We regularly receive two questions about
our adoption. The most common question is, “Why Ethiopia?” (check out Why NOT Ethiopia? to read my response). The second most common question we get is, “Why
does international adoption cost SO much?” It’s alright. You don’t have to hide
your shock when I tell you that our adoption is going to cost roughly $40,000.
When we first added everything up, the figure shocked me, too.
We get some interesting reactions
when we disclose the estimated total of our adoption, such as, “Isn’t that just
a rip off?” “That’s just child trafficking!” and, “You know, you could spend
that money better by [insert a thousand other ways we could spend a huge amount
of money].” We also hear a lot from people who would genuinely love to adopt
internationally but are afraid of becoming part of some racket. Hopefully, the
following will help relieve some of those concerns.
I’ll be honest. I think international
adoption costs way more than it should. Some of the fees seem really outrageous.
And yes, there are corrupt people around the world who are out to make money
off of the plight of orphaned children. But international adoption is NOT about
buying and selling children. Reputable adoption agencies with strong ethical
standards will make sure that they are not part of any such operation. Agencies
use the money they receive to cover their own overhead, keep in line with
government regulations, and take care of orphans who have not yet been adopted.
They are not out to make a fortune. If that were their goal, they would be in
another line of work.
So, if the fees are not simply a scam,
where exactly does all the money go? Most people are surprised to find out that
a large percentage of the cost of international adoption is not what one would
consider strictly an “adoption expense.” Many of the things we have to pay for
are not because we are adopting a child; rather, they are costs incurred
because we are trying to bring a foreigner into the United States of America
and make him a citizen. That involves lots of legal expenses and other fees that
are not set by the “adoption industry.”
Let me break some of those costs down.
I’ll start with the fees we have paid
so far and go into the remaining expenses in the next post. Our very first fee
was a $250
application fee to our placement
agency. Yes, that is a lot of money just to apply, but it makes sense. Time and
effort from staff members is required to process applications, and they should
be fairly paid for their work. An application fee also weeds out families who
are just curious about adoption from those who are actually serious about
getting started.
We chose to go with an out-of-state
placement agency, which meant that we needed an IN-state agency to complete our
home study. The home
study application fee was $500.
Once we were accepted by both
agencies, the next thing we paid was the actual home study fee of $2,700.
That is a pretty typical price for a home study. We met with our social worker
about four times, she did a home visit, and then she wrote up a detailed report
about our family. The payment goes toward the social worker’s salary and things
like having the home study certified and notarized.
During our home study, all of us had
to have medical
exams. Joshua and I also had to have a ton of lab work done.
They drew so much blood I thought I was going to faint for the first time in my
life. That all ran us about $1400. Yeah. That hurt worse than the blood being
drawn. Although we only had these exams done because we are adopting, these are
medical fees that the medical field charges, not fees that adoption agencies come
up with just so they can make money.
Our placement agency’s Ethiopia program
fee is $8,000,
which we paid in three increments. Remember that this is an organization that
works internationally. That means that, aside from salaries, utilities, and
other basic business expenditures, they also have to pay for things like flying
people over to Ethiopia for updates on the work there and meeting with the
Ethiopian government to advocate for families. Working internationally is expensive
for adoption agencies. The program fee covers some of those costs.
Once you are in the program, our agency
requires something like 20 hours of education. We have spent $325 in class fees to
meet those education requirements. Again, I’ll be honest; I don’t understand
why the classes cost so much. However, that is not an outrageous price when
compared with other educational programs.
Our next expenses were related to
preparing our dossier (the packet of detailed information about our family,
which is sent to Ethiopia). That required applying to
the United States Citizen and
Immigration Services (USCIS), which cost $890.
This government agency approves us to bring a child into the country to adopt. The
fee included the cost of having our fingerprints checked and multiple
background checks completed.
In addition to applying to USCIS, to
complete our dossier we had to order several certified copies of our marriage
license and birth certificates. We were ordering documents from three different
states, and each one varied in their fees, but (including shipping and
processing fees) they totaled about $195. Once more, this was not strictly an adoption
cost. That money did not go to someone looking to make money off of orphans; it
was simply the price anyone would have to pay for getting extra copies of
certified documents.
After
our dossier was completed we had to get it authenticated by the Secretary of
State ($20)
and the US State Department ($16). We then sent it to the Ethiopian Embassy in
Washington D.C. for additional authentication ($189.60). Because the dossier
contains such sensitive information, we had to pay for it to be hand delivered
to the embassy ($90).
It was then sent back to our agency’s office where it sat until we had finished
paying our agency’s program fee. Finally, when all payments were received, our
agency forwarded the dossier to Ethiopia ($180).
The
fees we have paid thus far total roughly $14,755. There were other minor expenses along the
way for things like mailing documents to our agency, getting passport pictures
taken to be included in our dossier, having local background checks done for
our home study, etc. That total, though, reflects the majority of what we have
paid for our adoption up to this point.
Keep
in mind that every adoption is different. International adoption can cost
anywhere from $20,000 or less to over $60,000. Each country has its own requirements,
and each agency has different ways of setting their fees. This is simply a
break-down of what our adoption costs
and where the money goes. I am sharing this information for those who are
genuinely interested in why international adoption is so expensive.
So,
where is the rest of the $40,000 for
our adoption going? Stay tuned for Part 2.
[Photo courtesy of chrisroll and www.freedigitalphotos.net]
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