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

Hi Vanessa, thanks for sharing!

I wrote an email to our medical aid explaining like you said, that more often than not the adoptions go through after 60 days. Hopefully it will help.

Thanks for your advice and congratulations on your baba! May he continue to be a joy and a delight to you guys!!

Warm regards

Hi Hannah,

I should have explained my reason for asking why you specifically mentioned caucasian babies. We adopted a coloured baby through a private social worker, and if we add up the costs, we come to about the same amount as you, minus the birth related costs. Our SW set out the expected costs of a private adoption from the start, and she was not far off. But this was for the cost of adopting any baby through her, which was why I wondered why you were specific. But I did since realise that it is because realistically, private adoption is the only option for people wanting to adopt a white baby. But the cost actually applies to all private adoptions. As for my comment about paying the birth mom, this was more related to Ilze's story. I meant paying her to influence her to choose you. Pregnancy and birthrelated expenses after you have been chosen are a different matter. If we had met the birthmother, we would have done exactly the same as you.
Sadly, though, there are always people that are trying to exploit these situations. As you said, there are much higher costs elsewhere, such as the eastern country adoptions mentioned by Vanessa. I thank God he led us to our SW, who sounds a lot like yours!
But even a debate like this is good, as others can then compare all our stories, and know they do not have to put up with SWs like Ilze met. A lot of us have had very positive experiences, and like you, we would do it again in a flash! And there are many state SW's that are wonderful, and would never consider doing anything illegal, specially if it could jeopardise the adoption process.

Ilze, I am also sorry you were treated in that way. Are you still persuing adoption?

Pandora, not at the moment. I'm back at a new gynea who start with a lot of new blood tests after the decided it was so nice she is staying, so after 3 months of bleeding I found a doctor that it seems is willing to help and not just looking at my weight.
So we will see what happen after the tests came back and then will decide from there what we gonna do.

Pandora you are right, all private adoptions cost the same regardless of colour. As far as i know all private social workers that belong to SAASWIPP have set rates that they charge.

Pandora how old is your little one?

Sorry Pandora & Michmac, I meant to say that because there are so many babies of other races that are available for adoption a lot of people go the government route and therefore pay as little as R6K for an adoption - many opt to go that route. You do not have that option if you want to adopt a White or Indian child.

Of course the private social workers charge the same as SAASWIPP has set rates (by the way, SAASWIPP has set rates but the private social worker can charge the base rate plus whatever extra expenses she can warrant). BUT there are SO many variables e.g. the amount of counselling sessions, whether there is travelling involved (our SW had to be flown from Cape Town and back 4 times - she stayed in guesthouses, she stayed 8 days with J's birth and we had to rent a car for her), the amount of counselling that is offered to the birthparent(s), amount of court appearances etc. etc. And the birth costs can be astronomical!

Sometimes you can get away with paying as little as R20K for a private adoption and sometimes it costs as much as R80K like we had to pay. What I'm saying is that there is no 'one size fits all' - private adoptions do not all cost the same. Each and every situation, whether it's a private or state adoption, is unique.

All that I was trying to bring across is that people that go the private route should be informed of all the possible costs beforehand and also that you are probably not going to get a White or Indian baby as fast as a Black or mixed race baby. Come to think of it, people adopting through the state should also be informed precisely what they are going to pay for the adoption.

What happened with friends of my sister is that they thought that a private adoption would cost more or less the same as a government adoption. As the service they received from the government social worker was appalling (I'm not surprised the state SW's case loads are ridiculous), they met with a private SW and they were astonished about the difference in cost.

This debate is exactly why I'm writing a book about the topic. There are so many conflicting messages out there and prospective adoptive parents are thrown into the deep end and expected to be olympic swimmers!!

Please let us know if you're reading this and you had a similar/different experience and whether you had a state or private adoption and what you paid for it if you're willing to disclose that information.

Thanks ladies!!

Love,

By the way Michmac, I absolutely LOVE Rebecca's little outfit!!! She looks ADORABLE!!!

Thanks Hannah, how is Sam doing?

He's doing great! I'm almost too scared to say it out loud, but he has been sleeping from 10pm to 5.30am for 5 nights in a row now...... Touch wood!!!! He also picked up a lot of weight, he weighs 3.6 kg already!!

WOW Hannah that is FANTASTIC!!! both the sleeping and the weight he is doing really well. Please tell him to send R a message and tell her to PLEASE SLEEP LOL i have been up alot the last few nights don't know why she's gone back to night bottles but she has. Last night was two full bottles and this from a baby that would hardly drink!! I'm hoping it's some sort of growth spurt and that tonight is better!

