| >Any sage advice? Probably more than you want haha. We adopted domestically via a local agency. Our first 3 were adopted at birth, and our youngest was in and out of foster care for 5 months before his mother decided to make an adoption plan. This route is more costly than going through foster care (which can be more or less free), but much less than what some of our friends ended up paying to adopt internationally. I would personally advise anyone adopting in the US to investigate what kind of special needs support (whether it be through Title IV-E or other programs) is available. MANY of these children have latent (if not immediate) mental health issues stemming from substance abuse (especially alcohol) that isn't always apparent at birth. Our 12 year old struggles immensely with any kind of abstract way of thinking (including most mathematics), and our 9 year old only learned to read last year really. Neither are classified as special needs, but they really should be. The psychiatric and therapeutic care they require can be expensive, even just for reaching a diagnosis. By the time we adopted our younger two we became a bit wiser and had them evaluated at birth. They're both classified as special needs under Title IV-E, which grants them free medical care (including things like speech/cognitive/occupational therapy and corrective surgeries, all of which we've used multiple times). |