The astonishing cost of private adoption (not for the fainthearted!)

Hallo everyone,

Well, John and I did the final reconciliation of our adoption costs and I am shocked to say the least!

Here's a broad overview of the cost of Sam's adoption:

• Social worker & court fees R25,000.00
  Birthmother misc. (gifts, vitamins, hospital pack etc) R 5,000.00
  Birthparents airtime R 1,700.00
  Birthparents monthly payment for rent & food R15,000.00
  Birthmom doctor's visits, blood tests & meds R 4,500.00
  Hospital fees C-section + private room R20,000.00
  Delivery: Doctor's fee R 6,000.00
  Anesthetist R 3,000.00
  Pediatrician R 1,500.00
  Total cost for Adoption: R 81,700.00

I think it's IMPERATIVE that prospective adoptive parents, especially with private adoptions, know what they are in for financially.

Of course our little boy's presence in our lives can never be 'paid for' but the fact of the matter is that private adoption is NOT a cheap option.

I'm not complaining, just sharing facts!

Wow that is really scary hey. Cannot believe it. Does your MA not cover any costs?

Nope, unfortunately not! Sam is on our medical aid as soon as the 60 days are up, which is middle January next year. Until then it's pay up and smile!

MA's doesnt do anything! Nothing
Sjoe Hannah it is rather expensive.

Wow Hannah! Scary!

I think this is very unfair to expect from the adoptive parents to pay things like airtime and food and rent. I know its the adoptive parents right to say if they are willing to pay that but it was made clear to us, the more we are willing to pay the sooner we will be chosen.

So thats why we didn't go the private route.

and then they say you don't buy a child. Sorry I know some might not agree with me, but my eyes opened during our process.

Hi Hannah,

Why do you specifically say this is for a caucasian baby? Just curious. You may remember we adopted our daughter after 60 days were up, so we were not liable for birth costs etc, just social worker fees and her care for the 60 days. But as you say, the costs add up quickly, and people do need to be warned. I am also surprised, Ilze, that you were told that! Don't blame you for not going down that route. We were never told this by our social worker, luckily. Unfortunately, there are some people out there very willing to take advantage of the situation. In any case, I thought it was not legal to pay the birthmother? Or is this just something they say?

Pandora, it was almost said in so much words to us, if you have money and is willing to pay then it is ovious your'e the one getting the next baby.

Unfortanatly we didn't have a great experions with our SW, so it scared us big time.

Hi Ladies!

I want to emphatically state that our social worker is 100 % above board. She is the most ethical, professional and honest SW we have ever dealt with (believe you me, we have dealt with a few of them) and I will recommend her in a heartbeat. It was also never said to us that we would get the baby if we had the money! She told us right from the start that she doesn’t source babies for parents, she finds parents for babies and as such she will match a baby with parents that are suitable for the baby, not the other way around.

The bottom line is: Private adoptions are expensive! And they are even more expensive if you deal with the birthparents for a prolonged length of time, like we had to. We were responsible for all their legitimate expenses for a period of five months. Every single expense paid by us was legitimate and above board. The Children’s Act definitely makes provision for the payment of certain expenses of the birthparents. It was our choice for the birthmom to have the baby in a private hospital. The provincial hospital in her area is absolutely atrocious and I don’t care if we have to pay off our debt for the rest of our lives, but our baby was NOT going to be born in that dump!!!

We had to keep track of every single expense and I still have every receipt for all the things we paid for the birthparents. I also had to keep a spreadsheet detailing every expense and I had to send this through to the social worker on a weekly basis. We did the last reconciliation together with our SW last Friday.

Our adoption was done ethically, legally and morally correct and every single expense was checked, double-checked and approved by the commissioner of child welfare as well as the magistrate of the family court. We wouldn’t dream to pay for something that we were not allowed to pay for. That would jeopardize the adoption and that would be stupid.

Pandora, the unfortunate reality is that White and Indian babies are very, very scarce and every single government institution will tell you that a) they don’t have any White babies available whatsoever or b) their waiting lists for White babies are closed. Heck, there are even some private agencies that will tell you that!! Believe me; I have spoken to them all! With state adoptions (read, the adoption of Black and Mixed Race babies) there are seldom costs involved with regards to the birthparents. Also, a lot of agencies only place a child for adoption after the 60 day waiting period which again means that there are no expenses for the birthparents that need to be paid by the adoptive parents.

