We recently came across an article from one of Dave Ramsey's
newletters that may be of interest. Though this family adopted internationally, their book may be of interest to all kinds of adoptive families.

How To Adopt Without Debt

Recently on The Dave Ramsey Show, Dave interviewed Julie Gumm, author of the new book, Adopt Without Debt: Creative Ways to Cover the Cost of Adoption. Julie and her husband have adopted two children and didn't go into a dime of debt to do it.

Here are some of the highlights of that interview.

Dave: When did your family start your debt-free journey?

Julie: My husband started listening to your radio show, but it was really when we attended one of your Live Events back in 2000 that kind of got us started on our debt-free journey. We paid off about $30,000 in consumer debt, which took us about nine months. We ended up bringing Financial Peace University (FPU) to our church and leading it for several years. We started working the Baby Steps. It was about November 2007 when we paid off our mortgage. That was kind of our last big debt hurdle.

Where in this process did adoption talk start?

Julie: When we paid off debt and suddenly had some of that money freed up to do other things, my husband and I realized we'd gotten used to doing without and giving up things. When we had the money to do them, they weren't really that important anymore. We just started looking at ways that we could give generously. That opened our eyes to the needs around us in our local community and internationally. That ended up in our adoption story.

My husband was reading Scripture one day and came across James 1:27 that says, "Religion that is pure in fault, care for the widow and orphan in their distress." We had to really decide what that looked like for us. What does caring for the orphan look like for us? It doesn't mean adoption for everybody. We really felt God leading us to adoption and then looked at the different ways that we could do that. God told us specifically that there were these two amazing children in Ethiopia who were eight and six at the time. They were meant for our family.

How do you adopt without going $50,000 in debt?

Julie: There are basically three ways that I talk about in the book. One of them is finding money you already have—which hopefully, your listeners are starting to do a budget, cut costs, and trim expenses that they already have.

The second is grants. There are 27 different grant organizations I found that are trying to give money away to adoptive families. You can apply for those.

The third one is creative fundraising ideas. There are all kinds of stories that adoptive families gave me. There are 25 families I featured in the book with different creative ideas that they've done to raise funds for their adoption.

So what are some of the coolest fundraising ideas you've heard people do?

Julie: One I absolutely love is kind of a combination grant and fundraising. It's called the Both Hands Foundation, and it actually uses the adoptive family and a team of their family and friends doing a work project at a widow's home and raising funds from family and friends as they do that to help with adoption costs. I just think it's a really cool pairing of that Scripture. The average family who does one of these Both Hands projects raises $10,000 for their adoption expenses, which is unbelievable.

Listen to Dave's entire 10-minute interview with Julie Gumm.

About Julie Gumm

Julie is married to her high-school sweetheart and is the mother of four children from two continents. She and her husband, Mark, finished paying off $235,000 in debt, including their house, in 2007. They have been dreaming and living God-sized, debt-free dreams ever since. Julie blogs about their crazy, fun-filled life at fourplusmore.com.

She loves networking with other adoptive parents and speaking to groups on adoption, global orphan care and debt freedom.

    The adoption tax credit became refundable for 2010 and 2011.  A refundable tax credit is one you get back regardless of what you owe or paid in taxes for the year.

    Families who adopted from 2005 to 2009 may be able to benefit from the refundable credit because credits from those years can be carried forward until 2010. (Families who adopted in 2003 and 2004 may be able to take some limited advantage of the credit but will not benefit from refundability.  Families who adopted earlier will not benefit from the credit if they did not take it already.) 

    The amount of the credit is based on the year the adoption finalized:
                2010 - $13,170        2006 - $10,960
                2009 - $12,150        2005 - $10,630
                2008 - $11,650        2004 - $10,390
                2007 - $11,390        2003 - $10,160

    To be eligible for the credit, you must:

1.  Have adopted a child other than a stepchild.
2.  Be within the income limits.

        What does it mean that the Credit is Refundable?  

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the health reform bill passed in March 2010) made the adoption tax credit refundable for tax years 2010 and 2011.  When a credit is refundable, you can get more money back from the IRS than you have paid in federal taxes.  If you normally get a refund, that means the refund would likely increase by $13,170 per child as long as you do not exceed the income guidelines (and have any other tax liability that would reduce your refund).   

For more information, you can go to the website: www.nacac.org/taxcredit/taxcredit.html   

                         
                            At Long Last, Our Wished-For Child is Here

 

 

 

 
When describing our adoption experience, I often feel the need to add the fine print you find at the bottom of ads for miracle weight loss products: Results Not Typical.

But this is our true story.

One morning last January, I woke up with a name rolling around in my head. It was a girl’s name that meant “wished for child.” I cannot explain why the name stuck with me, but it did. My husband was out of the country at the time, so I e-mailed him, in jest, to warn him that I was renaming our imaginary future children. We both laughed and went on with our day. We weren’t laughing because we thought the possibility of eventually naming a child was laughable, but because we didn’t think choosing one was the urgent business of that particular week. Or month. Or even that year.  Only the week before had we sent a single copy of our family profile to Spokane Consultants. We wouldn’t have the chance to attend the agency’s mandatory seminar in Spokane before March, and until we’d completed that step, we could not “go active” and have our profile available to potential birthmothers. Parenthood was on the horizon, we thought, but still a long way off.

The next day, I received a phone call from Maureen at Spokane Consultants. She was calling to ask if Matt and I would be interested in going active before attending the seminar. This wasn’t something they did often, she explained, they were in a very busy time, understood our extenuating circumstances, and wanted to have a more robust pool of families to present to birthmothers.

