The Adoption Process

I realize that many readers will have been there, done that - but for those of my friends who have no connection to the adoption world, what do you think about when you hear that adoption is expensive ? 

Do you know WHY it costs so much - do you know where the money goes ? 

I'll admit - I never did, until I started following the adoption journeys of others - I have watched so many families scrimp, save and fundraise entire adoptions - and when they say that every donation counts, even the smallest ones - I have seen how true that is !!

While we are not actively fundraising yet - we'll wait until after Christmas - we have already paid out more than $8000 for our adoption- and there's still a long long way to go !!  
I will list below our expenses so far, so you can see where the money all goes.  

Now - I am in no way doing this to solicit donations, it is purely so you can learn a little bit about how international adoption works - and maybe, if another friend decides to adopt, you can throw a few dollars their way, or donate items to their fundraising auction - or help in some other way !

I will also try and explain the steps we've taken so far, the agencies we are dealing with, and what they do. I am in no way an expert, though - I am most definitely learning as we go along !

Firstly, Sealey was listed as available for adoption on Reece's Rainbow's web site.  Their goal is to raise grants to aid in the international adoption of children with Down Syndrome and other special needs.  Sealey is over the age of 10, so is eligible for a $10,000 grant, which will help immensely !!

In order to set up a "Family Sponsorship Program" page (aka FSP) with Reece's Rainbow, they ask for a $25 donation, as well as a $250 "love offering", which goes into the general fund that helps keep the organization running. 

The FSP is basically a page that introduces us, shows who we are adopting, and is also a place tax deductible donations to our adoption grant can be made. It also shows what stage of the adoption process we are at.
  
You can find our FSP HERE. 

Our next expense ($900) was signing on with Hand of Help in Adoption - this is a team of dedicated individuals who assist firstly in the compiling of the "Dossier", and are then the people who help adoptive families every step of the way once they are in the child's country - they assist with travel, translators, accommodation, dealing with the bureaucracy - pretty much everything.

Once we are in country, we will hand them a huge chunk of change - but it will be worth every penny !!

However, before we can do anything else, we need to complete our home study.  This is basically a document that lays out our entire life - it is what enables us to adopt - without it, we are going nowhere fast !!  Contrary to popular belief, a home study is not merely a visit by a social worker to check on your home.  While this is indeed a part of it, the biggest part is what comes first - the paperwork.  

We spent about 3 weeks gathering various pieces of paper that show we are worthy of adoption.

We had to have Child Abuse registries checked in every place we have lived since we were 18.

We had to be fingerprinted ($112), and send those fingerprints to our state's Division of Criminal Investigations ($72), and the FBI ($180), for background checks.

We had to get letters from our employers confirming we actually work there.

We had to get TB tests and medicals, with letters from our doctors stating we are healthy enough to adopt a child (thankfully, most medical stuff has been covered by insurance so far).

As we have an extra adult (my husband's sister) in the household, she, also, had to be fingerprinted, have background checks done, and get a TB test.

Our 14 year old son had to be checked on the child abuse registry, get a TB test, and have a physical.

This has all been done before we were even assigned a social worker, who will be the person who meets us, interviews us, checks out our home, and actually writes the home study !!

Oh - and the cost of the home study - we paid a $300 application fee, and then $2500 for the actual home study.

As well as a home study agency, we also need an oversight agency.  This is needed because we are adopting from a "non-Hague" country. In other words, it is not part of the Hague Convention, which protects the rights of children and ensures there is no corruption involved in the adoption process. Here's how the Department of Homeland Security define it -

"The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Hague Adoption Convention) is an international treaty that provides important safeguards to protect the best interests of children, birth parents, and adoptive parents who are involved in intercountry adoptions"

So - as our country is non-Hague, we need an oversight agency to ensure that everything is done correctly, and of course, they need our money, too.

There was an application fee of $250, and a first fee of $2200. There will be another payment due when we are further into the process.

The oversight agency also ensured we did our adoptive parent education, which is required for everyone planning on adopting. 

Did I mention the Department of Homeland Security ? Yes - they, too, need a piece of the action - they, too, make sure that we are eligible to be adoptive parents. Their fee was $775, plus $255 for more fingerprinting.

As well as the bigger fees listed above, there has been a lot of smaller stuff, which soon adds up (obtaining copies of birth/marriage certificates, postage to various entities, insurance co-pays). Also, we have to print out numerous paperwork and forms,  - so add the cost of printer ink and paper to the list.  

After the home study is prepared by our social worker, and checked by the facilitation team and oversight agency, it is sent to the Dept. of Homeland Security, who will hopefully approve us to adopt.

The next step is to prepare our "dossier".  This is a whole bunch of paperwork that is required by the foreign government's adoption department, which, along with our homestudy, will be sent over, translated, and submitted for them to approve us to adopt from their country.

All of the paperwork included in the dossier has to be notarized, and then apostilled. An apostille is an official seal that certifies the authenticity of the notary's signature and seal.  All notarized documents have to be sent to the Secretary of State in Pierre to obtain this special seal - at the cost of $25 per document. We already have had 8 documents apostilled ($200). 
Thankfully, there is a $250 cap - so when more than 10 documents are apostilled at once, it should only cost us another $250.  

So - we have to have our homestudy approved by our government, then our dossier approved by Sealey's government.  They then set an appointment for us in their adoption department, which is when we first travel to Sealey's country.  At that appointment, they will - all being well - give us the go ahead to go to his institution and meet him. We will then return home, and wait for a court date, when we will travel over there again to appear in court and ask to adopt him.  Once the judge says yes, there is a 30 day wait before the adoption is final - we would travel home again for this wait - then fly back there to finally spring him from the institution, and then spend some time obtaining his medicals, passports and all that fun stuff.  

Since starting to write this post,  we have actually almost completed our home study, we are just waiting for a couple more pieces of paperwork, and our home study will be notarized and sent off for approval - so the first stage is almost complete !!!



We're coming for you, Sealey !!!