adoption community

Adoption: How Much Does It Cost?

Overwhelmed by the costs of adoption? It may not be quite what you think…

Individuals and couples wishing to have a child but unable to do so naturally typically have two options: adoption or assisted reproduction (ART).  Both options are relatively comparable in cost, with the average price of a domestic adoption in the United States ranging from $20,000-$45,000 and a donor egg pregnancy via in vitro fertilization priced between $20,000-$35,000.  If, however, you require a donor embryo, the cost could be $7,500-$20,000, and gestational carrier/surrogacy can drive the cost from $50,000 to over $100,000.

Assuming, however, you are looking simply at the comparable donor egg option, one important thing to keep in mind is that adoption, unlike assisted reproduction, offers a federal tax credit and many employers offer credits as well.  For a couple with combined annual incomes of less than $180,000, the federal adoption credit could be up to $13,190.  Employer tax credits typically range from $2,000-$5,000 and are offered by companies like SAS, CISCO, IBM, the United States Department of Defense and many others.

I encourage clients to determine first how much these credits will offset their cost of adoption to determine their ‘bottom-line’ cost.

So now that you have done your cost analysis, how do you afford your ‘bottom-line’?  Most adoptive families are middle-income and are able to work out the costs over time.  Options for financing an adoption include:

  • Borrowing against home equity, allowing a deduction while waiting for the tax credit;
  • Borrowing against a retirement or 401K plan
  • Grants and adoption assistance programs through public and private organizations;
  • Asking family members and relatives to assist with cost

Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

E. Parker Herring is a Board Certified Family Law Specialist and managing partner of Herring & Mills, PLLC, a Raleigh family law firm.  Herring is also director of A Child’s Hope, a North Carolina licensed adoption agency.

Do you have a story you’d like to tell?  Email us at blog.ach@foryourlife.com.  Visit us at www.AChildsHope.com, or call our Birth Mother Hotline at 1-877-890-HOPE (4976) so one of our adoption counselors can answer your questions confidentially.

Please remember that this is a public site open to anyone; therefore, anything you post can be seen by anyone.

Indiana Jones meets Ally McBeal – and Adoption Ensues!

It’s a war time love story!

Sal and Kathy met in the Persian Gulf on board a ship.  Kathy was a Navy nurse, and Sal was a Merchant Marine.  It’s an old story – they fell in love during the war and have been together ever since!

Sal is currently a professor at a private university and studied archeology and history, and Kathy is a lawyer with her own small practice.  They love swimming, spending time with family, and being outside.  But mostly they love parenting their adopted son, Christopher, now four years old.

Christopher is not so patiently waiting for a brother or sister.   “I promise I will even share my toys with my new little brother or sister,” says Christopher.  Sal, Kathy and Christopher are anxiously waiting for the phone call to let them know that they have been chosen by a birthmother and a brother or sister for Christopher is on the way!

Thanks to Sal, Kathy and Christopher for allowing us to tell their story!

Do you have a story you’d like to tell?  Email us at blog.ach@foryourlife.com.  Visit us at www.AChildsHope.com, or call our Birth Mother Hotline at 1-877-890-HOPE (4976) so one of our adoption counselors can answer your questions confidentially.

Please remember that this is a public site open to anyone; therefore, anything you post can be seen by anyone.

Anxiously Waiting…

Janice and Leon met at work at a small software company in England. Janice was in accounting, Leon was a traveling software consultant, and they fell in love over Leon’s expense reports. When they were offered an opportunity to come to America, they jumped at it! Janice enjoys baking and photography, while Leon golfs every chance he gets. They travel – Janice’s family lives all over the world, and Leon’s five brothers and sisters are in England – hike, and relax around the house with their 15-year-old calico, Purdy. Even though they don’t have kids of their own…YET…they enjoy playing with their friends’ children and can’t wait to pass on their favorite traditions. Leon’s favorite: Waiting at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning while mom and dad go down to see what Santa and the reindeer had left.

A Bend In The Road

Jeff and Lisa have been married for about 14 years.  The first few years of their marriage, they just enjoyed being with each other.  They wanted to wait to have kids.   However, after numerous doctor visits and medical procedures, they accepted that they wouldn’t be able to conceive.  Jeff and Lisa started exploring adoption through friends who had been through similar issues.  Lisa says, “Our friends were so blessed with a beautiful baby through adoption.  We pray daily that God will answer our prayers.”

