The Cost

Yay, today we have another $800 to help bring Aly home! Between donations, our garage sale, and Brian selling several items he no longer uses, our Help Bring Aly Home Fund is growing! More great news is that friends of Brian have donated their airline points, which completely covers the price of our flights!

We have had several people comment on the price of adoption. They wonder why international adoption is so expensive, so I thought I would share the breakdown of the cost of our adoption. Please keep in mind that other than the homestudy and USCIS, this does not cover the cost of our compiling our dossier (doctor's appointments, notaries, apostilles, etc.)

Here is the cost breakdown for the country we are adopting from and the organization that we are working with.

Estimated costs of our adoption:
$2000.00 - Homestudy
$1000.00 - USCIS, i-600a and fingerprinting
$5000.00 - approximate cost of flights
$8600.00 - facilitator fees
$1700.00 - first trip lodging ($80/night 3 weeks)
$1100.00 - second trip lodging ($80/night 2 weeks)
$450.00 - first trip food/other supplies ($20/day 3 weeks)
$250.00 - second trip food/other supplies ($20/day 2 weeks)
$600.00 - passport for Aly
$550.00 - visa and medical for Aly
$2000.00 - transportation (in country)
$1000.00 - orphanage donation/dossier preparation costs

Total $24,250

I look at this amount and realize it is a large dollar amount. I have heard other adoptive parents consider the cost of adoption as more of a ransom. If any of our children at home were kidnapped, we would pay the ransom, no matter what the dollar amount, to bring our children back home. We are willing to pay this ransom to bring Aly home. We are willing to pay the cost to keep Aly out of an institution and bring her into a loving family, where every child deserves to be. When God put it on our heart to adopt Aly we didn't know how we would come up with the money, we just knew we had to be obedient. It is amazing to see how God is providing for this sweet little girl.

It's not to late to help bring Aly home. Tax deductible donations can still be made through Reece's Rainbow at
http://reecesrainbow.org/alyona-for-the-swerdfeger-family-laguna-hills-ca