Help us help our special kids!
(Please scroll down to read the story of Kai Dong and Ming Qiao)
Another good reason to buy our artisan jewelry ; your purchase from Artsfish Studio helps our special kids! Adoption expenses are for the wealthy, which unfortunately most artists (like us) are not! Out kids had a rough start in life so we created an online shop at www.artsfish.com to help us give our kids a chance at a brighter future.
Our 2 adoptions have incurred expenses near $30,000. Many families have fund raisers or bake sales. We sell our handcrafted artisan jewelry!
Some ways you can help our kids;
1) Shop the The Artsfish Studio Artisan Jewelry Shop
(Please click to visit);
Heirloom quality eclectic gemstone jewelry handcrafted from precious metals and unique materials such as Balinese, Hilltribe, African, Ancient Roman & Tibetan beads.
2) Click on the links of books or music recommended on this site, a portion of your purchase through amazon.com will go to Artsfish. For our list click HERE
3) Contribute any amount you can spare using the “Donate” button in the sidebar to the right. All transactions are securely handled by Paypal. No Paypal account is required, and you may use your credit or debit card. Your donation will go into the Artsfish Kids Fund to pay back adoption expenses.
4) Share this information with friends
We would like to give a special thanks to our adoption agency WACAP, who has generously granted us a 0% interest loan for a portion of the expenses for each adoption. The remainder of the expenses were financed with traditional loans.
Kai Dong’s story;
In 2007 we adopted Kai Dong from China. We specifically asked for a child that was difficult to place, what the adoption agencies call a “waiting child”.
What is a waiting child? Basically, a child that has been available for adoption, but because of age or special needs has gone unwanted. Most adoptive couples request an infant, which leaves older and special needs kids waiting for someone to come along and notice them. Sadly and too often, no one ever comes along.
Infant girls are in high demand and next in line are infant boys. Once a child reaches the toddler stage, they have a significantly lower chance of finding a loving home, and the longer a child lingers without finding parents the less chance they have of ever having a family. In addition, a child that has any type of imperfection or special need has an even lower chance of being adopted.
Kai had been found abandoned at a police station in a small city in China as an infant, likely because of his twisted and slightly deformed right foot, a congenital condition called “clubfoot”. Kai was placed in a children’s welfare center and made available for adoption within China, but no one was interested in this bright and beautiful boy. Eventually he was placed in foster care and his case was forwarded to the WACAP adoption agency in Seattle, an agency well known for placing waiting children.
We received a referral for Kai in January of 2006. We had hoped for a child that had a financial grant attached, as many of WACAP’s waiting children do, but he had none. As we are not a family of wealth this put us in a bad position, but we knew that we had to bring him home. Thankfully we have our own home and excellent credit, so we took a second mortgage well as a special loan from WACAP in order to cover the adoption expenses.
While we were waiting for the approval to come from the Chinese Government, we received an update on Kai, and found out that he had received an operation on his foot at the end of 2005, and now he was walking and in a cast. By the time we flew to China to pick him up in July of 2006, he was a very happy boy, excited to run as fast as he could between his new Mama and Papa!
When we returned to the US we took him to see Dr Sponseller, the head of the Pediatric Orthopedic Department at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He is currently undergoing further treatment and evaluation to ensure that he stays happy and running.
Ming Qiao
Because we have no other children and feel that siblings are important, we are in the process of adopting our second special child. Her name is Ming Qiao and hopefully she will come home with us sometime around March. She has much the same story as Kai; abandoned shortly after birth because of a clubfoot. Her big brother Kai Dong will be introducing her to Dr Sponseller! She will be around 18 months old when she joins our family.
| As soon as we bring Ming home we will post a picture of her here! Due to confidentiality agreements with the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) we are unable to post any photos until the adoption is finalized |
The second adoption brings our out of pocket adoption expenses to around $30,000. Ouch. Unfortunately, grants assisting couples in adopting special needs kids are virtually nonexistent, so we are using all our talents to generate the funds to pay back our expenses.
But what about that $10,000 adoption tax credit offered by the IRS?
Beware, prospective adoptive parents!! We were excited about this too! Unfortunately a tax credit only works if you make enough money to pay enough taxes to claim it! After claiming all of our 2006 deductions for our mortgage(s), etc., we were able to claim a grand total of $333 credit of the $10,000 we are eligible for. (Keep this in mind also when you listen to certain politicians suggesting tax credits to pay for health insurance!)
Thanks for your interest and support!
Cherie Claus and Kai Dong Siebert
