The Cost of Adoption

Sometimes the most beautiful things come from scary beginnings...Last night there were severe storms in our area.  I looked out the window and the sky was an odd and almost frightening shade of orange.  The sky reminded me of a night years ago when I lived in another town and we were hit with tornadoes.  So, to me, the sky was scary, yet beautiful at the same time.  I walked to the other side of our house and there was a rainbow.  Adoption is the same way.  We know we have SO MUCH love in our hearts for adoption.  As stated before in an earlier post, the cost of adoption scares us.  We know we will have the most beautiful ending to our story, but the journey will be hard and scary.  It will be more than worth it, though.  As these thoughts were going through my head last night, we experienced our first negative comment on our adoption Facebook page, telling us to stop begging and to get jobs.  Obviously this person does not know the first thing about us.  A new way to think about the cost of adoption is like this...adoption cost is similar to the cost of having a baby on our own (if I could carry one to term), but without any insurance, and of course, no assistance from the government.  How many people could truly afford to have a baby if not a single penny of the prenatal care, delivery, hospital stay, etc. were covered by insurance?  I would say, not many could afford it.  That is how adoption is.  So, while the adoption itself is expensive, we are still fully able to afford to care for that baby when the baby comes home with us.  We have stable jobs.  We have insurance.  We have a FABULOUS support system of family and friends all around us.  And, we have God and our faith on our side.  So, while it may be scary, our journey will have a beautiful ending, just like last night's storm.

The Cost of Adoption

As I have talked to people about the adoption process, I have found out the most people I talk to don’t have any idea how expensive adoption really is.  When I say that it is expensive, people generally assume that means around the $10, 000.00 range…I WISH!  Once I tell them that our estimated adoption expenses are between $35-55,000.00 they are generally in disbelief and ask me why adoption is so expensive.  (Yes, fostering in hopes of adopting is a lot cheaper, but we have VERY valid reasons why we are not going that route and I will blog about that in the very near future.)  I will try to break down the expenses for you, to the best of my ability at the current time.

$300 – Application fee to be “pre-evaluated” for a home study

$2250-2500 – Home Study fees and preparation

$250 – Fingerprinting and background checks for all three of us for our home study

$3000 – Consultant fee; we plan to go with a consultant that networks with adoption lawyers, adoption agencies, and social services agencies all over the country.  The consultants help share our profile to birth parents that are preparing to place their child with adoptive parents.

$8000-10,000 – lawyer fees, both in our home state and in the state of our birthmother

$2000-4000 – travel fees; The consultant we will work with can match us with a mother in any of the “safe states” and if we are matched outside of our home state we will be expected to stay in that state for up to 15 days, waiting for court approval to transfer that infant from that state, back to ours.

$25,000-45,000 – Match with birthmother and remaining fees; this is where the biggest unknown falls as far as costs.  Depending on the birthmother and where she “is” (adoption agency, state social services, etc.) there will be various fees.  These fees cover the agency expenses and whatever the state allows for the birthmother.  The fees will cover all services provided by the agency during the adoption process.  These services may include obtaining medical records, transporting to and from prenatal appointments, living expenses during the pregnancy, acting as a liaison between the birthmother, our consultant, and ourselves.  Another IMPORTANT thing that these expenses cover is counseling.  We strongly feel that we only want to partner with a birthmother that is sure that adoption is the best choice for her baby.  We know God will provide us with the baby the He meant for us to have, but we also want our birthmother to feel that it is the right choice.  We would like this mother to be as comfortable as possible with the adoption process and the very tough choices she must make.  We want to be sure that she has support not only during the pregnancy, but afterwards as well.

What are we doing to help fund the adoption?

First, for those who do not know us, we are BOTH employed (see personal biographies).  Alicia has picked up and extra position within her school district and will be teaching summer school, specifically to set money aside for the adoption.  Steve has also been applying for positions within the school district with higher pay in hopes to further fund our adoption.  We have also begun to sell things around our house that we don’t need or no longer use.  All of this money goes straight into the adoption saving account.  Alicia is also in direct sales with Initials, Inc..  All of the commission that Alicia earns is put into the adoption savings account. 

As far as fundraising, first we have set up a GoFundMe webpage for people to make donations as they are comfortable.  Next, we held a garage sale during our local city-wide garage sale day.  We made over $300 with that event.  We were very lucky; as we had several friends donate items for the garage sale.  We do plan to have another sale in the near future.  Currently we have a painting night fundraiser in the works.  People are registering for the next week or so and the event will be held in mid-July.  I have found that people REALLY like getting something for their money/donation so we are looking into more fundraisers along those lines.  So, as you can see, while we are accepting donations and doing fundraisers, we are also sacrificing any time and items we have to build up our adoption savings fund without any more help than necessary.  If you have any other ideas for us, we will always welcome helpful suggestions.

The painting we will be doing for the Artsy Bug fundraiser on July 14th.