OUR STORY

MORE ABOUT ME…

Jenna Tumberger - author and designer of Open Adoption Baby Book 'My Lifebook: An Adoption Story'
Jenna Tumberger - author and designer of Open Adoption Baby Book 'My Lifebook: An Adoption Story'

Jenna created My Lifebook: An Adoption Story (available to purchase in our Gift Shop!) for others in February 2022 as a fundraiser to help with funding her own family's adoption.

Jenna received an overwhelming amount of support and love while creating Lifebooks for others within the Adoption Community. Months later, many of her customers had turned into friends, with the emotional rollercoaster of Adoption Journey stories being shared. There was one topic that always seemed to be a high stressor: funding.

LIFEBOOKS OPENED DOORS

Creating Lifebooks for others also opened doors to many Adoption professional contacts & resources. Jenna’s adoption network had grown in ways that she could have never imagined!

WE MATCHED!

Then at the end of August 2022, it happened – we matched! Two days later, we took placement of our 5yo son Christopher!!

The excitement and well wishes about Chris's arrival from the Adoption Community flooded into our DMs, texts & inboxes.

With our journey to Chris now coming to an end, it was an easy decision to turn Bound With Love into a 501(c)(3). With the success of the Lifebooks, new friends made and our Adoption network ever expanding, we knew we had the ability to help others! 

WHY WE ARE HERE

HEAR JUST A FEW OF OUR SUPPORTER STORIES

  • - The “K” Family, Colorado

    Bottom line is we are in the middle class but in the adoption world would be considered “wealthy”. We did not qualify for a lot of grants. Our failed match with an expectant mother was devastating on our hearts but then you add in the financial loss, it becomes too much to bare.

  • The “D” Family, Texas

    We didn’t receive any grants because of our income level. We matched with an expectant mother within two days of being active, so we had to take out a loan because we had zero time to fundraise! We had to buy the next day flights, book a last-minute hotel room & then ended up in an Airbnb for two weeks. It was pricey.

  • The "T" Family (1 of 3)

    We are very smart with our money, but we have only one income (one retirement), and a family of 5. If we had known that we would have to pay that much, all out of pocket, I’m not sure we would have seen adoption as an option. Until now, there just hadn’t been any help for families in our tax bracket.When we started the adoption journey, we were made to believe that we would be looking at around $35,000 in costs. We were told about the many grants and successful fundraising ideas, we felt confident moving forward.

  • The "T" Family (2 of 3)

    After signing on with a consultant we were made aware that to see more cases we would need to raise our budget to $45,000. And not long after, the majority of cases we were seeing were between $50,000 and $70,000. We tried fundraising and put a lot of work in, but just didn’t have a good turnout. We looked for grants, but we only qualified for a few due to income cut-offs. The few that we did apply to we were not awarded any grant money due to “others who were more in need financially”. This was a tough pill to swallow, but we moved forward, and prepared to empty our savings, cash in money from retirement, and take out loans if necessary.

  • The "T" Family (3 of 3)

    After experiencing financial loss from a disruption (failed adoption) - and still being denied grants we applied to again to try to recover some of our loss, having to renew our home study, and an extended stay out of stay for ICPC for our successful adoption, we took a huge hit out of pocket.

  • The “N” Family, Delaware (1 of 4)

    Our adoption journey from start to finish was over four years and totaled over $100,000 with a disruption and delayed finalization.

    By the time we matched with our son’s birth mother, we did not qualify for many grants. We had to pay for finger prints, home study updates, annual agency fees and more annually. We had paid over $40,000 by the time we matched and we had a pending $55,000 bill due within two months after matching.

  • The "N" Family, Delaware (2 of 3)

    We did not know how we would make it happen since many grants don’t pay out until after placement and despite the timeframe we would not qualify for many grants.

    In addition, our finalization was delayed, which also added to our agency fees.

  • The "N" Family, Delaware (3 of 3)

    Adoption is the most amazing thing we have ever done; the emotional journey is overwhelming but the financial piece with limited grants to apply for weighed heavily as well since so many had lower income restrictions.

  • The "N" Family, Delaware (4 of 4)

    Adoption is the most amazing thing we have ever done; the emotional journey is overwhelming but the financial piece with limited grants to apply for weighed heavily as well since so many had lower income restrictions.

    We would walk our same path again and again as it led us to our son and now knowing we would qualify for a Bound with Love Foundation grant would help lighten all that Hopeful Adoptive Parents carry throughout their journey.