Originally Posted by rOk

These things should be free or almost next to costing nothing...

This is gonna sound naive but I just have to ask...when you eventually fly off to Guatemala (assuming you've paid everything up until then) and when you're there you for some reason don't like the child etc...the money isn't refundable is it? Naive I know

Of course you don't get your money back, that would be bad for busness, now wouldn't it?

The adoption in consideration for that summary is a baby, so it is unlikely that a couple who is incapable of having children on their own is going to turn their noses up at ANY baby. Lets not forget, "They're desperate, they'll do anything we tell them to!!"

One reason for the escalating cost of adoption is a simle matter of supply and demand. Like it or not, politically correct or not, abortion has wiped out a tremendous amount of the available supply of babies needing to be adopted here in the United States. So what is the solution when there is still tremendous demand? Many agencies like this one start popping up and helping adoptive parents find a child from a foreign country, for exorbiant costs. The INS takes a huge cut just because they can. Legal fees in the foreign country are enormous and all of those coutries US-adoption related entities are counting on "American's and their pockets full of cash" to come through and deliver them an absolute killing for doing virtually nothing at all. Less than nothing actually. Most of those children that are adopted out to Americans were abandonned by their parents. Their nation would otherwise have to decide between spending huge sums of money to care for all the orphans and abandonned children, or just dumping them onto the streets at the earliest opportunity. Their nation is saving itself a lot of money and trouble no matter how you look at it. But they are going to ask money for it anyways because its a bunch of Americans asking for the child. America = $$$. If it were someone in their own country, it'd probably be a completely different story altogether. Probably would be no cost at all.

And all these people know what they're doing. My wife and I are likely to spend 5 years waiting if we want to adopt a baby born in the USA, and the cost ends up being as much or more anyways. Almost always more. The wait is shorter for going foreign, but you still have to wait a good while.

Originally Posted by godofthunder9010

Of course you don't get your money back, that would be bad for busness, now wouldn't it?

That's what I meant by naive

I think it costs that much as a pre-liminary weeding out of people who realistically cannot afford a child, or aren't thinking of this as a serious commitment.
Why does a small cup of fish feed at the public park cost so much? So that people don't overfeed the fish.

Yes 13th, the analogy with the fish is there but...

Anyways, ~20.000$ is way too much just to get the darn brat to your house...and then the true expenses start.

My mother remarried a couple of years ago, now I have a kid brother and sister...a little bottle of concentrated fruit costs a lot...calculated in $ that would be 2$...but granted it comes from a company which has a good name and a price to go with it , but nevertheless 1 measly bottle which I emptied in a go...and the kids finished it off with a couple of mouthfuls.

Dunno how are the prices of baby stuff in the US but here it's absolutely appauling (sp?) ...dipers are way too expensive (Pampers)...but I suppose it's all in a saying that kids are our greatest wealth, let's not be shy when it comes to spending on them

Maybe I use too many analogies

I heard in the news a while back in some Asia countries that there was an organization that actually collects children (from adoption) and then removed their vocal ability (apparent something was cut) and severed their legs/arms and put them out on the streets to beg, and then collect the money daily. That was some crazy sick crap, but maybe the high cost of adopting a child is to discourage some organization from hording children and use them for labor?

Good point Zyca. Basically the cost is high so that only people willing to seriously raise a child would adopt.
There is just no limit of sick bastards in this world... this is just one of the things designed to screen these kids from them.

Try contacting an in country Service or Orphanage. It looks to me like the Guatemalteco Lawyer is soaking you. Check with some of the Church run institutions, Dominicans, Franscians etc. Have them recommend an in country Attorney . Church Organizations are generally more concerned in placing children as opposed to making money. Although donations are appericated.

Look into filing the INS now ICE paperwork yourself. It looks like your getting hit with a premium charge for having the Agency do it. You may have to make a Couple trips too the country of origin to compile the required paperwork Birth Certificate, etc. But that maybe faster and less costly. Also check out Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaruga. I work on almost a daily basis with ICE agents so if you have any questions concerning that side I can probably get you an answer.

