The company sounds great. They usually have 90-120 families waiting to adopt, and generally make about 50 placements a year. Those are pretty good odds. And their moms are generally a little more put together, a little older, and they don't do any crisis situations or special needs. All of that sounded really great, until we got to the payment sheet. Their fees are pretty standard among private open adoption firms. It goes something like this:
- $275 for your start up fee
- $2300 for homestudy
- $8000 for the organization to advertise you, and find you a match
- Birthmother fees $0-2000
- Legal fees $2000-3000
All in all, their total came to $12-17k. But most private adoptions in California average $15k-28k. Which means at this rate, it'll be another 6-7 years before we can even start.
We'll sign up with LDS FS, but their placement seems very low, since there are a lot of families who want babies, and not a lot of babies. But it's way cheaper. I think it's $100 for start up and $1000 or $1200 for homestudy. Plus they cap what you pay based on income.
I'm also going to look into Fost-adopt. I know they are not expensive, but I think it's harder to come by non-special needs babies.
I've mostly gone into free fall since that meeting. It just seems like there is no way: we can afford it, or (if we can afford it) we would get chosen. It's a pretty hopeless feeling.
