[txdragonfly]

Hi! This is directed to anyone that DID NOT use an agency to adopt their child(ren). How much did it cost you total?

Thanks and God bless!

[Persephone76]

I just asked my lawyer this yesterday and he said his last one ran about $900.

Plus the cost of your homestudy (ours is an unpdate is its only $775 for us)

Plus if you have to pay for the birth.

[DebCsMom]

Our total fees were about 10,000, 13,000 & 13,000. That included the homestudy, legal fees ( for one), Birth Mom Medicals (for one) & Lengthy stay out of state (for one). With each one we also had to pay for the Birth Mom's agency or attorney.

Deb

[WLD]

Originally Posted by txdragonfly

Hi! This is directed to anyone that DID NOT use an agency to adopt their child(ren). How much did it cost you total?

Thanks and God bless!

Ours was $1500 for the lawyer. That's it. silly me, thought that was expensive till i joined the forum
Even my tax accountant said "you've got to have more expense than this if you adopted" I said, "well no" I mean actually there's tons of other expenses like he needed dental and doctor and since it wasn't finalized i couldn't cover him on my insurance and paid for that. But mine was an older child (5). I love, love, love that boy!

[ourdreamcametru]

Ours was just under $6000 which included all legal, court and homestudy cost plus some food and clothes for bmother. Since our daughter was born in May and we finalized in Dec we were able to get it all back on our taxes that same year!

[lisa in venice]

In our two independent adoptions we DID use and agency but those costs were very minor compared to all of the other stuff. We used agencies to provide birth parent counseling and education. They also provided great resources which ended up saving us a whole lot of money. For instance it was the agency that set up the medical stuff and WIC and helped in one case to find housing etc so what we paid was well worth it. By providing those resources it allowed our kid's birth moms to make an educated decision. They had all of the resources they needed to parent so choosing an adoption plan was not one of obligation.

WIth all of that said we spent $8,200 for one adoption which broke down to $4,200 Attorney, $1,250 homestudy, $1,500 medicals that weren't covered, $700 ASP (special SW in California) and the rest went to the agency (about $500)

In our second independent adoption it was around $15,000 but only $1,000 went to the agency and the bulk of that was a per diem for fostercare fro nearly a week. The big expenses were related to the fact that it was an out of state adoption so many of the larger fees were doubled: two Attorneys, two ASPs etc. Then there was the travel and wait for ICPC clearnace. The last minute fight hotel, food and car rental for three weeks was a big factor in that cost. If we had stayed local it would have cost less then half of that.

lisa