I never wanted to sound negative about adoption, because I certainly am not. Our son is the best thing that has EVER happened to us and he has changed our lives for the good. If I have to, I will do it all over again!! I just feel that it is only fare to prospective adoptive parents to be informed about the possible costs they may incur. Our social worker did tell us to keep the financial sacrifices in mind; we just never thought that it would turn out to be this expensive. I wrote this thread to open prospective adoptive parents’ eyes to the costs they may incur. I wish somebody did this for me, even if it was only to soften the blow once it came!

I want to reiterate that our private social worker has been extremely professional and honest from the get go. She never made promises she couldn’t keep and she was brutally honest about the journey we were about to embark on. She had and still has loads of compassion for the birthmom - she phones her once a week, sometimes twice. She keeps in touch with us and she is doing a home visit again in January to make sure that we are coping with our little bundle of joy and that everything is still in order. She is extremely dedicated and John and I sat down and worked out that she earned a little over R36 per hour for our adoption in total. That is NOTHING if you think about all the work she has done - especially if you take the travelling time into regard. Social work, even for private social workers, is definitely not a money making business!!

If you take the fact that they had to place their baby for adoption and all the medical costs involved out of the equation, the people that benefited the most from this adoption moneywise are the birthparents. And let’s be realistic, how much is R20 000 really if you have to live off of it for 5 months??!!! That’s R4 000 per month for them to be able to make a living. We certainly wouldn’t make it with that little money!

I know we are not supposed to ‘support’ them but the sad reality is that these people are in dire financial difficulty and that except for the little money the birthmom earned waitressing, ours were the only money they had (the birthfather is unemployed). I wanted my baby to have the best nutrition, so I had to make sure his mom ate well. I wanted him to be safe, so I had to contribute to her rent. I wanted to make sure the birthmom could phone the social worker for support or the doctor for medical advice at any time, so I bought her airtime.

It can hardly be equated to ‘buying a baby’. Friends of ours in the United States adopted a little girl about 2 years ago. Their situation could definitely be considered as buying a baby - in total they spend over R250 000 on the adoption! Now that’s a lot of money!!

Our whole adoption journey was a wonderful experience and I realize that we are blessed beyond words for everything to have gone so well. As I’ve said, I only wanted to create awareness of what private adoptions may cost.

Hope everything’s a bit clearer now!

Love,

Hannah, please don't understand me wrong, I knew it was your choise to support the birthparents and I do believe you when you say your SW did everything by the book.

Unfortanatly there is alot of sw's that don't work according to the book, things where said to us and later when we asked about it she would just said she never said that or we misunderstood. Her intentions was not clear from the beginning.

We where more than willing to pay the medical expenses but it was also said to us that we have to support the birthmom for the whole time she was at the "tehuis", they set an amount that must be paid to her and then also an amount that go for the house itself and then after the adoption was finalised they also asked for a donation and if your not willing to pay then sorry you don't get a baby. It is everyone choice to pay what they want, but we didn't have that kind of money and even if we had we would rather did a IVF or two.

I asked our sw directly would the church we attend be a problem as the company was establish through a sertain church, which she asure me as long as we are christens and attend church regularly there would not be a problem. In the end that was a problem for her. Also she told us we where to much overweight although we are healthy and we might have a problem in 10 years time. But in the mean time they place a baby to another couple who is also in our church but when they adopt there first child they where in the other church that they worked with and the woman is bigger than me and her husband was over the cutting age.

So yah, I'm glad everything worked out for you, but all these things still let me feel some people is in it to 'sell" babies. Now I know she is not private so she get a monthly salary from her company but she is definatly not honest with us.

It's absolutely awful - I'm so sorry you had such a bad experience Ilze!

Oh my that is alot of money, but so worth it ...

That is unbelievably expensive and breaks my heart.

Thing is, I was at one point in my pregnancy where I seriously thought about giving Z up (I had a specific OPM member in mind I wanted to contact about this) but luckily my parents stepped in an helped me out. I think white and indian babies are less available because its no longer really a shame to have a baby out of wedlock (although I deal with the stigma enough in every day life)?

Hi there

While we were in the 60 days our son was placed on our medical aid. ( Discovery ) I did hear someone else was declined but then after enquiring further was accepted. Don't let your medical aid get away with this. Your child is your dependent so should legally be allowed on your medical aid. We had to go through a lot to get the same baby benefits as babies born to parents, but eventually after a lot of mails and communication and explaining to them that often adoptions take place after 60 days, that it was not a fair requirement.

Thanks for sharing your costs. It is a lot. But compared to going for an overseas (say Russia) adoption for a caucasian baby its not that bad. We decided we'd love to have a mixed race baby and he is now the joy of our lives.

Congratulations again on your son.