How much does it really cost?

Hi, Your figures for Guatemala are pretty close, it is around $25-30,000 depending on if you make extra trips over for visits etc.. and also if you use a less than reputable and very slow agency and need to hire extra help over there it can add to the cost (luckily most don't have to do this!).. Older kids from orphanages are usually a lesser fee than the infants from private foster care. Have you considered a foster to adopt program in your state? We took the foster parent training in our state (it used to be 19 hours but I think now its more) . The ages of the children available were generally todder age and above (in our state hardly any infants) . There are also a great program in Ethiopia where I know someone who is adopting a toddler girl there and total costs so far were about $8,000 plus she is actually traveling there to pick the baby up so that would def. add a couple more thousand on to it..but most have the baby escorted. There are other programs in Africa also. Haiti has adoptions, but the country has been in turmoil lately so I am not sure what is going on with that. China's base fee's are much lower than Guatemala also..the babies come from an orphanage and the stay in country in around 10 days to 2 weeks...I know of someone who just came back from China and she told me total including travel was less than $20,000. . There was just an article in Adoptive Families Magazine about a couple from Holland who adopted an AA newborn boy from a nonprofit agency called Family Resource Center and the total fee's including travel was $14,000. You can also check into doing an independant adoption without an agency..I have heard of people doing this in Ukraine as well as Guatemala. This would save you the $4,000 or so agency fee's. Also, remember if you qualify there is an adoption tax credit of a little over $10,000 and some employers actually offer adoption assistance. If you are both under 35 you would qualify for an infant in Peru and the fee's are reasonable there, although the wait for a referral there can be long..as well as in Columbia. There are low interest loans available for adoption, as well as home equity lines etc.. good luck with your decision...Cathy I

Here's how we afforded it. We're on the low end of middle class, we have a ton of student loan debt and 3 kids in Catholic school. The thing is that it took us 7 years. We bought a house that needed some work in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town. We fixed it up and refinanced it. But we still have to be able to make the payments on that, so we both got extra jobs to pay down a bunch of other things (medical payments, etc). There was rarely a Saturday when one of us wasn't working on something. Another thing that made it easier for us was that some of this is "pay as you go". In other words, even though it's $30,000, it wasn't $30k all at once. We had $300 application fee. A month or 2 later we had $1,250 for home study. Then it was $50 here and there for documents and certifications. Then there was $460 for the I-600A. It was kind of incremental. Then we accepted the referral. It was $15k. Then, 50 weeks later it was $9k. We took out an extra home equity line of credit. We were really counting on having this adoption concluded during 2003 so we could cash in on the tax credit--but it was not to be. We were planning on using the tax credit to pay off the home equity line of credit, but now we'll have to make payments for a year. I don't know how we're going to do it. Good luck. You can try for grants, but I have never seen anyone get one. There are loans though, and some of them are lower interest. I hope you can make it happen.

trice, do you have your baby yet? Weren't you afraid you'd pay a large sum and then something happen and you wouldn't get the baby? What are the guarantees?

Hi, Most of the contracts that I have seen state that if you lose your referral (either the birthparent reclaims the child, or the child dies) the money you have paid so far goes towards another referral.. adoption always involves some element of risk, but you need to read your contract carefully and really understand it before you sign it...after the initial agency fee, most agencies have you pay 1/2 of the attorney fee up front and the other 1/2 after you are out of PGN..

Hi, I know my agency also adopts infants from india which is very reasonable and the qualifications are pretty lax. Brazil also is not as expensive. I think actually Guatemala is probably the most expensive to adopt from internationally. You are paying for private attorneys and private adoptions. When all said and done it is around $30,000. We took out a home equity loan and about 2 years ago we took a risk and invested in a rental property (a handy man special). My husband and I did most of the repairs ourselves and had it refinanced and took the money out to do the adoption. Good luck Christina

MAKE SURE YOU USE A REPUTABLE AGENCY so that you don't end up with alot of hidden costs. Our "contract" says 21,800 but we have spent WELL over 30,000 so far...............we've been paying our foster mother for the past 10 months, we've made 6 trips to Guat, been paying others to help us, etc................. If you use a reputable agency (DO NOT USE A FACILITATOR) you should be pretty safe on what the costs will actually be. The cheapest is DEFINATELY not the best and to save yourself a ton of heartache and headaches, find out who the good ones are and stay with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from someone who's learned the hard way!

