Kogan Family Adoption

As many of you know Kel and I have been blessed enough to grow our family through the amazing journey of adoption. Admittedly, I was ignorant to the process of domestic adoption and had a vision of what the experience would be like, all of which would be corrected pretty quickly as we started the process. One of the many challenges facing families for even beginning the process is the financial hurdle. Domestic adoption can range between $40k to $70k depending on a handful of variables. During Covid, the adoption industry has been impacted and overall costs have risen to the higher end of the range.

Kel and I became active with several adoption agencies in December of last year and based on everything we had heard from people already in the process, we were planning on waiting anywhere from 12+ months and beyond before being matched. We were so new to the process, we hadn't even publicly shared our plans to adopt with our family and friends yet. During a phone call with one of our agencies, Kel mentioned that we were modifying our preferences to highlight our openness to children with special needs. The woman at the agency said she was particularly interested in hearing this because there had been a baby boy born the day before who had had a traumatic birth, was facing some medical challenges due to substance exposure, and the family that was previously matched had decided to walk away from the adoption plan. This baby, born on the same day as our Grady, had nobody. We discussed as a family and decided that this child was meant for us and we were meant for him. 24 hours later, we were on the road to Utah. We went from expecting to be waiting for a year to be matched, to being matched with a child in under 6 weeks.

After a whirlwind experience full of various VRBOs, thousands of miles of travel, hospital visits, adoption agency challenges, we finally returned home as a family.

Our world became a little more complicated when we returned home and began applying for adoption grants. There are many resources for families to soften the financial blow that adopting families feel through the process. What we quickly began to find out was, you have to be approved for a grant after applying to an agency and prior to the child being placed with you, and because our experience was such a unique and fast process, we now no longer qualify for grants. Applying for grants was always part of our plan, but now it seems as if that option no longer exists for us.

Adoption was a choice that Kel and I made because we wanted to make a positive impact on this world by helping a woman and child who needed help. We wanted to keep a child out of foster care. We wanted to give a mother some sense of security and hope that the child she could not raise would be accepted into a loving home. We were prepared for many parts of this process, we were prepared for a unique situation to be presented to us, but it is difficult to not feel like we are being punished for being so open.

We are asking for help from our friends and family who have the means to help. So many people are feeling the pressure of inflation and we would never want the people we care about to overextend themselves. Please consider donating only if you have the means to. Your donation will help offset some of the overwhelming debt that we've taken on in order to bring Luca into our home.

Thank you so much for the prayers and thoughts. We love you all.