This week's question comes to us from Rebecca. She asked,
Here is a question I've had for a long time about adoption--what's the money situation like? How much money do you have to spend for the whole adoption process? Do you have to help pay hospital bills when the baby is born, or how does that work out?
This is a question I've been asked time and time again, and though talking about it makes me cringe just a tiny bit because nobody likes to put a price tag on something like a precious baby, it is still something that has to be answered!
Also, each case is TOTALLY different, and each agency is totally different, so I can only share what our experience was.
We went through LDS Family Services as our adoption agency. They require 10% of your annual income as the cost for adoption. Now that happens in steps, and not all at once. Let me try and outline it for you:
An initial fee of $1,000 is required upfront and that covers application fees, a place on the LDS Family Services website and other things I'm sure. To be honest I didn't look into what my $1000 was going to all that much. I was really excited to get the process started and didn't really care! Bad, I know. This fee is $1000 no matter how much money you make a year.
Then you finish paperwork, and play the waiting game. As soon as you've been PLACED with a baby, the remainder of your money is due.
So if you make $100,000 a year, your over-all adoption fee would be $10,000: $1,000 up front, and $9,000 at the time of placement.
Our 10% of our income covered every single thing; attorney fees, placement, getting filed with the court, home studies, etc.
I know that with lots of other agencies, adoptions are far more expensive, and some people will argue that the more expensive agencies process documents faster and you get what you pay for but we were incredibly pleased with LDS Family Services and how quick they were with everything, and how on the ball they were with our adoption.
Another thing to note is that adoption is tax deductible (also, I don't know my tax terms at all, so it might be a tax refund instead of a deductible. I'm really showing my ignorance, and I should have had Collin write this post!)
I hope this answered your question, and if anybody out there has more information, or wants to share about their adoption expenses with another agency, please do so in the comments! We'd love to hear from you!
I just want to stress again that adoption is not about the price tag, and we did not adopt for the tax break!! But this is all logistic stuff that people need to know, so I hope it helped!
And as always, if you have a question you'd like answered, e-mail me at {myspoiledeggs@gmail.com} with the subject line QUESTION.
Happy Thursday!