Um, I wouldn't say an Indian adoption is a) inexpensive or b) lax in qualifications. The incountry adoption fee was $11,000 payable at referral, but over all with homestudy, document fees etc. at least another $10,000. Plus travel to India is very expensive. Even paying for an escort is $4,000 and I really recommend going rather than paying an escort (I've heard escorts are being discouraged). While I suspect the authorities at PGN are much more focused on the minutia of the dossier, the Indian adoption authorities do require a dossier in addition to the homestudy and do have age restrictions and requirements for parents. Adopting from India takes a great deal of time both for a referral and waiting to bring your child home. The children are much older (closer to 2) than the the children brought home from Guatemala too.

I guess it all boils down to the agency then? My agency's prices for both India and Brazil were much less expensive than guatemala. The only reason we did not go with India was because after researching Guatemala i knew that is where i wanted to adopt from. Also they were adopting infants in India (there was one other couple that we knew of that was adopting a baby girl). Brazil had fewer infants and more toddlers, but do have infants available. Bottom line i guess.... research research research! take care Christina

There was another thread talking about adoption straight with the lawyer: we're doing our second adoption this way and it's cheaper than $ 30K (even counting roundtrip ticket from Europe). Of course in this case you must be sure to have the good lawyer!!

The fee seems to run between $25,000 to $35,000 but as everyone said it depends if you visit. I found there were hidden costs in sending packages, visiting and Fed Ex fees that did not have to be stated in the contract. We are a young couple and found that refinancing our home was the only way to go. I definitely agree with Trice that it does make it easier that it is not one lump sum but several different payments. That being said though things are moving much quicker in Guatemala so the payments are a bit closer. Good Luck with your decisions. God Bless, Anne

Here is what we found in our recent research: Brazil: no children under 4-years of age being adopted. Peru: no infants, and more than 12-months to a referral Colombia: very young infants available, but stringent age requirements for parents, and more than 24-months for a referral Be sure you research carefully before embarking on a program. There are so many conflicting reports and information, and if an agency is not reputable, it's easy to enter into a contract expecting one thing and getting another. Best of luck, Kelley

Our total (including 2 trips with 5 day stays each time) was just over $24k. After taxes it was $11k which was what one time through IVF was supposed to cost. I agree not having to pay all at once was a huge help. Also they lowered our fee by $2k because he was 14months old at referral. We were pleasantly surprised and did NOT object when they told us :D! Now that we want to try for an infant the price has risen $2k (which will be $4k above last time) but since we do not have to pay agency or homestudy fees again we save $5k so...I am convincing my husband it "a great deal". It all boils donw to the cost of a new car and you cannot rock one of those to sleep at night!!

Agency fees were about $3k (for new families) for us it was $1500 alumni +$14k for facilitator that we trust very much since we used her for our first adoption. What I notice is this. When we were toying with the idea of switching agencys because a girl was taking soooo long, we were quoted $3k for paperwork transfer and pretty much $17-18 for attorney fees. That's where the $$ goes the attorney in Guatemala. We just COULD NOT AFFORD THAT!! That would be an easy $7k MORE than what we had planned. anyway jan

We have a son from Russia, a daughter from Korea, started with Guat, but agency stopped program during the Hague situation and we were uneasy about it, so we are now waiting for our 2nd daughter from Korea. Total fees with EVERYTHING INCLUDED: $21400.00 This is having the baby escorted, homestudy, BCIS and all fees. It has taken us from mid Dec unti now and we expect to have our lil darling home in April at age 6 months. I will go back to Korea again. Children are in wonderful foster homes, great medical care and the adoption system was actually set up by Americans about 30+ years ago. I will go back to Russia again also, but Korea is a very easy program with no dossier needed. But overall, the program you choose has to be the right one for your family and not whichever one was the least expensive. Good Luck,

Hockeymom, I was wondering if you could tell me which agency you used to adopt from Korea. We were told to expect about an 8 month wait for a referal for a girl. Thanks, Domsmom