You're quite welcome! Well, to put it bluntly, we didn't buy a new car! Um, we did look into several grants, but in the end they were small potatoes with what we needed. We ended up taking a mortgage line of credit loan (home equity), a fixed rate loan with payments that we can overpay on as needed. My employer (UND) also will give 3k for every adoption completed , with a maximum of up to two per year. That helps, but again there is the Adoptive Tax Credit, which will help us come tax time, but its not like we get 10k back or anything. We've been hoping the lottery or that whole me suddenly becoming independently wealthy thing will come through....(not likely!). Most countries do vary by program cost, and in country fee. Guatemala has one of the highest in country fees, at around 19k, whereas Russia and Ukraine are near 11k, and Kazakhstan is around 9k. I don't know much about Ethiopia or Haiti's programs, but they have rich wonderful histories, and surely have children that need a good parent or two. Actually, Guatemala has its own group of free-slave-derived peoples, the Garifuna. Our first referral was for a garifuna girl named Igiburi (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garifuna). But someone else was ahead of us in the queue. We'll be happy to help out baby Ché.....

From the numbers I've seen, those countries are pretty far down the list in terms of # of adoptees/year. I think to be honest, some people go abroad to NOT choose a dark-skinned child, but they're just idiots. There were several waiting families that had passed on Igiburi for that very reason, which seems crazy to me. My wife always said that at this point she'd take an anteater wearing a hat!

Best of luck,
Mike & Liz

Susan, I have a dear friend who has adopted 2 girls from Ethiopian orphanages. I can ask her some questions, as we're getting together next weekend. Anything specific you'd like to know, or just generalities?

Beautiful, graceful, little girls. The oldest is about 6, and has an American name now. But the youngest, at 2, was given a name by her birth mother (who died from AIDS-related complications) that means "she who will live to majority." My friend didn't have the heart to change that one, since she's the only one from her family who may do just that! So we call her a nickname that's pronouncable....she may want to change it later - as the nickname is Badaboo (pronounced bad-a-boo), but for now, it works.