[brookeer]

Our fd whom is almost a year old (we've had her since she was a month old) is eligable to keep her medical card and get a subsidy since she is a minority. We just got our adoption paperwork and it asks all kinds of questions about why we think we need a subsidy, what we will do with it....etc. While we don't absolutly need it, I feel like we will get run over by the cya if we don't have any legal advice on how to fill this stuff out. Our acw said that we only need a lawyer to file, and that is it. But...she also said that adoption is a big negotiation. We will state what we would like, and they will negotiate. Really all I want is her to be ours forever, BUT, we only get this opportunity once and I don't want to mess it up. So far in her young life, she has had congestive breathing troubles off and on (nebulizer with albuteral and pulmacort), chronic ear infections (Dr. wants to talk about tubes with me at her next visit), and a heart murmur (which is probably nothing, but she is seeing a cardiologist next month). She is developing on target and I think she will do well....however....how can we foresee the future? I really want her to have her medical card. Anyway...I was really hoping for some advice for those who have been thru this before. How do we know what to ask for? Would a lawyer be our best bet at this time? Hmm....wounder how much that is going to cost.
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[IowaGirl515]

Not sure on specifics... but most lawyers will offer free consultations for the first visit. Never hurts to check out the yellow pages and to ask around.

[musemoon]

A social worker friend of mine told me to always negotiate an assistance amount for the adoption, even though you may not think you need it now, you could always put it into an account for your child's college. Or create a savings for them that will mature over time and give them the finances they will need after the age of 18. I know my mom helped me financially all through college, so save the money for that time.

[tlc4kidz]

Also remember that you will be getting the tax credit which will help cover the cost of the attorney.

[mallory4]

Brookeer, Thanks for asking about this kind of touchy subject. I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with the subsidy issue and so we don't hear too much about how to handle it and stand up for ourselves as foster/adopt families.

We are in the same position; our adoption worker told us to ask for the subsidy and insist on it, but we know nothing about how the system works and what that means. How do we "insist"?

On the one hand, we are average income, and I am a tightwad, so it isn't the case that we will not be able to feed and clothe our fost/adopt child without the subsidy.

On the other hand, the reason we felt comfortable with adding a 4th child to our one-income family is that we were told that all the kids in the special needs adoption program qualified for the subsidy, so we didn't feel like we would be in danger of bringing home the straw that broke the camel's back.

Now it seems like what we are hearing from others is that if his developmental delays are resolved by adoption time, and he seems on target for his age, the state will say he doesn't need a subsidy and we will have to "fight" for it.

I am not comfortable being put in a fighting role, because we were originally told that part of the rationale for the subsidy is that it makes it possible for people to adopt special needs kids who otherwise might not be able to adopt them--and that is us.

For the state to deny the subsidy once we have resolved his delays seems like punishing the exact people they said they were trying to attract in the first place--good families who otherwise couldn't take the financial risk.

Can anyone who has done it tell us what it is really like to negotiate the subsidy?