My wife and I have five adopted daughters. Two were adopted as infants in private adoptions arranged by lawyers for young women who, as a matter of choice, wished to select the kind of family in which to place their children. We never met either of these women, but have been forever grateful to them for their gift of two of our daughters. Because these adoptions were handled by different firms, and occurred two years apart, I am pretty certain one cost more than the other. To tell you the truth though, I don’t remember which one cost more. After 30 years, I have not retained the records.
Eight years later, we adopted three Korean orphan sisters, then 12, 9 and 7. Because this was an international adoption, it was far more expensive then the other two whether considered as a whole or on a per child basis. Of course all know all of the details they have wanted to know about their adoptions, but, until tonight, I had never thought about the cost of the adoption process as having any relevance whatever.
All of my daughters are now grown, well adjusted and educated as far as they wanted to be. Four are married to fine young men. Not once have any of them or their husbands asked about how much it cost to adopt them.
From my admittedly small sample, I just don’t believe fees are a central issue in most adoptions, either to adopters or adoptees. I suggest that the author get some professional advice before she needlessly upsets her adopted child.
