If you know the person whose baby you want to adopt is it still expensive?

Question

I know that adoption can be very expensive (like $25,000). But if you know the person whose baby you would be adopting, how does that work? Would it still be as expensive and how would that process work?

Answer 1

The only occasion that I know of where the costs are less are when you are adopting the child of a relative.   I know someone who recently went through this and the cost was roughly $10,000.  The only reason why it was even that high was that they hired an investigator to find the father.  They have had the baby since he was released from the hospital.

Answer 2

No. We adopted privately within the past year & the cost was only for the attorney for us & child & the cost of filing the papers, contacting potential fathers, etc. Our adoption cost was $5500 which included everything (attorney, home study, etc.). We contacted an attorney that handles adoption & they provided a list of independent social workers to do the home study. We began the home study process in January, baby was born in March & brought to our home after mother signed & finalized in October. I have heard some states require you to go thru an agency even with an independent identified adoption but we did not have to.

Answer 3

We did this.  We originally started with trying to do a private adoption, but then the state stepped in and threatened to take the child into foster care.  We then had to involve an agency to do an "identified" adoption.  For us, it was more money than doing a private adoption, but we all felt it was in the best interest of our child (bio family included).  

Private adoptions can be just as costly in some cases because there are many things that are still required to adopt - such as a home study, background checks, etc.  For us, our adoption ran about $12,000 and it was spread over almost 2 yrs.  A majority of the money was for the adoption prior to placement, but then there were also fees after placement for the post-placement visits.  I mention this because many people think the money is all due at once, and it isn't necessarily he case.

Good luck to you.

Answer 4

Private adoption is very complicated and equally costly.

Your not guaranteed a "fast track" cheap adoption if that is what you are looking for!  (There are none and there should be none.) You must fulfill the same requirements for home studies, evaluations, background checks and clearances. And remember BOTH natural parents must agree to the adoption. An uncontested adoptions can drag out for years in court. You need to sit down and really talk this out with mom and dad. And I urge you to suggest mom go through unbiased counseling. She needs to be sure that this is the right decision for her. And mom needs to have her own attorney to represent her so she understand exactly what is going to happen.