Looking into the Average Cost of Adoption; for the Adoptee, for the Natural Family

How much does adoption cost? According to Google, about 3600 people a month want to know “how much does adoption cost?” Of course the word “cost” here is assumed to mean the monetary expenses incurred when a child or baby is adopted.  Those facts and figures, the actual answer to “how much does it cost to adopt a baby” are rather simple to answer:

• The majority of domestic newborn adoptions cost between $20,000 and $40,000, while a strong majority of international adoptions cost more than $25,000. For Instance, Gladney’s  “adoption fees” are at $50,000 right now.
• U.S. foster adoption is the least expensive adoption route, by a significant margin, with an average cost of less than $5,000.*

	Domestic Infant Agency	Domestic Infant Private	U.S. Foster
Preparation	$2,588	$2,218	$285
Adoption	$25,446	$23,231	$686
Travel/Other	$1,870	$2,285	$521
TOTAL	$28,034	$27,734	$1,492

There is also a super hand guide put out by the Child Welfare Information Gateway on Adoption Costs which is available as a PDF.

The more money prospective adoptive parents pay, usually the greater chance that they will get a baby faster. It also increases the chance that the adoption will cross serious ethical considerations. I know one mom who was offered 70K while she was still pregnant by an adoption attorney, no questions asked. I also have heard stories about a very prominent adoption ring where the PAPs’ basically describe their “dream baby” , pay like $100K and then they get a beeper ( I guess now it would be a text!); then once they got the call, they had to drop everything and in 18 hours or something get their baby. Apparently the attorney ring behind it combed the deep poor south to find mothers who fit the needs of the PAPs and made sure those babies were relinquished.

International Adoption Costs

International Adoption  has a whole range of its own adoption costs as one must pay for travel and the bribes for the baby traffickers handlers.  Obviously this list is outdated, since Russian adoptions are now banned. Wonder why people are liking Ethiopia so much? Oh it’s the less costly way to adopt internationally!

	China	Ethiopia	Russia	South Korea
Preparation	$4,266	$3,876	$5,181	$3,650
Adoption	$15,525	$14,804	$31,997	$21,877
Travel/Other	$9,885	$8,932	$21,457	$6,160
TOTAL	$29,676	$27,612	$58,635	$31,687

Why is Adoption so Expensive?

No matter where you do adopt a baby or child from, if you do it legally (ethically is another matter entirely) then you must have a home study and someone to handle the legal transaction of transferring the parental rights of said child.

However, please remember that adoption is a 13 billion dollar annual industry, which means that in the end, there are enough potential adoptive parents who desire children enough to part with that 13 billion dollars. So there is a lot of money changing hands and the whole mythology that a nonprofit adoption agency is a good caretaker of the costs and fees associated with adoption is just that a myth!  You still paying for advertising and recruitment and 401ks of the directors!

There is the “bonus” of the Adoption Tax Credit! Unethical and unfair as I might happen to believe it is!

And then all the other “costs” and “fees’ that make adoption such a wonderful social construct, but that is just the money.

Let’s look at the true costs of adoption.

How Much Does Adoption Cost to the Child Adopted?

The child’s life begins with a great and profound loss. Whether separated at birth or later through circumstance, that loss is the greatest horror a child can face and is traumatic even under the best of circumstances. Even if the adoptee does not personally feel all the effects of the Primal Wound, these are not tangible tradeoffs that can be “fixed” with material possessions or even abundant love.

The importance of DNA and Genetic mirroring are one example of a true loss only felt by the adopted child. The instinctual  connection of knowing how a person ticks is another thing often lost with the breakup of the mother child bond.   How about the increased rate of suicide risk to an adoptee? What is the price of internal emotional happiness for an adopted person?  And then, of course, how can we forget that the adult adoptees civil right to be treated equally under law is denied though outdated sealed records laws in the US. Can we put a monetary figure on human rights?

How Much Adoption Costs a Birthmother and Family?

I have said it before and I will say it again; no little girl grows up wishing to become a birthmother and give her children away. A birthmother is not born with a different gene to make her any more noble or deserving to be separated from her baby. She is neither a sinner nor a saint. So the cost of adoption of the separation of mother can child, often too needlessly, often for profit, often under subtle coercing and usually not as an true informed choice, is the subjection of a woman to a life time of  birthmother loss and grief. You are asking her to survive a life carrying a huge burden.

Then there is the increase of a birthmother’s chances for secondary infertility, PTSD, the impact upon the parenting of their kept children, the differences of a post relinquishment pregnancy,  and all the stereotypes that must be faced throughout life as a birthmother.

*The average cost of adoption, as reported in the latest Adoptive Families adoption cost survey (2010-2011), was around $30,000 (before the federal tax credit and employee adoption benefits).