Save the Adoption Tax Credit

As an advocate for adoption, this is a topic that's very dear to my heart. Adoptive parents love their children unconditionally, just like our biological families do. Families adopt, because they love children and want to open their home to them. Women (and men) who place their child for adoption are most of the time in a difficult situation in their life. They give their child the gift of life, but recognize that they will not be the best parent for their child.
In 2009 almost 2700 children were waiting to be adopted through the foster care system in Arizona alone. Yet, adopting an infant or an older child from foster care is never an easy thing.
Infant adoption is connected with fairly high costs for adoption agencies. Fees are generally between $15,000 to $35,000  and cover a number of things like, medical, living and counseling  expenses for expectant mothers who are prospective birth mothers,court and other legal fees, and more.
While adoption from foster care is not connected with high fees from agencies, most foster children have some special need that will bring financial challenges to their forever adoptive family. At the same time each child in foster care costs the government about $47,000 per year. (I know, I was also shocked when I saw this number!) So even if you are not an adoption advocate or worry about the expense this tax credit is for our government, you can see it is a much smaller expense than caring for children in foster care. And while we have wonderful foster care families out there, it is much better for a child to be able to grow up as a permanent member in a family.
For this reason I ask for your help to advocate of the extension of the Adoption Tax Credit. At this point it is set to expire at the end of 2012. To my family this will mean that while we will be able to adopt once, a 2nd adoption might financially not be possible. I am sure that Michael and I are not the only couple that would love to adopt (more than once), but cannot financially afford it.

The goal is to have an adoption tax credit that is:

• Inclusive: Children, whether adopted from foster care, through intercountry adoption, or through private domestic adoption should be able to benefit from the adoption tax credit. 
• Permanent: The adoption tax credit should become a permanent part of the tax code to ensure continued support to those who bring children into families through adoption. 
• Refundable: The adoption tax credit should be refundable to ensure that families with moderate and lower incomes receive the full benefit of the credit. 
• Flat for Special Needs: All families who adopt a child with special needs should be eligible for a "flat" tax credit, meaning they can claim the maximum credit without documenting expenses. This distinction, which is already in current law, recognizes the fact that many of the expenses associated with adopting children with special needs show up after an adoption is finalized. 

Here is what you can do to help
Please visit http://adoptiontaxcredit.org/advocate/ to get more information.
Contact your representative and senator today! Here is the link to a sample letter you can use when contacting them: http://adoptiontaxcreditdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/atc-wg-kit.pdf
You can find the information of how to contact your legislators on the follwing websites:
www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
www.house.gov/representatives

Thank you for considering to help this important cause!!!!

Summer just began

This has officially been my 3rd day of summer vacation. truthfully I've had a hard year at school. I love teaching, but all of you teachers out there know that some year's are rougher than others. God certainly challenged me this year, but I made it through - with A LOT OF prayer. Even my students knew, that sometimes Mrs. Bartlett needs a time out. To be honest, this triggered some interesting conversations between my students. One of my favorite ones went something like this:
"Mrs. Bartlett, when you need a time out, what do you do?" "Well, I take a minute and say a prayer." "What does that mean?" Another student chimes in, "That means she talks to God." The first student turns to me and says full of surprise, "You can talk to God?!" Before I can say anything the second student wisely tells the first, "Anyone can, even you. Didn't you know that?" Which the first student accepted with a big smile on her face. I love my first graders!

You all are probably wondering why I am writing about this on our adoption blog. Well, because although the year was hard, and many days I couldn't wait for it to end, it kept me very busy. Which in this time of waiting, was a very good thing. I've only been off for three days and I have no idea how I'll make it through the summer. Being at home by myself with the dogs really reminds me that what I want most in the world is to be a mother!

Today I talked to our adoption counselor. She said that our matchletter is being passed around. She knows the waiting is hard. Her recommendation was to go on vacation. Her exact words were "Please don't not go on vacation because you might get a call. Go on vacation, enjoy your summer and relax." Well all that is much easier said than done!

I guess all I can do is to finish up the nursery, finalize reorganizing the house a little, and read the adoption and baby books that are waiting for me.

Michael and I really appreciate your prayers for us. Our prayer requests are on the right side of our posts. I guess what we need most of all at this point is PATIENCE! Thanks for thinking about and praying for us!