Thanks for tuning into our path to adoption! Many of you have wanted to encourage and support us in this journey. If you're open to assisting us financially, we've been awarded a $3,000 matching grant from the Lifesong for Orphans Adoption Fund. Your tax-deductible donation will help towards our goal of $16,000 which is our final stage of fees due when we are selected by a birth mother and can bring home our baby.
To help you understand where we started and how we arrived at this point today... Ever since we were married, we have longed to raise kids who will enjoy our love of exploration and with whom we could cultivate lively imagination, a reverence of our maker, the world and a love of the world’s people. After years of infertility treatments, we had a successful in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) leading to our biological son, Ethan. He is now six and a half years old, loves creative arts, splashing in our Great Lakes on backpacking adventures and is in a Spanish Immersion elementary school on track for a Spanish student exchange in 4 years — we delight constantly in being his parents and shaping his experience of the world. And simultaneously, we have so much more love to share with another baby. When we learned that IVF would no longer work, we shed tears but the invitation to more children persisted.
That’s when we found adoption—or perhaps it found us. When that door opened in our hearts, the pieces fell into place, one after another… We found ourselves surrounded by people with perfectly-aimed encouragement. Now it’s not just us who are excitedly awaiting the next chapter of our family’s story, but absolutely our son too. He longs to share adventures, toys, the color-wheel teaching sheets he’s written up, his room and his life with our new baby. Who could’ve known that these setbacks would actually yield a process through which our joy and anticipation would grow and multiply? We three can’t wait to grow our family!
P.S. If you're curious, our adoption is through Bethany Christian Services' domestic infant program (read more at Bethany.org).
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 “Paladino 08655”, to ensure it is credited to our account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, 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.