[Big Dreamer]

Hi Sharon,

Thanks for the reminder...it was late, I wasn't thinking. Our Birthmom signs her letters "With love Stars birthmom".

I keep forgetting others tend to read more into "birthmom".

Thanks for the reminder...

Stars Mom

[davisgaskin]

I agree with your comments and question. My husband and I have been waiting to adopt for five years. It seems as if the so called middle class families chances of adoption is very slim. I feel that it is rediculous for the fees to adopt to be so high. There are so many people who want to adopt who would be wonderful families but can't or they are limited to he amount of children they can adopt do to the cost. My husband and I are also foster parents but none of our foster children have been legally free to adopt. Children in fostercare who are adoptable are very rarley under the age of three. The fees to adopt a child through foster care goes from nothing to usually a couple hundred dollars depending on the state the child is from. If adoption is the same in foster adoption situations compared to "regular" adoptin why are the fees so different? Just wondering if anyone could explain it?

[twyla]

Hi, DavisGaskin!

We didn't mean to ignore you while we went off on a tangent. Sorry.

I think I can explain a couple of the reasons why foster/adoption cost the adopting parents so much less than adopting through an agency or an attorney.

#1. The state is responsible for finding a home for children in its care and therefore subsidizes a good portion of the expenses adoptive parents would have to pay for adoptions generating from an agency or attorney.

#2. Many agencies provide housing, counseling, and medical care for the birth mother and these expenses must be recovered from the adoptive parents, whereas the expenses for birth parents of children in foster/adopt situations are not the responsibility of either the state or the adoptive parents.

I'm sure there are other reasons more knowledgable posters can add to my short list. It is a shame that sometime finding homes for these children comes down to how much adopting families can afford, but these are the sad facts.

[LynMaria]

I 100% agree with you that a private message would be a far more appropriate venue for expressing sensitivies re: terms, abbreviations, etc. That would cut out the humiliation the complaints cause very well-intending members to feel, as well as keep the thread focused on the topic at hand....What a novel idea!!