Lisa and Jeff spend lots of time outdoors and with their extended families, and they’re very active with the youth group at church.  In addition to Easter egg hunts, Christmas plays and other events, Jeff and Lisa go to church camp at the beach with about 50 kids every year.  They look forward to the day when their own adopted child can go on the trip too!

Thanks to Jeff and Lisa for allowing us to tell their story!

Do you have a story you’d like to tell?  Email us at blog.ach@foryourlife.com.  Visit us at www.AChildsHope.com, or call our Birth Mother Hotline at 1-877-890-HOPE (4976) so one of our adoption counselors can answer your questions confidentially.

Please remember that this is a public site open to anyone; therefore, anything you post can be seen by anyone.

The First Time…!

“One gets only a day or two in an entire lifetime as incredible as the day we saw your face!”

The first time you see your child’s face is a memory that stays with you forever. As an adoptive mother, I’ve had the joy of seeing my two little boys both just hours after their birth.  I think of those first few moments so often and smile each time.

No matter how many precious memories you gather in the year that follow, those first few moments of seeing your baby and knowing that “he is yours to raise” are, to me, frozen in time as if God reached his hand down and said “Stop, remember this moment!”

My oldest son travelled with us when we first saw his brother in the neonatal unit of a Tennessee hospital. This photograph is the moment when they first saw each other. One boy, age four, meeting the newborn boy destined to be his brother.

Do you have a story you’d like to tell?  Email us at blog.ach@foryourlife.com.  Visit us at www.AChildsHope.com, or call our Birth Mother Hotline at 1-877-890-HOPE (4976) so one of our adoption counselors can answer your questions confidentially.

Please remember that this is a public site open to anyone; therefore, anything you post can be seen by anyone.

Adoption Can Be Simply 1+1!

Sharon was 39 years old and wanted a child, but she just hadn’t met Mr. Right.

“Well, I wasn’t sure I was meant to find Mr. Right, but I knew I was meant to be a mom,
Sharon said. “People kept telling me I should adopt, but I was concerned I couldn’t do it on my own.”

Sharon wanted to be a mom, so she followed her heart and signed with our adoption agency. She adopted Katelyn, an African American girl who was born in 2005.

Sharon has faced challenges as a single woman adopting a child, and because Sharon is Caucasian, adopting an African American infant brought on complications.  But thanks to A Child’s Hope, these challenges have been met with love and humor. The result?  A little girl with a very devoted mother.

“Katelyn is a part of me that will always be there,” said Sharon. “She is my daughter, and I am the only mother she has ever known. And she always comes first. Adopting Katelyn is the absolute best thing I have ever done, and I would absolutely do it again.”

The pieces of Sharon’s puzzle have come together – the love she felt for Katelyn rushed into every facet of her life, and she married Mr. Right last year. Yes, Sharon does receive comments from strangers about Katelyn, but she has learned to handle it with humor.

“My favorite comment is when I’m asked if her father was African American,” Sharon said. “I always respond, ‘Yes apparently he was.'”

Do you have a story you’d like to tell?  Email us at blog.ach@foryourlife.com.  Visit us at www.AChildsHope.com, or call our Birth Mother Hotline at 1-877-890-HOPE (4976) so one of our adoption counselors can answer your questions confidentially.

Please remember that this is a public site open to anyone; therefore, anything you post can be seen by anyone.

Are You Afraid?

There is no way around the fact that there is heartache when you place your child for adoption. You will grieve and over time the pain lessens, but you will not forget the loss. It takes courage and trust to place a baby.

It’s important when placing a baby for adoption that you work with a trained adoption counselor before to learn about the grief you will experience and to prepare yourself.  Birthmothers often make keepsake boxes of the baby’s bracelet, by take pictures and writing a letter to the baby saying goodbye.

What helps the most with the heartache is to know that you love your child so much that you have chosen to give him/her the best life possible – something that at the time you are not able to give. Parenting is the biggest challenge all of us face!

Hoping to Share Their Love!

Bill and Priscila met in graduate school during Priscila’s second week in the United States as a visiting student from Brazil.  After dating for awhile, Bill tried to propose to Priscila in Portuguese.  He mangled the translation, but she understood the ring, and they’ve been happily married since 2004.  In 2008,  Bill and Priscila adopted their son, Thomas through A Child’s Hope.

