We are so excited to announce that we have officially paid all adoption fees to our adoption agency! It’s been a year of application fees, adoption fees, and program fees that have totaled $16,160 paid to Holt International. This total does not include our home study expenses through Catholic Charities and additional fees from USCIS, etc. Our grand total for adoption expenses paid to-date is $22,542.80. Looking at that number still confounds us and we are so thankful that God has provided exactly what we needed in the right time. This enormous feat also would not have been possible without the generous donations from family and friends who contributed to our adoption fund and t-shirt fundraiser. Thank you again for all of your support and continued encouragement as we work to bring our son home! While this is a huge accomplishment and a major milestone for us, can you believe we still have an estimated $15,195 in adoption expenses outstanding?! We can barely believe it either!

These remaining expenses are outlined below:

Travel – Flights, Hotel, Meals $10,000.00
US Visa Fee $325.00
Catholic Charities Post Placement Checks $2,000.00
Local Gov’t Court Report Fee $500.00
Local Gov’t Adoption Finalization Fees $1,200.00
Local Gov’t Certificate of Citizenship $1,170.00

The travel costs make up the majority of our remaining expenses. Typically, travel takes 10-14 days in country and only parents make the trip. With these parameters, our adoption agency estimates travel expenses totaling between $7,000-15,000. However, with COVID restrictions, a current 2 week quarantine requirement, and then potentially bringing our 3 children along because of the increased time away, our travel expenses could increase drastically. If we have to bring the kids, our sanity will likely decrease drastically as well…

Thankfully, we just received news that we’ve been given a matching grant opportunity of $4,000 through Brittany’s Hope Foundation. Brittany’s Hope will donate half the grant amount; if we raise $2,000 they will match $2,000 to total a $4,000 grant for our adoption. We only receive the matching $2,000, however, if we raise the full amount of $2,000 – if we don’t reach this goal, we will only receive the funds raised and no matching monies. This grant will make such a difference in this last leg of our adoption journey, especially as COVID still greatly impacts Thailand and our travel costs are climbing unexpectedly. If you can share our Brittany’s Hope fundraising page to help us reach our $2,000 goal, we would be SO appreciative!

https://www.brittanyshope.org/adoption-grants/grodek_family/

In terms of our current timeline, we are still waiting for First Approval from the Thai government. The good news is we are already 3 months into the estimated 6-12 month wait time, so we continue to hope and pray that we are on the shorter end of that estimation! Once we receive the formal First Approval, Sunny will be given our family photo album and cards/letters from the kids. We will then have more paperwork to fill out and applications to complete for travel. Our adoption agency says it usually takes between 2-4 months for that paperwork to be processed and then we will be setting travel dates and planning the trip to Thailand to pick up Sunny!

Some days we feel like this last year’s process has flown by and we are surprised to think we could be traveling as early as this winter! On other days, it feels like ions since we found out in November that we were matched with our son. Each day that passes is another day Sunny is separated from us, another day older. We just hope and pray that everyone working on our adoption halfway across the world continues to make steady progress and Sunny learns of his new family waiting for him sooner than later.

“Where God guides, He provides.” Isaiah 58:11