After deciding to grow a family through adoption, many parents quickly find out just how expensive adoptions can be. While these large round numbers may initially startle you into reconsidering your choice to adopt, don’t let them scare you away! Learn more about why adoption is so expensive and how it all breaks down to bringing home your long-awaited child.
Adoption Is a Legal Process
While the legal part of adoption can be the most irritating part of the process, it ensures that children are kept safe. As with any legal process, the adoption must take the correct steps to make sure that everyone involved is aware and agrees with the proceeding. Legal fees, attorney fees, and miscellaneous fees can add up quickly. However, without the help of adoption attorneys and the court, there would be no legal finalization of the adoption in the end.
Adoption Often Requires Help
Some adoptive parents have incredible stories about friends or family members giving them a baby to adopt. However, those stories are few and far between in the real world. Many hopeful adoptive parents need help in finding birth mothers who chose adoption for their child. This is where private adoption agencies step in.
Your adoption agency is staffed by adoption professionals who have walked this road before. They work around the clock to make sure that the right birth mothers are matched and connected to the right adoptive family. Your adoption agency should give you a list of fees that generally occur during an adoption. Remember that everyone in the adoption agency understands the cost burden, and diligently works on your behalf.
Adoption Helps the Birth Mother
Many adoptive families are surprised to learn that the birth mother’s medical, living, and transportation expenses are usually part of their adoption cost. While every adoption case is different, you could be asked to pay for these expenses on behalf of your child’s future wellbeing. Remember that medical visits and ensuring that the birth mother is in a safe home all affect the child.
Adoption May Require Home Updates
Once you have started your home study process, you may find that your home requires some updates to be approved for adoption. While these updates typically are minimal in cost, some state requirements could cost more. Remember that any updates or changes that you are asked to make within your home are for the safety of your future child. The home study professional is simply there to document and help you understand the state requirements. Work with your home study worker and ask questions about what you can do to meet the criteria without much cost.
Adoption Can Involve Travel
While some adoptive parents do live close to their adoption agency and birth mother, others aren’t so fortunate. When working with an agency that is farther away from your home, a few trips may be required. This is especially true of interstate adoptions where the parents live in a different state from the birth mother. Travel costs, accommodations, and meals can all add up.
While it may seem that adoption is expensive, it is good to note that the fees are rarely all due at once. The adoption process takes time, and fees are spread out over time. Many adoptive families find that fundraisers help with much of the cost as well as adoption grants. There are also some ways to recoup taxes paid using the adoption tax credit after the adoption is finalized.
No matter how much money you spend in the process, most adoptive parents forget how much they spent when the adoption is all said and done. No amount of money can equal the joy and love that a new child brings to the home!
