Hello family and friends! Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support. As a way of further welcoming you into our adoption journey, we’d like to share our story with you:
Our journey towards adoption started while we were dating and engaged. We both desired a large family – half jokingly, half seriously telling our friends and family we wanted to raise twelve children. With the uncertainties of Bernadette’s life-saving surgery looming in the back of our minds, coupled with our desire to raise a large family, we discussed how we were both open to adoption and agreed to wait and see what God had in store.
After not conceiving during our first year of marriage, we began to look into infertility procedures and in the summer of 2020, realized after Bernadette underwent laparoscopic surgery that she has a blocked fallopian tube and severe scar tissue that’s been preventing us from conceiving. The scar tissue dates back to the life-saving surgery Bernadette had when she was three-and-a-half years old that removed a germ-cell cancer tumor (germ-cell meaning they suspect she was born with the tumor). After a successful operation on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, and to the astonishment of all her doctors and surgeons, Bernadette made what they could only call a miraculous recovery and was declared cancer-free one month after the surgery. She’s been in remission ever since – praise the Lord. We are so grateful that she doesn’t have any complications, apart from our inability to conceive thus far.
Our wonderful GYN who performed the laparoscopic surgery very gently and lovingly told us that, given the extent of Bernadette’s scar tissue and state of her fallopian tubes, it would take a miracle for us to conceive. It was then that we began exploring adoption more. We’re blessed to have very close friends who recently went through the domestic adoption process, as well as extended family who have adopted internationally – one from Ethiopia, and one from China. It was their witness that won over our initial fears of not being able to provide the love that biological parents innately give. All three families exude this immense joy for their adopted child, as well as a love that truly knows no bounds.
When thinking of the kind of child we’d love to welcome to our family, it really comes down to whoever God wants! We look forward to beginning this exciting journey and cannot wait to see what God has in store.
Thank you again for walking with us on this adoption journey. We are so grateful for each and every one of you, for your prayers, and whatever means of support you’re able to provide (please see our spiritual bouquet and financial options below).
Sending our love and prayers to you all!
MIke & Bernadette
P.S. We thought it would be fun for you all to be able to look through the profile book that we created for our agency to showcase to birth moms who are prayerfully considering us as the adoptive parents of their child: https://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/interests/bernadette-mike-33970029?vk=Ep7WcCUlEEF1QJwkkZhU
Ways You Can Support
Spiritual Bouquet
Your prayers and spiritual support would mean so much to us as we prepare to welcome a little one. We ask that you especially keep us, the birth mom, and our future adopted child in prayer. If you’d like to offer a spiritual bouquet for us with a note from you and your specific intentions, please feel free to email us at bernadettebobrowski@gmail.com. We look forward to saving these bouquets and displaying them in our child’s nursery – one day getting to explain them to our little one and showing him/her how loved he/she is.
Financial Support
As you may be aware, adoption is a very expensive undertaking with numberous expenses throughout the whole process. The largest expense is the placement fee, which we’re hoping to raise with this campaign.
We’ve also been blessed to receive a matching grant of $8k from Lifesong For Orphans, which means your donation will have 2x the impact. (i.e. We receive $2 for every $1 you contribute until we raise $16k)
If you feel called to financially support our adoption, here are a few ways to do so:
– Donate online via this fundraising page. (note: a 2.2% + $.30 processing fees will be subtracted from the amount we receive online)
– Mail a check (no processing fees taken out). Checks should be made payable to “Lifesong for Orphans”, and must include Bobrowski #09916 on the memo line. Please mail to: PO Box 9, Gridley, IL 61744. Once Lifesong receives the check, it will be manually added and reflected on our fundraising total.
– Buy coffee through our Gobena fundraising page. Gobena Gourmet Coffee is roasted fresh to order and is gourmet/supreme grade, which some claim tastes just as good as Starbucks. (Also because of the same matching grant we received, 100% of the funds from your coffee purchases will go directly toward our adoption until we raise $16k, at which point we receive 50% of the funds from coffee purchases thereafter.)
Thank you all again so much for your love, prayers, and support!
STRIPE charges an online processing fee (2.2% +.30 USD per transaction)*. Your donations will be decreased by this amount. You may also send a check payable to “Lifesong for Orphans”. In the memo line please write “Bobrowski 09916”, to ensure it is credited to our account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 9, Gridley, IL 61744.
Lifesong has been blessed with partners who underwrite all U.S. administrative and fundraising costs (TMG Foundation and other partners). That means 100% of your donation will go directly to the adoption.
- In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to Lifesong for Orphans. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.
- Lifesong is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization. Individual donations of $50 or more and yearly donations totaling $250 or more will receive a tax-deductible receipt. Receipts for donations under $50 will gladly be sent upon request.
- *3.5% fee for donations given with an American Express card