Try to see if there is a way to find out the child you are going to recieve is actually healthy.
I know it sounds sh1tty for me to say this but adopting a child with multiple illnesses can cause you a lot of pain. Well, I'd rather warn you than be PC and have sh1t hit the fan later.

Originally Posted by Zyca

I heard in the news a while back in some Asia countries that there was an organization that actually collects children (from adoption) and then removed their vocal ability (apparent something was cut) and severed their legs/arms and put them out on the streets to beg, and then collect the money daily. That was some crazy sick crap, but maybe the high cost of adopting a child is to discourage some organization from hording children and use them for labor?

Interesting and yes, absolutely disgusting about cutting the limbs off etc. Its not something that is going to fly in the USA without heads rolling pretty quickly.

I can appreciate the fact that, potentially (in a world where adopting Internationally does not cost insane amounts of money), a couple could pose be only posing as a couple to collect mass amounts of workers for sweatshops and other twisted schemes. In that case, however, targetting infant children under 12 months would be completely illogical. They can't really do anything for you for several years, so they're a giant wasted expense and an insane black hole sucking up countless hours of time in caring for them early on. After all, if you intend to use them for something, they have to survive don't they?

That is a disturbing worst-case scenario. Sweatshops and systems of disfiguring children to beg for money are scary, but it seems to me that the odds are a lot better of something like that happening to those children by staying in their native countries. Little girls will be pushed out onto the streets and when forced to survive, many will turn to prostitution. Little boys will often turn to crime or anything they can possible use to stay alive. If you are a business focussed on sweatshop labor, you're generally better off operating those overseas in third world countries where government and police are more corrupt and less expensive to bribe. And since the reality is that it costs insane amounts of money to adopt, that's all speculation.

Lets consider something else. In the case cited, the INS's fees are inexcusably high. They don't need to charge all those fees, they are simply taking advantage of a situation where they can take in substantial revenue for minimal effort. In this case, shame on the US government for it.

The lawyer fees in Guatemala exceed $5000. Does anyone here have any idea of how big of a chunk of change $5000 is if you live in Guatemala? Its no small amount if you live in the USA, but there its an absolute fortune! How much of that is actually covering, "Ensuring that the adoptive parents are legit." do you think? It sure as hell doesn't take $5000 to research that much out. Especially when you're working through an American based adoption agency who takes very very seriously the task of ensuring that the parents are for real and good prospective parents. Does anyone actually believe that a lawyer with that much money coming his way ... gives a flying @#$% about what circumstances that child is going toward? To my understanding, the greatest expense in both Foreign and Domestic adoptions is legally ensuring that the biological parents cannot possibly sue for custody of the child. In many cases, that is a moot point. In China for instance, there is a substantial number of baby girls who are simply being abaondonned because the parents wanted a boy and are not allowed to have 2 children. Those parents are not going to be taking any legal action to regain custody. For most of the abandonned baby girls, China's government knows nothing whatsoever about their parentage, so there is no way for those parents to ever track what happened to that child anyways.

The adoption agency is also overcharging in my opinion, but they are at least can claim that they are actually doing some amount of work for the money they collect. Most other parties involved are doing very little or nothing and charging insane costs for it.

The sad fact of it all is that, once upon a time, adoption cost virtually nothing at all. There have always been parents who couldn't have children on their own, but there was also an overwhelming supply of unwanted children being born.

I suppose that I just feel the need to rant about it all. My wife and I are not rich just yet. We make about $30,000 a year. If the sum total cost of adopting a child constitutes 2/3 of our yearly income, we're completely SOL until we have A LOT more money. Things like rent and bills aren't going to go away. And yet, we make more money than a lot of families I know with 4-5 children. It would surely be nice if there was some means of not spending so much money for the privaledge waiting 2-5 years to adopt a child.