Welp, Today’s the day! Adoption becomes official!

[Sam_Julier]

Well done.

 

[Skippy722]

Congratulations!

 

[Chris142]

We have considered adopting but the cost is out of reach

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

We have considered adopting but the cost is out of reach

I’m sure it’s frustrating. We truly lucked out many ways- Liz had been abandoned by her birth dad after her mom died, and she ended up bouncing around several foster homes over 6-7 years, because apparently nobody wants to adopt a single tweenage girl. Luckily, she attended school where my wife teaches, and so that contact was made. The State was ready to be rid of her, and short of a fingerprint scan & background check, we had full guardianship within 2 weeks.

Adoption at that time would have required a home study, and registering with the state as a foster home, and all the other red tape… this was going to cost AT LEAST $4-5k for attorney and state fees and licenses and yada yada… and this was after we were her full and only guardians!

We had initially planned on waiting to do an adult adoption, because there it’s literally whoever wants to adopt, and whoever wants their name changed simply agree to it, sign the papers, & pay court costs. After I found out that Liz would be ineligible for some educational benefits if she was 18 when adopted. I called the attorney and asked if the judge would move up the date but let us skip the home study and red tape, since we have now been her guardians for more than a year with no issues… after hearing the reason why, and that we are actually bringing Liz into our family and not for foster $ reasons/games, he agreed.

So, in my very lucky case, it cost me $1000 to get the guardianship done, and $400 for the final hearing since the lawyer literally used the proposed order I wrote myself (I can twist words with the best attorney, but for this there’s no pro-se representation allowed).

Now, she’s as much family as any of my blended family besides my son (son from my previous marriage is my ONLY blood relation)… and considering holidays put 15+ mouths around my table… she’s got one big family that accepted her long before she accepted them. It’s all up to her now

 

[chemman]

As one who was adopted, thank you for giving this young lady an opportunity at a better life!

I took advantage of the opportunities provided to me and wound up getting a darn good education, very good jobs, and the ability to have a very comfortable retirement.