Birth Mother Expenses

Adoption fees can sometimes be crazy. Registration fees, homestudy fees, admin fees, agency fees, finalization fees, attorney's fees. You feel like there is a vacuum cleaner next to your wallet and its sucking all of your money out. One of the fees that you run into is the birth mother fees. Now these are fees that pay for the birth mother expenses such as utilities, rent, etc. while she is pregnant and can't work.

Here are some things you might want to realize:
1) Not all agencies have birth mother fees. My agency does not
2)Most birth mother fees are "at risk" meaning that if the birth mother backs out of the adoption, you have lost whatever fees you paid her. Be careful here because that could be almost 1/3 of your adoption budget.
3)Keep your own records. If the agency pays something to the birth mother, then make sure you know how much. Some agencies are in this for the money so watch yourself. There is a ton of money going in and out of these agencies. Also don't get scammed by an agency that says they are Christian agency. My first child's Christian agency was shutdown. Do your research. check the Better Business Bureau for complaints against that agency. My wife and I are with a Christian agency now and love it. There are good agencies out there.

Best of luck and let me know how I can help

Toddler Sayings

Understanding children can sometimes be challenging and other times it is cute. I thought I would share some of my sons vocabulary.

chichen and wies - Chicken and Fries
stick - Popsicle
facee - Pacifier
Dragon - Dinosaur - Really it means to turn on the Land Before Time video
Marney - Barney

Waiting times

So you have filled out all of your paperwork. You have completed your home study. You have taken the physical and have your fingerprints back at the agency. Everything looks good. The agency tells you you're active. What is the average wait time. The answer is "It depends." What does it depend on. Well you have to be chosen by a birth mom. Well how long does that take? Weeks to Years. I have heard of people being active for a week and I have heard of couples being active for 2 years. It all depends on the agency.

On our first agency, they had the one year and under category. That was basically if your budget was huge. So that is saying that you have a standard costs and then there is the Birth Mom funds for things such as rent, utilities, etc. If the birth mom had a lot of expenses, then that was passed to the adoptive couple. So if your budget for Birth Mom expenses was say $5,000 and a birth mom had $8,000 in expenses, then you would not be chosen. The bigger your budget, the more birth moms that the agency could expose you to. Or so we were told. Then they had the second category for everyone else. Lower budget = longer wait. Note that this is not the case with all agencies. Choose your agency wisely.

Other items such as what you are open to might also extend your waiting time. So lets say you are not open to mothers with a history of alcoholism, or drugs. Or you don't want to consider multiples, or maybe a sibling group. Or you want a particular race of child. Being as open as possible is best. You also don't want to be open for something you are not ready for. For example: I have heard of a couple that was willing to consider hispanic babies but when they saw the child, said the baby was too dark. That situation was not good for the couple, the agency or the birth mom. Know your limits.

Preparing the kid for the next event

Being a first time parent. I am still learning how to do this. Regardless of what think I know, I continue to learn about being a better parent. One of the things that we have learned is to prepare Aiden for what's next. This might be obvious to the rest of you parents. But we tell him, 5 more minutes and we are going to get out of the bath and go get some milk. Or say goodbye to all of your friends and we are going to go home. Kids seem to need the transition and it works well for him. It has really cut down on a lot of frustration on his part and ours.

He is two this year and he is very strong willed. He likes to know where everyone is. Another thing that helps is to tell him the truth. So before I leave for work in the morning, I tell him where I am going. Now he tells people, Daddy's at work. He is visiting with Nana and Papa this week. He asked Nana the other day, "Where's Mommy?" Nana told him, Mommy's at your house but you're with Nana and Papa and we love you very much. Aiden said, "I love ya'll too". Just as plain as day. Gotta love that as a Dad.

Adopting Again

My wife and I are adopting our second child. While it is still a daunting task, there are some things that are going more smoothly. If you followed this blog, you know that we went through the foster system first and then chose to go the agency adoption route. While I wouldn't recommend this, the bonus was that we had already gotten our physicals back at the beginning of the year. We also had our fingerprints done. In addition, we only had to get our homestudy updated from our first adoption. This saves a lot of time and money. If you are adopting for the second time, see if your agency will update your first homestudy like we did. Let me tell you that another bonus is that since we have already walked down the adoption path, we are a lot less stressed about this one. Our agency is Christian and we went to the first of two training sessions and they opened up with prayer and then a devotion. That was unreal. The agency also does something a little different than our last agency. For most of their adoptions, you don't show up at the hospital for the birth. The baby is born and given to a private "foster" home who keeps the baby for the 10 day waiting period for the mother's right of redemption. After the 10 days, they call you and present the baby to you. The money is due when this happens. All the other agencies we checked into wanted the money up front. This is truly a change. If you are considering adopting again, then ask the questions about your homestudy being updated vs having a new one. This could save you some money because you will need that for diapers :)

Checklist for baby

So you know you are going to adopt a baby but have no idea of how to prepare for the new arrival. So lets say you also don't know if its a boy or a girl. Try this list on for size.

1. crib
2. Baby positioner pads/bumper (You know to keep them from rolling around on the bed)
3. diapers size N for newborn
4. Desitin cream for rash
5. Baby Shampoo - I would go with the Aveeno wash because their skin might be sensitive
6. Neutral color onesies - Green, Yellow, White
7. baby washcloths
8. Baby towels
9. Socks for newborn
10. Gowns for sleeping or sleep sacks
11. Baby laundry detergent like Drift
    
12. Baby tub - Maybe
13. Changing table - Maybe

I hope this list gets you started. Hey, check your consignment sales, thrift stores and Goodwill for some of these items. Most baby clothes are only used for a couple of months before you change the size so until you get to Age 2, gently used clothes are fair game. One other item to remember is to always wash used clothes in your baby laundry detergent before using. Again, if your baby has sensitive skin, they may react to the detergent used to clean the clothes. Best of luck.

Fingerprints

One of the things that you will need in order to adopt is to take your fingerprints. In the State of GA, you need to get your fingerprints by the FBI and the State of GA. In our situation, we live in a county so our fingerprints were taken at the Sheriff's office. The strange thing was we were fingerprinted at the jail. The hoops you jump through in our order to adopt. If you are going through the state foster agency, they will take care of that for you. In the State of GA, you attend 7 weeks of training and you are fingerprinted during one of the classes. Independent agencies may require you to get the fingerprint cards and get them yourself. Our fingerprints expired after one year so we had to have them taken again with our first adoption. Check with your local police department or sheriff and hopefully you won't have to go the jail to get that done.