11. Consider working with a smaller agency. In two of our three adoptions, we have been able to negotiate a monthly payment plan that allowed us to avoid huge upfront fees and pay over time. In both of these situations, we took the initiative and asked and were pleasantly surprised that we would be accommodated. I’m assuming this is less likely to happen with larger agencies, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask!

12. Borrow from yourself. Dip into your savings, your 401K, or get a home equity loan. Check with your tax advisor so you understand what the penalties will be if you’re borrowing from retirement funds. See commentary for #13 below.

13. Get an unsecured loan, line of credit, or adoption loan as a last resort (see resource links in last section of this post). I position this option last on the list for a reason, but I also list it at all as an option for a reason. I’ll wax eloquent about loans below.

Every six months during General Conference, we listen to our Church leaders counsel us on the perils of unnecessary debt and plead with us to reduce and eliminate debt, to the extent possible. The average household debt load – particularly credit card debt – has skyrocketed over the last decade. Bankruptcies are at an all-time high for Church members, and sociologists and psychologists attribute increased divorce rates to turbulent financial times, among other things. Whether or not to get a loan is a very personal decision, one that should be made prayerfully and not taken lightly, but I do believe that couples falling short of their financial goals shouldn’t necessarily be discouraged from considering loans. In our case, there was simply no other way we could have afforded our first adoption without a loan. We did many of the things listed above and still found ourselves stuck, so we took out a line of credit that would allow us to withdraw funds as needed, thus paying interest only on the amount we were using. We paid off the loan following the adoption and have not had to borrow money for any of our subsequent adoptions.


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