Have not heard from me in a while

My Congressman has not heard from me in a while so I thought I'd send a note:


Dear Congressman,

I am writing again as a result of the poor and unpredictable funding for adoption in our country.  My cousin was recently adopted in England at no expense to her family.  Her parents got the same maternity/paternity leaves as any other parent in England.  They were able to spend time at home bonding with their baby and not worrying about finances.

As I have written before my husband and I are awaiting the placement of our child with us.  We are adopting domestically and hopefully from within the state of (my state).  We work hard but are not wealthy.  We will spend almost a third of our pretax income on the adoption once it finalizes.

Had our child been placed with us this year and the adoption finalized prior to December 31, 2011 we would have received a tax refund of $13,360 for tax year 2011.  Unfortunately for us and our family we continue to have an empty nursery and the finances for growing our family are in question.  We now maybe able to count on $12,170 credit IF we have  a placement and finalize in 2012.

To add to the financial burden I do not qualify for a paid maternity leave as my coworkers that birth their children do.

The adoption of our child will benefit our child, us, our child's birthparents as well as the (my state) tax payers.

I look forward to hearing what you are doing to secure consistent funding for (my state) Adoptive families.  I also would like to hear how we maybe able to address the inequalities in benefits employers are allowed to provide for families that birth vs. adopt their children.

Sincerely,
Me