Today Is A Great Day To Complain
Today feels like a great day to complain.
Why you ask?
Because today is a very significant day in our adoption journey.
Today these are our realities:
- We officially finished paying for about half of the costs of our adoption.
- We still have another small fortune to pay and we are not entirely sure how we will do it.
- We are paying nearly all our adoption bills in US dollars and the Canadian dollar is currently sitting at an 11 year low. Effectively this is upping the cost of our adoption by about 1/3 more then we ever anticipated.
- We still are not matched or placed. We are just waiting day in and day out.
Today, I feel ridiculously broke and I have nothing to show for it.
Needless to say, I think today is a good day to complain about adoption. My complaints are rather simple:
- I will never understand how the adoption agencies can in good conscious quote us $25,000-$50,000 USD for an adoption and then continue to raise the fees once we agreed to the initial price and are essentially forced to work with them and pay whatever they say.
- I will never understand why people like Mr. MPB and I, who will do almost anything to love and care for a child are forced to pay about $80,000 USD to adopt 1 child. I will never
understand how our system accepts this as reasonable. I will never understand how our society is letting lawyers and agencies profit off the complex situation that is adoption. - I will never be okay with the fact that we are financially able to adopt (it’s not easy but we are making it work, at least so far), but many others will never even be able to consider it. The financial aspects of adoption make it nearly impossible for many people to even consider it and it does not treat adoptive parents equally. In my humble opinion, the system is horribly broken.
- The Hague Convention is in large part designed to protect vulnerable children and birth parents in respect to international adoption. And yet when I see our bills continually rise, I cannot help but feel like we are participating in some sort of human smuggling ring. It literally makes me sick to my stomach and makes me question our choices.
- I will never be okay with the fact that every penny we are spending right now will directly correlate to the amount of money we will have for our child’s future and education. It’s just not okay.
- I hate that one day my child will ask me how much we paid for them, because nearly all adopted children do at some point. I hate that any child will ever ask this question.
- I always wanted two children, somehow I just cannot see that as being part of our future. And I hate that our decision will be based in solely on money.
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My Perfect Breakdown 
You are right. It is all so unfair. Ugh. The financial aspect is just yet another thing about this road that can beat us down. If I ever strike it rich, I will send you loads of money. At lest you have that very minuscule chance in the back of your mind :). Hugs.
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I know i talk in relation to adoption, but I know the costs of IVF, surrogacy, gestational carrier, etc., well they all are unfair!
It’s a deal, if I strike it rich, I will send you loads of money to help you too!! Here’s to hope, may it always help lift us up! 🙂
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Amen!!!
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Yes, yes, yes to all of the above. I just can’t wrap my brain around any of it, and it’s a large reason why I still haven’t pursued adoption. Even as a US citizen, we are looking at the same cost to adopt, $25-50k. And I just can’t help but feel like my desperation to be a mother is being taken advantage of.
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I think the feeling that our desperation to be parents is being taken advantage of is 100% accurate. I do believe, like almost everything in the world, people have figured out how to profit off others hardships and desperation. This is just unfair and cruel. I’m sorry you understand it so well.
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And this is exactly why we feel stuck. Do we keep pursuing IVF, seeking an end result that may never be? Do we adopt and likely drain our savings, beg our family for money and go into debt? Or do we accept the fate the universe has given us and live childless and spend our money on us. Most days, they ALL seem like terrible options! In other words, I feel your struggle!
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I hate how so many people don’t realize how much it costs. Oh just adopt comes out of their mouths so easily. There is no doubt that the international adoption process is very limiting in terms of who can afford it. You are making such a huge commitment – not only emotionally to love and protect and nurture this child as your own – but also financially. I struggle with the lack of regulation in the industry and hope one day it’s a smoother process (although at that point you will already have your little one home)
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All very valid reasons to be upset and frustrated. It absolutely shouldn’t cost that much to try to adopt a child. It’s sad, and wrong. I hope that we don’t find ourselves in the situation where we HAVE TO turn to adoption to grow our family, solely because there’s really no way that we could afford that. I don’t think they have adoption loans to help out, a least not that I’ve heard of. I’m so sorry that you’re in this position, and that you’re so frustrated by it. I wish there was some way that I could help. *hugs*
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It’s so true and incredibly unfair. Planning a family based (almost) solely on finances just really sucks.
