Domestic Adoption Budget

I'm in South Dakota too and I can tell you that my son's parents didn't pay anywhere near 30 k to adopt him or his brother.

You signed with an agency but don't know the fee structure, or the breakdown of what costs what and what (if any) expenses may be allowable under state law for the expectant mother? I would assume your husband is correct. I would also hope that any agency would not only show profiles of those who will pay the most - it should be showing profiles of what the expectant mother lists as important attributes for parents she wants to consider, or chose, to be parents - if after she gives birth she still wants to do an adoption. Kind regards,Dickons

Not sure where that statistic came from. Adoptive Families annual survey from 2012 has the majority of domestic adoptions totaling between $25k and $40k. What is a reasonable budget depends so much on what is included in that budget. A homestudy may run up to about $3k; agency fees vary widely, as does what is included. Does the agency cover legal expenses, including a separate attorney for the eparents? Do they provide counseling to the eparents, or do you need to pay that separately? Many agencies ask for a budget for eparent expenses, and these could include medical expenses and "pregnancy-related expenses" (which, again, vary widely and might be as simple as maternity clothes or as much as rent, food, transportation, etc). You will also want to think about whether you will need to travel for the adoption, and costs involved with that. I think my budget was somewhere in that range. My agency had a higher fee than many, but they paid all the eparent expenses. My costs also included two homestudies and one update (my original homestudy agency closed, so I needed an entire new homestudy rather than an update), adoptive parent classes (40 hours of training required by my agency), a physical for me (I wasn't due on my insurance, but agency needed one within 6 months), 5 post-placement reports, finalization, travel across the country (2 one-way tickets, since I didn't know when I would be coming back, both bought within 24 hours of flying), and staying in the state where my son was born for about 2 weeks (hotel, food, transportation, etc), some additional medical expenses for my son (not really technically part of the adoption), and finalization in addition to the agency fee. So, if that budget includes everything, it might be reasonable, but it might not. It sounds like the agency you are working with is one where the PAPs pay expenses directly for the emom who chooses them; you will want to find out what happens if she decides to parent (does the agency cover those fees, or are you out the expenses?), because that will make a big difference, too. Agencies that reimburse you for the expenses (or pay expenses rather than having the PAPs pay them in the first place) will have a higher fee; if they don't, what will it look like for you if you are chosen by an emom who then decides to parent, and you lose that money?

Our agency does not have a flat fee, you tell them your budget and they try to match you with situations within your budget. If a match fails, I lose birth mom expenses,of course. My question was mainly if my budget was reasonable or not, I don't want to have an unusually small budget with high expectations.

Technically, a bigger budget shouldn't mean anything, however, I know some agencies and states dont' have any restrictions regarding eparent expenses - and sometimes you have eparents with large expenses due to their circumstances. Ours allowed for consideration of very few things and after reading some things here since I have been a member, I feel fortunate to have found the agency that we did regarding those type of expenses. Our DD was born and adopted last year (we finalized as well) and we didn't spend 30k. I would say that should be a HEALTHY budget anywhere.

I agree that ShOULD be healthy at 30k, but people say it is on low side of average. We are an older couple (42-57) and I figured I would need to compensate that with more $ (?). We have set our budget at 30k, although we have more, I worry that if we have one or more fails, that would eat up any extra. Should we go ALL in from the get go or keep 5-8k in back up ?

Think about it this way; since money spent on emom expenses is a gift, you should only commit what you are willing to lose if she decides to parent. If that happens, and you have nothing in reserve, what do your chances of adopting look like? Also, what would happen to other fees with your agency if that happened (legal, placement, etc fees) - if those wouldn't be "rolled over" or refunded, you stand to lose your entire budget, so I would consider going with the assumption that you will lose anything that the agency doesn't guarantee a refund of, and base my budget accordingly.

I don't think there's any "of course"about losing expenses if the birthparents change their minds. Our agency, and another one we looked at, have contingency money for those in such a situation.

Keep the extra $5-8K in back up. $30K is acceptable. I've seen very few private adoptions done for under $20K these days. A bigger budget will mean you get matched, and potentially placed, faster. When we were waiting, we saw so many situations in the high-$20Ks, which were not in our budget. It's great that some agencies have a reserve fund for expectant parent expenses, but it's still not the norm. Usually, the PAPs lose anything they pay out in expectant parent expenses. Good luck! :hippie:

One thing I would ask the agency to make clear is what are the fees WITHOUT any expenses to emom? There should be some "set" fees (what are they?) and then you can decide how much you are willing to allocate to emom expenses (if any). I feel like they are lumping everything together and they should separate it out (otherwise...I suspect that you will just end up paying 30K when there is a possibility you may not have to). Good luck!

our budget is 35k and it looks like our out of state adoption will eat all of that up. we've been waiting for a few years, so we did have to do a couple of things over (fingerprinting, etc.) but those were minimal costs. yikes.

Fast fprward a few months now...no activity thru our agency an we have been looking at EM situations on our own on the internet. We have registered with another agency as an outreach family and following a few attorneys who have situations periodically. The fees for the situations that would be a match for our family keep increasing every month, the last three that i have wanted to apply for were from mid $40k-mid $50k range, my husband won't go that high, we would probably cap our budget at $40k not including travel or final but that still seems crazy. When i started this journey, i was convinced that our mid-high$30k was plenty, but not the case.

What makes these sit so expensive? BMom support? I know it's such a long aggravating wait, but I would hold out for situations that are in the budget your husband is comfortable with. 40-50 off the bat seems outrageous. Does that mean you've paid 2 agency fees already? Hope a match comes soon! Maybe there are some low budget things you can do to find a BMom in your budget. Take profiles to your local high school counselors, crisis pregnancy centers, etc.

Here we are 6 months later, still NO activity at all with our agency, we are very open in our preferences,but we ARE older PAPS with one adopted son, so we wait. The longer we wait, the less my husband is willing to spend for some reason, we initially said 30-35k and now, he is more like 20-30k, we also started foster parent classes in hopes we might adopt that way...

The consultant we worked with suggested registering with more than one agency. Typically 3 at a time to get more visibility.I'm going to agree wtih what lovejax said a while back. The base fees without expenses is what you want to look at first (for example, the agency we adopted through the fees were right at 24k not including emom expense but did include legal expense). Often the situations were presented as total cost - for example a 30k situation is 24k in fees and 6k in emom expenses at our agency. That means you have 6k at risk. When you pop up to 35 to 40k at our agency you're in the 10 to 15k range for emom expenses which is a lot more at risk. That's why its important to look at it like lovejax suggested.I'm going to make a suggestion - instead of just increasing your $, go back and reevaluate your profile/emom letter. It's like a resume, if it's not getting you interviews, you need to make adjustments. I'll be glad to look at yours and give you input based on what the consultant told us. We were matched the first time in less than a month, and when that fell through, we were matched again in less than 2 months and finalized our adoption within a year.The other part of this is looking at your agency - how many placements do they make per year, and how many couples are waiting? That's why if you can afford the application fee at more than one agency with an independent home study, then it's a good way to go. You get more opportunties and more potential exposure.I hope maybe some of that helps. . . .