What did your adoption cost and how long were you actively looking?

Question

I am just trying to compare costs for adoptions. Ours cost:

~$7,000 to each lawyer for fees

~$2,800 for advertising

~$5,000 for birth mom's expenses

~$500 for nanny fees

~$1,600 for miscellaneous office expenses

~$2,000 travel to pick up the child (including hotel stay and food)

We were only actively looking for about two months. Is this typical? Just wondering.

Answer 1

I'm a little confused by your numbers; $7,000 for each lawyer, does that mean a total of $14,000 for the lawyers? So altogether are you saying it cost you about $26,000? Is this for a private adoption done in the US? Is this recently? I paid $30,000 to an agency in the US nearly 12 years ago. I have no real idea how much that agency or other agencies are charging now but, I'm assuming it's gone up significantly. I also don't know how you're defining "actively looking." From the first phone call I made to the agency until I held my son in my arms it was 16 months. But by the way the agency defines their timing, it was only 7 months because that's when my name and info was made available to potential birthmothers -- the other months were spent doing things like home study, paper work, etc on our part.

Also, I don't know if most agencies work this way or not (or if you did or did not use any agency) but the way the agency we used worked was that the money we spent would have been the full amount even if our birthmother had changed her mind at the birth. We would have been offered another baby without any additional fees. If you did not use an agency, and this was your expense -- you were very fortunate because I'm assuming you would have had to pay virtually double (or more) if the birthmother had changed her mind at the birth. That was one of the major advantages to using the agency.

Answer 2

I think that you should leave the money aspect out of this. I know you are curious, but, does it really matter? Adoption cost should be personal, your child is worth so much more than a monetary amount, the question should be rephrased and focused on the time aspect only.

Answer 3

We adopted internationally from South America.  We adopted a sibling group of two sisters.  Our costs from start to finish (including travel, lodging and all the other miscellaneous stuff) were about $22,000.  We paid for dh & I to travel and stay as well as our two biological sons and my father in law.  We were in the country for about three weeks & stayed in a good sized three bedroom apartment (so we incurred more expense because we had more people there and their travel expenses).

There is a federal tax credit for adoptive parents.  Go to http://www.irs.gov and search for "adoption tax credit" to find out more info.  Some states have tax credits, too.  Then there's the fact that some employers have adoption benefits. :-)

Adoption isn't an inexpensive (unless you adopt from foster care, which we'll probably do next time), and it's certainly not easy...but it's WONDERFUL!

Oh, and our wait time from the time we applied with the agency to the time we brought the girls home with us was just shy of two years.  From the time the dossier left the US until we found out about them was about ten months (our actual "wait" time once everything was done).

Answer 4

I don't remember exactly how it broke down, but our adoption cost about $23,000 through an agency 18 months ago.  I believe it was about:

          $9000 to the agency for advertising, profile, counseling for birthmom, etc.

          $6000 or 7000 to birthmom lawyer for relinquishment

          $3000 for our lawyer and court fees for finalization

          $2000 birthmom and baby medical expenses

          $1500 birthmom living expenses (after birth)

          $2000 travel

Once our homestudy and profile were completed (took about 6 months from start to finish), we received a call 3 weeks after we "activated" with the agency and had our son 2 weeks after that.  We were soooooo lucky to have such a wonderful situation!