Blog

Matthew and his husband adopted their son, Victor, with support from adoption benefits provided by Matthew’s employer, Northwell Health. In this guest blog, Matthew shared his story.

After trying to grow our family for more than a year, we were fortunate enough to adopt our newborn son, Victor. The process was emotionally and financially challenging, but Northwell’s adoption assistance program helped with expenses related to the adoption process. Thank you, Northwell, for this valuable benefit.

My husband and I chose to grow our family through private adoption, which was a learning experience in itself. It was extremely emotional to connect directly with so many mothers and families in need, and it broke our hearts every day.

We were looking to connect with a family for more than a year and had nearly reached our limit — both emotionally and financially. That’s when our son’s birth mom reached out about one month before her due date. We flew out of state to meet with her and make sure we were a good fit. The next few weeks were harrowing between juggling lawyers, bills, expenses and out of state laws, but it all worked out. 

The whole experience was eye opening. We were fortunate to have this benefit as it helped offset some serious financial costs. If it wasn’t for this, I don’t think we would have had our son. 

Our little guy is 18 months old now and running around everywhere! He is living his best life and trying to explore every inch of the world.

Thank you, Matthew for sharing your story with us.

And thank you, Northwell Health for being an Adoption-Friendly Workplace. Your commitment helps make stories like Matthew’s possible.

Does your organization offer adoption and foster care benefits? Download the Foundation’s free Adoption-Friendly Workplace toolkit to get the conversation started. For organizations already offering these benefits, register to participate in our annual survey.