This week was amazing. We met with the director of the adoption agency on Thursday, January 14 and had a great experience. The evening lasted about 3 hours and was attended by two other perspective couples. We did not place our adoption application yet, but are certain we will when return from vacation March 1. The process is lengthy and we need to get a few things in line before the application, but I will come back to that later or in another post.
As one might expect, there are many laws that pertain to adoptions. Aside from a question and answer experience, the orientation was specifically designed to review the laws that the state mandates be covered before a family applies for adoption. In addition, our agency outlined the entire process, including costs. When one first applies, there is typically an adoption application fee; in our case, this is $300. Then after application review, a pre-home assessment interview is scheduled, which is $500. This is a time for the agency to go into the reasons we want to adopt and pre-screen for any red flags that may delay or prevent the adoption. If they feel, after this session we are good candidates, the process continues, which brings us to why we are waiting to apply.
By law, an adoption agency is required to complete the home assessment within 90 days of when the application is signed. If we were to have submitted this at orientation, then we would have been gone during this time frame and we do not want any issues on our end to delay the process. In addition, we need to have the nursery mostly set up as it is part of the home assessment for the agency to evaluate the safety of the nursery. There are other specifics related to the nursery so as we purchase items, like a crib, we need to do so in reference to state defined requirements. The cost for the home assessment comes in at $1,500. This process, aside from the obvious home assessment, requires Ben and I to get physicals, go through interviews, provide a financial breakdown of our household with tax documents, and whatever else is required. During this time, the agency will also reach out to three, non-relative references. Assuming this takes the full 90 days and we pass without any issues, we are first eligible to meet birth families June 1.
At that point, we enter into a holding pattern. We will continue to pay the agency $200 per month to cover the administrative expenses associated with our adoption and the costs associated with intake of potential birth families, which hopefully quickly lead to a match. For the birth families we will create a family profile which will be available on multiple formats that the birth families can review and then at their choosing, meet us. If all parties feel good about this session then we move forward with the adoption process. If not, we wait to meet the next birth family. On average, the agency says the process to match will take anywhere from a couple months to a year and a half. We are hoping for something on the shorter end of the spectrum.
In the end, advocacy for an open adoption is the goal and is a good thing for the child, the birth parents and the adoptive parents. Admittedly, I am nervous about this aspect, but no more so than I was when I met my in-laws or started a new job. The unknown can always be a source of anxiety, in this case it also leads to the addition a child to our family. We are excited about that and we are also excited to learn about the birth family and work with them to find where we all fit together in our future lives.
Once the adoption is finalized, we make our final payment to the agency in the amount of $15,000 minus previously paid expenses as I outlined. Although initially this seems to be a large amount, if you consider the average cost of a non-complicated vaginal birth is approximately $10,000–$15,000, it actually falls in line with a non-adoptive addition to a family. We also can qualify for tax credits toward the cost and be reimbursed some from both of our employers. In all, the cost is a mere fleeting issue when you consider the joy it will bring long term.
So what’s next you ask? Well next we need to tell our families.
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