Are you on maternity leave?

I will make sure Sam and Becca visit in their dreams so that he can give her some tips ;o)

I'm incredibly blessed to be a stay at home mom. Maybe I'll work again after a while, but at the moment I am just enjoying Sam!! We did wait 7 years for him you know

Hi Michmac,

Leia is 8 and a half months old. Your little Rebecca is too cute! Love the outfit. Did you have her from birth? I notice that now, although L is still sleeping through, it is much harder getting her to sleep, much more fun jumping around the cot than lying in it. Before she used to just drop off after the bottly was empty. Hope you go back to sleeping through soon!

Ilze, I pray you find the right path. Don't ever give up hope! As you see, some of us had a long wait, but it was so worth it.

Hannah, a book is a great idea. The only South African book I found was more a collection of stories with a bit of practical info tagged on. Are you only going to go into the practical side of it? I will total our costs up soon and send them to you. I agree, there are so many different stories around. I see that in some posts on this and other sites, some people get their call literally a week after their assessments, while others, like us, wait for years, and almost give up. But in the case of the 'fast ones', there are often years of TTCing, endless heartache and lots of pain before getting to that point. And although adoption is a wonderful thing, and by the way, you never made it sound negative, I feel that not enough is said in the books I read about some of the emotional costs. When we got our call, we were absolutely terrified! It was the most emotional time of my life, a complete rollercoaster of feelings. It all stopped the second we laid eyes on our chubby little pink bundle. From that second it all just felt so right. But are people sometimes afraid to say that they are scared, because they feel they should be ecstatic? Our SW told us it is more commen for people who waited a long time to take a bit more time to think about it, and to be more conflicted. I also did not know that the adoptive parents also have time to change their minds. As the 60 days were up in our case, by us taking her, this did not make it final, it is only final once the application goes to court. The SW said she would only lodge the application once we asked her to. Well, we fetched L on Friday, Monday the SW lodged the papers! We loved her immediately, and we had bonded by the next day.
I think the fears are normal, after all, parents usually have 9 months to get used to the idea. If you have a pregnant birth mom, you have a few months, but some of us have days! It is scary. How to change your life in 3 days! Despite the fears we had, we have absolutely no regrets. The fears now are the normal ones all parents have. We would adopt again in a flash.

Sam is so cute! Enjoy these early months, they fly by! I always thought this is something people just say, but it is true!

Hannah: congrats on your beautiful bundle of joy. May you be abundantly blessed with him always!

Michmac: regarding SAASWIPP having set rates that they charge: Our BM was still pregnant and I called around to all the SAASWIPP SW's in Cape Town to see who would be best suited to complete our adoption for us. I can honestly say, that the prices ranged from R3 000 - R25 000 and in the end, they would all complete the same task for us: do our screening and write our court report. Not one would outdo the other in this case.
Clearly, we chose on the lower end of the scale, and I firmly believe (as I've been in the system a very long time), that in some cases (not all), SW's are capitalizing on adoptions as there are so many infertile couples out there. One has to do their homework and research thoroughly before embarking on this journey.

I know of some SW's (private care) that will charge you R25 - R30 K and 'claim' that the BM's hospital fees etc were all included in there, and in the meantime, the mommy gave birth in a gov't hospital. Many are legitimate costs, but some can really take you for a ride.

So be weary and research everything in this adoption journey!

Ilse that is terrible, awful! Some people just dont understand the implications to the prospective parent sometimes.

Hannah, private adoption sound VERY expensive (not something i could nearly afford...) What would one be looking at cost wise if you went through a normal agency adoption?

Wow I never realised that it could come to so much to adopt a child. It is always an idea in the back of my mind. As I have said on other posts I would love a Chinese girl - now is white and indian babies are hard to find how hard are chinese babies??? Seems I may be saving for a trip to china....

Hi Kerry,

I honestly think it's going to work out way more expensive than a local private adoption. The only thing is, I think Chinese babies will be more readily available than white or Indian babies here in RSA.

If you are keen on a baby girl. China is the place for you. 98 % of the children up for adoption are female. As you would expect of the People's Republic. Its a bureaucratic process: it takes roughly a year before you can fly to China and have a baby handed over to you in a hotel room. A donation of 1500 pounds to the orphanage plus government fees of 2500 pounds are required (use current exchange rate to convert). Singles and over 50s are not eligible..........