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I can not even claim to understand, but can’t help but be excited anyway…for that little one only known today by God…just waiting for YOU. XO
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I wholeheartedly agree with all of your complaints. I do think the system is broken. $80,000 for an adoption is ABSURD. Especially when you were quoted another price. The cost is really scary. That is the main reason Tim is hesitant about it, and why so many others can’t even entertain the thought. It is really sad because there are so many good potential parents out there that are losing this opportunity to make their dreams of a family come true. I hope you find a way to make a second kid possible at some point — I say just take it one day at a time for now. You never know what the future might hold. And who knows, maybe you’ll be matched with twins this time (does that happen?)!
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Adoption should never have turned into an industry, and it is exactly that – agencies and lawyers profiting off of people – birth mothers and adoptive parents alike. It is morally reprehensible and shouldn’t be the case. I am so sorry that you have to pay so much money to become a parent. In an ideal world, adoption wouldn’t cost you anything beyond legal fees to make everything final.
Complain away! I sure as hell would, too.
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From experience close to me at the moment and one from 20ish years ago I don’t believe the birth moms in our country who go with private agencies to adopt out pay anything. Just the adoptive parent(s). Maybe other agencies differ but the biggest ones in the 2 provinces I know that’s how it works. Birth moms pay in tears and lifelong depression or at least those I have known. Total racket. And totally heart wrenching in 1000 different ways. For everyone.
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As an adoptive mother, I pray daily that isn’t the case for our birthmother. We never met her at her request so I can’t know. But I do know adoption can be a beautiful and wondrous thing, and not quite the bleak picture you describe.
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I think the rainbows and golden halos are rare but some birth moms do have better experiences than others. Most still suffer however.
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They don’t pay anything, but they are preyed upon for their babies so the agencies make a profit.
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Yep.
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Yes! I wonder how it all spiraled out of control?
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This is truly sad. I get so angry inside when I see and think of these things. We live in a country with children who need homes but our social system will do nothing to severe the parental ties to the unfit and therefore leaving our extra bedrooms empty due to the almighty $. Hugs.
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Word! Preach it sister. The financial aspect is exactly why we’re not considering adoption, and it really bugs me when friends/family/therapists just gloss over that. That money could and should be used for the child’s future, not for a lawyer’s boat. Adoption shouldn’t just be for the upper middle class.
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Money makes family-building decisions for so many couples – no justice in that. And a lot of what you describe is why I use the word “abusive” when referring to the adoption racket, which is not entirely dissimilar from those profiting off of surrogacy, where the agency gets almost as much money as the woman carrying the baby. Crazy. But this is the world we live in.
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Thank you so much for blogging so honestly about all of this. I’ve always wanted to adopt but when we were ready to start a family it just came down to biological children being the more affordable option. Now that we are struggling with recurrent miscarriage, adoption may be our only option and my main hesitation is the financial aspect. Thank you for your honesty and I hope that you get placed soon! I am rooting for you!
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Having spent over $80K in USD myself to have our little baby A and feeling super stressed about the resulting debt I’m now repaying and juggling while on mat leave, I can relate. Infertility whether of its own accord or due to RPL issues is cruel enough. Disable us with debt if we are fortunate enough to be able to even get credit enough to incur the debt and it becomes something even more grotesque. That said, you could adopt at home for very little cost. Have you and Mr. MPB considered registering with the provincial government where you live for an agency outside the private for-profit agency you’re using? I mean you could do that now for kid #2 even as the wait can be long but the cost very low proportionately speaking.
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Yeah all that totally sucks. Of isn’t right that the whole thing has been turned into such an “industry”. You are 100% right.
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I had so much to say in response to this that I wrote a whole blog about it. I would like to add a link to this post of yours, but thought I should ask first if it is okay with you.Let me know. The post is called “Boom and Bust in the Baby Business”.