They like to play at parks and playgrounds, go to museums and swim at the nearby pool.  They also enjoy reading and listening to music together.  Thomas speaks both English and Portuguese and sometimes translates sentences into Portuguese if his Brazilian grandmother doesn’t understand!

Bill and Priscila can’t wait to add one more member to the family, and Thomas is ready to share his parents with a brother or sister who will join his forever family through adoption.  They will also be our featured waiting adoptive family of the week this Saturday. Click here to see their complete web site.

Thanks to Bill, Priscila and Thomas for allowing us to tell the story of their adoptive family.

Do you have a story you’d like to tell?  Email us at blog.ach@foryourlife.com.  Visit us at www.AChildsHope.com, or call our Birth Mother Hotline at 1-877-890-HOPE (4976) so one of our adoption counselors can answer your questions confidentially.

Please remember that this is a public site open to anyone; therefore, anything you post can be seen by anyone.

Celebrating an Angel!

Today we give thanks to our own angel who for 8 years helped us care for our babies! Last year Anne Heath, MSW, retired as a respite care provider after 8 years of working with our agency, providing in home care for newborns for the seven (7) day period when the baby left the hospital and then was placed a week later with adoptive parents. Anne, who worked her day job at Catholic Charities while caring for babies, loved the job, despite the sleepless nights, feedings, and diaper changes.

Anne’s presence was always welcomed. We always received photos where she had spent time with the baby with stuffed animal and she lovingly gave a photo scrapbook to the family on placement day, as well as a detailed log of feedings and events during the waiting period. Anne would come to placement and talk to the adopting parents about the baby’s schedule, likes and dislikes. She would come to placements, hand over the baby and then safely adjust car seats, give a hands on lesson in diapering, feeding and swaddling.

Anne has and continues to touch the lives of  so many, as a Nun with the Catholic church, as a social worker and all of the families that she helped create with her volunteer work as a respite care provider.

She cared for over 79 babies during her time as a respite care provider over 16 years, and each child is remembered with love by her.  And when a baby stayed with Ann, there was always a quiet visit to church while Anne attends Mass!

A big thank you to Anne for letting us share her story!

Do you have a story you’d like to tell?  Email us at blog.ach@foryourlife.com.  Visit us at www.AChildsHope.com, or call our Birth Mother Hotline at 1-877-890-HOPE (4976) so one of our adoption counselors can answer your questions confidentially.

Please remember that this is a public site open to anyone; therefore, anything you post can be seen by anyone.

A Time for Gratitude!

Great things are happening here at A Child’s Hope.  Our new website is up and generating positive interest.  Our Facebook page is perking along and generating lots of likes.  Our blog is gaining followers.  And best news of all, one of our waiting families has been contacted by a potential birth mother through their website created by Hal Kaufman at My Adoption Advisor.  None of this would be possible without you all.  So:

Thank you Hal Kaufman and his team at My Adoption Advisor for creating our waiting parents’ websites, and for advising us on our new marketing plan!

Thank you Joanna Ivey at Our Chosen Child for creating our waiting parents’ profiles, you never disappoint!

Thank you Sarah Shehata and her team at SMC Pros for building our Facebook page and working with us on our advertising campaign!

Thank you Leigh Silverstein of TWTH Consulting for designing our new website and for working with us as we learn to maintain it ourselves!

Thank you to Jenny Halasz of JLH Marketing and her team of optimizers who generated the awesome list of keywords that is getting us found in searches!

Thank you to our adoption counselors for staying in touch with birth mothers and waiting families.  The adoption process is hard, but your presence and support makes it easier on everyone!

Thank you to our past placed families for letting us tell your stories on our blog and Facebook page.  Your stories provide such encouragement to our waiting families.  Our program works, and YOU ARE PROOF!

Thank you to our currently waiting families for your courage and bravery as we step out onto the World “WILD” Web to help you build the family you long for.

A Child’s Hope is a community with the goal of matching children with adoptive families.  Each one of you is a vital member of our community, and we thank you for your involvement!

Do you have a story you’d like to tell?  Email us at blog.ach@foryourlife.com.  Visit us at www.AChildsHope.com, or call our Birth Mother Hotline at 1-877-890-HOPE (4976) so one of our adoption counselors can answer your questions confidentially.

Please remember that this is a public site open to anyone; therefore, anything you post can be seen by anyone.

Birthmother Hotline: (877) 890-4673

Envia Un Texto: (919) 218-6270

Text: Pregnant to (919) 971-4396