Here is where I need to pause and pay homage to the cliché, “famous last words.”

The thing about all clichés is that we roll our eyes because they are like those annoying pieces of advice your parents gave you as a kid. You hated to hear them because you knew they were right. But it is true: You always remember what you say in these moments because they inevitably become the beginning a story.

My famous last words? “Well, I like extreme sports.”

Three days later, I was standing in my kitchen, planning out the rest of my day. At the top of my list was taking a trip to make four more copies of our family profile to send to our agency, along with the paperwork that signified that we were in the active pool. It was 10:15 when the phone rang and I heard this: “Hi Sarah. This is Maureen from Spokane Consultants. Well, you said you like extreme sports…”

I confess that I do not remember much of what came after that, beyond the words “birthmother,”  “went into labor,” and “she picked you.” (A few hours later I had the clarity of mind to ask if it was a boy or a girl. But somehow I already knew.)

I had not yet researched infant car seats. I didn’t have a single diaper or a blanket or a baby wipe in my whole house. What I did have was a plane ticket to go out of town three days later. And a husband who wasn’t due home for another month. But there is only one thing you can do when someone says “and she picked you”: you get in your car the next morning, drive over the mountain pass, and go meet your daughter.

The events between the call and the driving over the mountains are, much like that first phone call, a blur. My cell phone overage charges can attest to the fact that I spent most of the day on the phone. Several more calls with Maureen resulted in a plan, which is distilled rather cogently on a post-it that I keep in a small bag with our daughter’s hospital bracelet: along with Maureen’s cell phone number, the only words on the paper are the name of the city where my daughter was born, “HOLY MOLY,” and “hotel—find one.”

That evening, I drove myself to the giant baby superstore, and almost laughed out loud as I stumbled through the aisles, loading a car seat and diapers into my cart. I felt like I was a crazy lady on my way to steal a baby. I told the check out clerk where I was headed and couldn’t shake the feeling that I was telling the biggest whopper of my life.

What was more surreal was that I still hadn’t been able to talk to Matt about any of it. After not hearing from him all day, I finally admitted that this was an event worthy of breaking with my own personal military wife code; a code that goes something like, “Don’t call. Sort it out on your own unless someone is dying.” But by 8 pm, I decided that perhaps I should see if I could reach Matt. It wasn’t exactly an emergency, but I thought I probably shouldn’t do something as life changing as bringing home a child without at least mentioning it to him.

When I finally spoke to someone, they told me that I wouldn’t be able to talk to him for another eight hours. I went to bed, understanding that the exercise of trying to sleep was important, whether or not any sleep actually occurred. Sometime after midnight, Matt finally called. While I was nearly positive he wouldn’t tell me not to go, I still needed to hear him say “yes.” He did.

So I went.

After arriving at the hospital, I met Maureen and Nancy from Spokane Consultants. We chatted for a few minutes and they filled me in on some basic outlines of our birthmother’s story. A few minutes later, we were knocking on the door of her hospital room. As I peered cautiously around the curtain, I had no idea what to expect. Here I was, a complete stranger, waltzing into her life, hours after she had given birth. How could I not feel like an intruder? And yet she disarmed me in seconds. She saw me, and a wide, welcoming smile spread across her face. In her arms, she held an impossibly small baby—truly, the smallest baby I had ever seen—and quickly offered, “Do you want to hold her?”

And then time stood still. At some point, I realized it was dark outside and that my daughter, her birthmother, and I had been sitting together for quite some time.

Many hours later, my friend (a varsity mom who had dropped everything to join me for the most surreal and wonderful day of my life) and I walked gingerly out into the icy hospital parking lot with my tiny daughter strapped into her new car seat. We were both giggling because it seemed so impossible. I was walking out of the hospital. With a baby. That was mine. A baby I didn’t know existed 36 hours before that moment.

There are many more details that I could share about this experience, but truly the most remarkable one is this: there are not words to describe what it feels like to be given—GIVEN—a child. Trusted with her care from here until I am gone. Our daughter’s birthmother gave this little girl life, carried her, and then had selfless presence of mind to consider that someone else might be in a better place to give her all that she needs. And then, in the world’s greatest act of trust, she handed me her child. Right there, still in her hospital gown. Because she believed that I could give this little girl what she could not.

A year later, I remain in awe, because she didn’t have to do any of those things. It is humbling to consider that the most priceless gift in all my life was given to me by a perfect stranger. I am grateful, too, that she is no longer a stranger. I am humbled by the strength it takes to choose the kind of adoption where we can talk and meet; that as hard as it might be, she is willing to keep her heart open to our daughter, in case she has questions that I can’t answer. I might be a pretty nice person, but truly, I have never done anything to deserve anything this good.

And just like everyone said it would, those years of heartache and uncertainty evaporated the moment I laid eyes on my baby girl. “Ohhhh,” said my heart. “This is why. This is what all that waiting was about. THIS child.”

Recently, I found myself imagining what I might say to my younger self, if given the opportunity.  I would, of course, have plenty to say to about questionable fashion choices in the early 90s, but the prevailing message, particularly in the years leading up to meeting our daughter is this: The good stuff is just around the corner. Before my daughter, I couldn’t see it.

But now I do.

We are enhancing our website with a new feature... "Adoption Today".  We want to share articles, family stories and testimonies, as well as information pertinent to current adoption practices.