And – sorry for calling you “American” rather than “Canadian” in one of my earlier posts!
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I agree-i think the system is broken and the cost for good willing people to love and care for a child is ludicrous!
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Adoption is an industry. People don’t realize it. I sure didn’t until I was in it. But, it absolutely is. And there is nothing we can do about it because there are so few regulations.
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I am so sorry. I feel your pain. We are approaching two years with timelines slipping into 2017 before the adoption is completed. You are heard, my friend! Thinking of you and hugs sent your way.
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This, among other reasons, is why hearing “why don’t you JUST adopt?” just freakin’ pisses me off on so many levels. I hope you and Mr. MPB get placed soon! ❤
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I’m so sorry it is unfair and wrong and it should be free
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I hear your frustration and pain, especially the sentence in bold. It is grossly unfair, especially when, in most cases, all the parties involved in adoption have already been through so much. Like many others, I also had to rule out adoption for financial reasons. It really saddens me and should not be an acceptable state of affairs in this day and age. I am grateful to people like you for helping to raise awareness. Hoping and wishing that you get placed very soon. Naomi x
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Totally there with you – it seems ridiculous that money is such a barrier to a family! We’re in the midst of IVF and I honestly can’t believe how in debt we are on what is essentially just a chance. It’s a gamble worth taking and I’m grateful we’re in a position to take it, but there are so many others that aren’t. It seems unrighteously unfair.
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You’re right. It is so sad everything comes down to the dollar figure. We looked into overseas adoption before having Little Man (because in Australia it is ridiculously difficult and lengthy to internally adopt). I was shocked at how the expectations put on adoptive parents were so vastly different from biological parents. For example, having the funds and job where you could leave the country for 6 weeks (to go to the adoption country) at a moments notice. To then pay officials over in Thailand or where ever as well as paying for the privilege in Australia. How many countries wouldn’t even contemplate you adopting unless you had an existing fertility issue, particular BMI or were a certain religion. I could go on but it was so heartbreaking for all these conditions to be put upon you it just made me angry. I guess people will always try and make as much money as possible from others desperately trying to obtain something. It’s really sad that the world operates that way.
Personally, if my child asked me how much I had paid for them (such a horrible way to word it too – so sad) I would say it’s irrelevant because being able to raise you was/is priceless. You can’t measure someones worth that way. I guess it opens a dialogue to talk about the system and how you’ve pretty much become a voice for adoptive parents. Maybe even an advocate one day x
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The cost of adoption, and the antics behind it, are maddening to me. I don’t have an issue with people making money doing it – people need to be fairly compensated for their time. It’s still work for people and it can’t, and shouldn’t, be free. But, the layers and layers of people making lots of money from it is upsetting to me. But more upsetting to me is the pressure put on women in this country (USA) to place their babies for adoption. Adoption agencies are vultures here, and they convince these women that their babies will have a better life without them. As you already know, I am not a big fan of USA adoptions and I’d like to see major reform here to control the costs and also protect mothers and babies.
Adoption is a hard road, for all parties involved, and I wish you could get to the end sooner rather than later. It has to be maddening for you.
Ps, don’t even get me started on how the agencies take advantage of adoptive families like what they’re doing to you with the increased costs, etc once you’re signed up. Unacceptable.
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Oh Sweetie, I’m so sorry! You’re right, the cost is absolutely atrocious. And you have every right to complain and vent and get it out. Does Canada have a foster to adopt program at all? That may be the route we go for our 2nd adoption. Depending on finances and being able to give up daycare kids to foster. We are also “lucky” if you can call it that, that our adoption tax credit should help pay for most of our next adoption as long as we don’t have a loan or credit card to pay off from this one. I think it’s horrible that your fees went up pretty much as soon as you started this process. It’s one thing if you’ve been in it a year and they raise their fees, but don’t tell me they didn’t know they were going to do a fee raise before you signed. That’s like me telling a family that it’ll be $150/week for their baby and they sign the contract and 2 weeks later, I raise it to $175. I would never do that.
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Yes!! So much agreement!
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