7.08.2010

adoption costs

I have crazy dreams. Last night, in dreamland, we won the lottery and I was thrilled.  If you knew my stance on the lottery you'd know I wouldn't ever want to win one. I firmly believe you change, the people around you change and your life changes--more for the bad than good. My husband and I disagree on this but, regardless, that's how I feel. So when we won (in my dream) I was thrilled. I quit working and concentrated on my photography. My husband quit working and went to school full time to get a physics degree. The dream got odd was when we chose our first big "spend" to be international adoption. Not a house (which I'd love a bigger house + yard), not a car, no big vacay. We wanted to adopt internationally and, now that money was no issue, we wanted to pursue that immediately.

I have a serious problem with this dream. Why in the crap does international adoption have to be so expensive? I'm mad about it. There are costs incurred no doubt but why $25,000+?! There are so many loving families that can not wait to add to their families through adoption and they can not afford to do so. As Declan started to near 2 years old we had the "domestic vs international" talk severals times. My heart burst when I think of children in orphanages waiting for a family. We deeply desire to adopt internationally and hope in the future that may financially be in our cards. Until then, I will sulk over my dream and hope that some day- maybe someday- adoption will be more affordable.

4 comments:

Crista said...

I had always thought domestic adoption would cost so much more than international. I guess the scary part of domestic is not knowing how much that cost might vary depending on circumstances. We started our domestic journey after the wait times in China jumped up so much.

I love the new look for the blog!

KLTTX said...

Its saddens me that all adoptions are so expensive. I know that it keeps a lot of people who want to adopt (either domestically or internationally) from doing it. The biggest expense of our latest adoption is by far the travel expenses. We are in a relatively new country and doing things independently so there are not a lot of expenses outside of the travel.

Marilyn said...

I agree with you! We are really interested in international adoption as well but the expense is plain old crazy! It makes me sad!

All I can say is I am thankful for Nebraska Children's Home Society--they made it feasible for us to go through the adoption process--wish more people had organizations like that in their city/state.

Rebekah said...

It's crazy!!! We have friends that just adopted internationally and they talked about how difficult it was to leave the other hundred children in such a dank orphanage. It's infuriating. I can understand $7-8000 for paperwork and fees. $30,000 is ridiculous.