How Much Does It Cost to Adopt a Newborn Baby? - Weekend Wisdom

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Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome everyone to weekend wisdom by creating a family. Creating a family is the National Support and Training nonprofit for foster adoptive and kinship families. This segment is part of the creating a family podcast. Each Sunday morning, we drop a short segment answering a question that we receive, you could submit your own questions to info at creating a family.or. Somewhere in the subject line just put either we can wisdom or that your question for dawn or something along those lines, and it will wind its way to me. Today's question is going to be about how much it costs to adopt a newborn baby in the US. This is one of the most frequent questions we get here at creating a family. How much does it cost to adopt a baby in the US? The answer is? Well, it depends. And yes, I know how frustrating that answer is. The first question is, what type of adoption would be the best fit for you? Since this question is about adopting a baby pretty much that rules out international adoption since for the most part, the youngest kiddos that we're seeing adopted now are toddlers and many of the very young children will have significant special needs. There may be some exceptions, you know, depending on the country, but generally adopting a baby internationally is not an option, it is possible to adopt from foster care. But the children who are legally free for adoption are almost always older than six or part of a larger sibling group, you could become a foster parent, and maybe given the opportunity to adopt the child or baby in your care. But the goal of foster care. And the goal that you as a foster parent are required to support is to help heal the baby's family and have the baby return home, it's likely that you would foster a number of kids and babies before you would be able to adopt one. And it might never happen. Especially if you only wanted to adopt a baby, we have a lot more information on this at creating a family.org under foster care. With all that said, the cost to adopt a child or baby from foster care is usually free, or very low cost. In fact, depending on the needs of the child of the baby, you may be eligible to receive a monthly subsidy to help you defray the cost of raising the child. So that leaves the most common way to adopt a baby in the US. And that's domestic private adoption through an adoption agency or an adoption attorney. This is sometimes called newborn adoption are like I said domestic private adoptions, something along those lines. Because we're talking about costs, keep in mind that you are likely eligible for the federal adoption tax credit unless you exceed the income limits. And we have a course as well as an annual podcast on the adoption tax credit at the adoption tax credit headquarters at creating a family.org which you hover over the word adoption and then click on the adoption tax credit headquarters. And the costs will obviously help you offset the cost of adoption, the credit will help you if you have federal tax liability. Now, with that having been said, Let me tell you that people are often surprised by how much it costs to adopt a baby in the US. The average cost when working with an agency is anywhere from 25,000 to over 60,000. I was talking with someone the other day and they said they were seeing some come in at 75,000. The average cost with working with an attorney is roughly about the same. I would say you probably wouldn't get any at the 25,000. But you wouldn't find any adoptions at that low but it's anywhere from 35,000 to 60,000 plus. Now, obviously, that's a huge range. So your question to me is okay, so what factors affect the cost of how much your adoption is going to cost? And there are quite a few. First, how early in the pregnancy are you matched? The reason that's important is because many states allow expectant parent expenses or birth parent expenses to be paid by the adoptive parents, the state will dictate what is allowed to be paid. And if you're matched earlier in the pregnancy, you have longer to be supporting and paying expected parent expenses. So the second factor that can affect the cost of infant adoption is whether the expectant mom has health insurance to cover the birth, or are the adoptive parents expected to cover those costs. Another factor is how many expectant moms the adoptive parents are matched with that don't proceed to placement they don't proceed to an adoption. And if the adoptive parents have paid for any of the allowable costs to those mothers, let me explain that a little further. You are matched with a mom, it is entirely her right even if she is matched with you to change her mind after the birth of the child or even before the birth of your child. It is within her right and if she changes her mind, depending on the policy of your agency or your adoption attorney, you may lose any of the money that you have paid up to that point protect If you're paying expectant mother expenses, so you would lose those costs, some agencies will then take your basic adoption costs and roll that into the next adoption and honestly, some do not. So that definitely affects the cost. Another factor that affects the cost is how many agencies the adoptive parents apply with and whether they work with an adoption consultant, the more agencies you apply to and the more professionals you bring in to help, the more your costs are going to be. And there's travel costs, if the baby is born in another state, not only have your transportation to that state where the baby is born, but you also will likely have to stay in that state a week or so to allow for the interstate compact for the adoption to be completed. Possibly the race of the child can influence costs. I don't see that so much anymore. But some agencies charge less of an adoption fee for a full African American Baby, because fewer parents are waiting to adopt them. Other agencies, and certainly some adoptive parents oppose this controversial practice. And like I said, I don't see that too much anymore. Another factor that influences cost is whether the agency has a sliding fee scale. The lower end of that range I gave you 25,000 for agency adoption, is when you have a sliding fee scale and an agency. Another factor is whether the adoptive parents work with an adoption agency or an adoption attorney, and what services each provide. Basically, we kind of a shorthand is that the adoption agency is more like ordering, you know, a full meal off the menu, whereas adoption attorney is ala carte. The way I say that is that with adoption attorneys, you may have to pay for each service individually. An example of that would be counseling for the expectant parents, that's often not included with adoption attorneys. But we highly recommend that adoptive parents do that. Another factor is whether the adoptive parents find the expectant mom or a couple on their own, or whether they are going into the matching pool that the adoption agency provides or adoption attorney in some states are allowed to do that. And the last factor that influences where you fall on that rather large range for adopting a baby in the US is whether the adoptive parents pay a separate legal fee for the finalization of adoption, or whether that is included in your agency fee, or your agency or whether that's included in the fee you already paid to your attorney. So those are the primary factors that tell you where in the range you're going to fall. I hope that's been helpful. If you've enjoyed this weekend wisdom, please let your friends know about it. It's a new segment and we're really excited about it. And so we want others to know that and don't forget, you can send your questions that you want us to consider for weekend wisdom to info at creating a family.org and one shout out to a terrific resource we have at creating a family and that is our interactive training and support group curriculum. It can be used as training or it can be used as a support group. It's turnkey, you take it off the digital shelf and everything you need is included. There's a video there's a facilitator guide, there's a handout, there's additional resource sheet. And with very little effort, you can run a high quality training or support group. We have 25 curriculum in our library. Check it out at creating a family.org hover over the word training and click on Support Group curriculum. See you next week.

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