This was a question I had back when I was in elementary school. I had asked my mom but she had no clue. In my little brain I thought it was wrong to buy children, but now I’m wondering if that’s not actually the case. What is that money being spent on?
In: Economics
If you’re not adopting a relative by blood or marriage, in my state there are a lot of steps with many people involved. The biggest portion will be attorney fees.
1. FBI and state police background check fees
2. Certain expenses of expectant mother
3. Attorney fees (often 5 figures)
4. Agency fees for adopting parents
5. Court cost fees (Often over 1k)
6. Counseling for surrendering parent(s)
7. Attorney fees for surrendering parents
8. Fees for social worker to certify adoptive parents for adoptio
9. Birth certificate fees
Even many family law attorneys will not handle non-family adoptions due to the amount of paperwork and diligence.
When I’m hired, I have most of the paperwork drafted up prior to the birth of the baby. I have the hospital approve some of the paperwork to allow the adoptive parents to be present and care for her baby.
I then show up the day or day after the baby is born with additional paperwork to allow the adoptive parents to make medical and custodial decisions for the child. (I even did so a couple days after my own mother’s funeral because it’s so important.)
If the adoptive parents haven’t already been approved for placement, we file that paperwork for a fast hearing with the judge (we are talking like 2 business days here). I set up counseling for the surrendering parents. I secure them a lawyer to protect their rights and to explain the surrendering process to them.
I have the adoptive parents do their background checks and any forms and releases required by the department of family and children services. I prepare them for home visits.
We file the surrendering paperwork so that the judge can terminate parental rights, seeing that the baby up for adoption. If need be, I do additional paperwork so that the adoptive parents can add the child to their insurance. I secure the birth certificate myself from the clerk of court. Then, once the child has been officially placed in the home by the court for a certain period of time, I file for the adoption to be finalized.
All of this must happen on a strict time frame, and the amount of paperwork involved and people and services management is massive and I’m much more personally involved than most uncontested matters.
It’s a sort of unofficial way to filter out low income parents because some people will try to do anything to obtain a child when they realistically cannot afford to care for one
I’m adopted (California) and would always joke with my parents that my siblings were free but I cost about $100 to “buy” because they wanted me haha. It’s mainly just some legal fee stuff but as far as I know it was pretty cheap 🙂
Because there are a lot of people involved. When we adopted, we had a social worker who had to ensure that we were appropriate adoptive parents and that we knew what we were getting into. We had to have a lawyer prepare the appropriate paperwork, we had to obtain consent from the birth mom, get evidence that we were trying to contact the birth father, and so on. Everybody involved did that for a living, and they need to be paid by someone. For us, it was a chunk of change (about the price of buying a decent quality used car), but there were tax credits that significantly helped with that.
Because the adoption INDUSTRY is an INDUSTRY that profits off of families and babies in crisis situations. -Adoptee
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Depends on the adoption agency. Here’s a tale of woe from my friends;
A girl gets pregnant and signs up to allow her child to be adopted. After a few interviews, my friend and his wife are selected to be the adoptive parents! Hurray!
So they fly (800 miles) to visit her and talk to her. They buy baby stuff, and they pay for the girl’s doctor visit’s and pre-natal care.
As the day approaches, they buy tickets to fly down and gather up their bundle of joy. The DAY BEFORE, the agency calls them and says “Yeah, so the girl’s family talked her out of giving up the baby. Sorry!” So … along with having their hearts broken, not a penny of compensation for all the medical bills they paid, or the airline tickets they bought or anything and not another word from the birth mother at all. Not even a “Thanks for paying all my pre-natal health care!”.
Because adoption agencies are money grubbing sleezebags. We finally adopted after going through several agencies. In the end, we didn’t end up using an agency at all. The agencies scam as much money from the hopeful adoptive parents, making all kinds of promises they ultimately can’t keep. Once you choose to leave the agency, your money is just gone. We lost over $20k to agencies for nothing. Ended up doing it on our own, without an agency for about $5k in legal and birth parent fees.
How does the process work for older children? I’ve always wanted to adopt in my retirement, but could not handle caring for a baby full-time. A high schooler would probably be a bit more self-reliant for someone my age.
My friend, who was in a Civil Union before gay marriage was legal, had a baby through IVF. This was biologically hers. Her partner, however, had to adopt because although a male partner would automatically be allowed to be named as a parent, a female partner was not. It cost them thousands of dollars for the adoption. I don’t remember how much exactly, but near to $7000. After they married the next baby did not have to be adopted for the wife to be named as a parent.
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