Dear A Child Waits Foundation;

Thank you for all of your help along the way. I feel as if I can never thank you enough. My daughter is a true blessing in my life, a real miracle.

I have always wanted to be a mother. For as long as I can remember I have dreamed of one day adopting children, even if I had biological children, I always planned on adopting. When I began looking into adoption more seriously, I checked with all of the local agencies around the area where I live. I told them that I wanted to adopt a little girl age six or under of any ethnicity. All of the agencies I talked to on that day were rude to me. Some of them laughed. One of them told me to get a dog. All of them turned me down flat for being single; I was frustrated, discouraged, and sad. I wondered if it was only the agencies in my relatively conservative area that discouraged singles from adopting or if it was all agencies. So, I called an agency in California to see if they worked with single people. They were very kind to me and said that they work with single people all the time. This gave me a ray of hope.

I began researching adoption agencies on line. I ordered several dozen free adoption brochures. Then I read them all and began calling agencies based on whether or not I liked their brochures. One agency really stuck out for me. They were kind, and excited about my dream to be a mother. That agency was EAC.

EAC, European Adoption Consultants, is an international adoption agency. Since I did not care what ethnicity my child was, I asked the receptionist what country was the kindest to singles. She told me Vietnam, and transferred me to the Vietnam office. I was very satisfied with the Vietnam program, and I was very excited. I called references of EAC, and I got more excited with every new mom that I talked to. Then I hired a social worker to do my home study. Then somewhere along the way Guatemala got into my heart, and mind and I never shook the idea. Shortly after starting my paperwork, I switched over to the Guatemalan program. Being a single person, the short distance from the U.S., and the short in country stay really appealed to me, and cemented my resolve to switch countries. After switching I had a good feeling. I was excited, more than excited. I buckled down, and dug right into the mountains of paperwork.

There was one other huge issue looming in my way to motherhood. As if being single wasn't enough of an obstacle. Then as with all adoption there was the paperwork, the seemingly unending paperwork, and the legal obstacles, and the actual miles in distance, and time before I would hold my baby, as if that wasn't enough there was still another issue. An issue you should not have to think about or consider when traveling towards the unconditional love of being a mother, and that one issue was money. Unfortunately, in adoption, money becomes an enormous issue. It makes me sad when I think of all the children in the world that need good homes, and that money may sometimes be the only thing that stands in between those children and a better future.

Where was I going to get all of the money for a foreign adoption? Many foreign adoptions cost $30,000.00, or more now. And that is the case with Guatemala as well. A Guatemalan adoption can cost in excess of thirty thousand dollars. Children are priceless, gifts from God, it is very true, and they are. And in the eyes of love, which is what I was looking through, no amount of money should keep a person from their children. However in the eyes of reality, I am a teacher, and make only a little more than that in an entire year of teaching. Anyone can see the dilemma. But I was determined. I was way beyond determined.

My resolve to adopt was cemented in my heart, and nothing, not even thirty thousand dollars was going to stand in between my daughter and I. "Where there is a will, there is a way".

I began researching adoption funding on the internet. There are seemingly a lot of solutions out there. However, upon closer look, when it comes right down to it, many of the supposed solutions never panned out. It was, however, at first very encouraging as I looked through the pages and pages of organizations that supposedly helped with adoption costs. I began mailing out letters, and applications immediately. I mailed out around seventy or so all together. Right away I began to receive denial after denial. And, when I went to the mailbox, and there was not a denial letter, there was one of my own envelopes returned to me unopened marked, "Return to sender, recipient unknown." Apparently, many of these adoption funding agencies were "here today, gone tomorrow." That's the picture I kept getting anyway. Not receiving any grant money, I turned my attentions towards fundraising.

My friends and family gave me gifts of money, whatever they could. One of my brothers gave me a little over a thousand, so did one of my sisters. One friend gave me a couple thousand. Several relatives, and close friends gave me a hundred dollars or so. It was very generous of all of them, and I was thankful, but it still was not enough. I had an art auction and benefit concert night. My band cancelled at the last minute, because they broke up over creative differences. I had to have a D.J, but it was still an art auction of pieces that had been donated. I made a thousand dollars. Again I was thankful, but it was not enough.

I looked into selling Tupperware, and several other sales fundraisers for adoptions. However, I began to realize that the only people I really had to sell things to would be the same people that came to my art auction. I didn't want to ask for help in the first place, but I certainly did not want to ask the same people to buy stuff from me over, and over, and over again. I decided to try and make a website, to see if I could get any donations that way. I mean it is the World Wide Web. I realized very quickly that that was a stupid idea, and took it down. I'm still sort of embarrassed about the idea, but I was desperate for the money to adopt my daughter. At this time, I was so desperate for money for the adoption that I thought of little else. It consumed me. How was I going to get this money? Where was I going to get this money? I became obsessed with thoughts of finding thousands of dollars for my adoption. It was a huge worry, and I thought of nothing else for months. Finally, I started researching and applying for loans. However, I don't own a home; so unfortunately, I could not get a home equity loan.

That's when I found A Child Waits Foundation on the Internet. Of course, I wasn't sure If they were still in operation (as many of the grant agencies I wrote to were no longer in operation), or if they would even accept my application. Thank goodness for the fact that they were still in operation and that they considered my application. After getting a co-signer, and a second co-signer, I was approved for an adoption loan.

A gigantic weight was lifted off of my shoulders. There are no words to express how I felt the day that I found out that I was approved for an adoption loan. My heart was filled with joy, and relief. I had the money I needed to complete my adoption. It was another huge step closer to holding my precious daughter in my arms. As much as I was consumed with worry before the loan, afterwards I was consumed with the joy of knowing I now I had the money.

There are no words to express my gratitude. Without A Child Waits Foundation I would not have my daughter today, and I cannot imagine life without her. She is my every joy. Emily is a precious darling child. She was meant to be my daughter. There are so many joys in my everyday because of her. Like I have said above, there are no words to express my feelings, and my gratitude. Thank you letters and notes are not enough. A Child Waits Foundation is a wonderful organization. I am going to repay them as quickly as I can so that they can help make other future mother's dreams come true, just as they did for me.
In the future, I dream about adopting again, so that Emily will have a sibling. Hopefully, A Child Waits will still be around. It is a fabulous organization that makes dreams come true for parents and children everyday. A Child Waits Foundation ROCKS!!!!!

Sincerely,
Jennifer Joan Hart

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