever possible. Kids shouldn't have to lose their homeland and their culture and their language if there are local families willing and able to care for them. I chose Colombia because they seem to value the needs of children above the needs/wants of adults and I very much respect that. One example of this is that Colombia will not officially "match" children with families until families are pretty far along into the long paperwork process so that kids don't have to spend extra time waiting while families do what they need to do to be approved and ready to travel. If there is more than one family interested in adopting a particular child Colombia will choose the family who is closest to travel-ready and is best suited to meet the child's individual needs. This might be hard for families while they wait to adopt but this is ultimately what is best for the kids. Another reason that I choose to adopt from Colombia is that it is possible to adopt kids in my desired age range (0-6). It’s important to me that my next child be younger than Ramona.

Ramona and I can’t wait to go to Colombia and meet our new child but for now we’re just doing all we can do to move this process along. Fundraising is a big part of that as this adoption will probably end up costing close to $40,000 including all pre-adoption costs, travel, legal fees, medical fees, post adoption costs, etc. Since I work as a preschool teacher (a very underpaid job in our country but one that I love doing and that I know is very important) that is more than a year’s salary for me. Anything you can contribute, large or small is appreciated. And remember donations made through this site are tax deductible and eligible for corporate matching if that’s something your employer offers!

Thanks for your support!

-Mela and Ramona