Adoptive Parents Six Times Over, Now This Family Remakes Adoption From the Inside Out

Bound4LIFE: What are some of the most frequent questions you hear from adoptive families?

Randy Bohlender: The first one is always, How long is it going to take? And I can’t tell them that. There are so many factors at work; it could take over a year, or longer.

Biologically, it takes nine months. You tell people it will take a year to adopt, and they almost have a heart attack—but really that’s not a whole lot slower than the natural way, assuming you get pregnant today. But adoption doesn’t necessarily have to take that long.

We started in June 2006 with our first adoption, and by October we had a beautiful little girl. Depending on one’s willingness to consider children of other races, or if you will travel to another part of the U.S. to meet with the birth mother, you can abbreviate that waiting period considerably.

People want to know what it’s going to cost, which depends on what agency you’re talking to. At Zoe’s House Adoption Agency, our expertise is private domestic adoption. People ask us, What about kids in foster care? That is a very valid ministry, it’s just not what we do.

We deal with situations where expectant moms make the decision, I want to make an adoption plan for my baby. They do it willingly—not coerced by a court; they are free agents who are pursuing a course of action. So our adoption niche is private adoption, almost always with infants.

Bound4LIFE: The cost question is a big one. After one adoptive family shared their story, we received comments such as “adoption is crazy expensive.”

Randy Bohlender: The national average cost of an adoption has to be close to 40 thousand dollars. Now it shouldn’t cost that much, but I’ve heard people say, Adoption ought to be free. I don’t buy that either.

Consider that for you to adopt: social workers have to do their job, you need to be vetted as an adoptive parent, lawyers are involved in a complex legal process … The placement of a child shouldn’t be as easy as Go down to the courthouse, sign a piece of paper, and we’ll issue a child. That would be a recipe for trafficking.

Adoption should cost something, and it always does. The hard costs of adoption are higher than most people think. Our placement fee is under 10 thousand dollars, then parents will have costs related to the home study and medical expenses. Most of our families end up spending around 15 thousand dollars, which is actually subsidized in our case. We raise money from caring donors who help keep costs low.

People still question the cost, but the truth is: we have to maintain an office and hire qualified staff. We’re also covering those times when we work with an expectant mom for six months, helping her financially, and she eventually decides: Really, the plan should be for me to parent my child.

We’re pro-adoption, but we’re pro-life first. Some expectant mothers considering adoption should go ahead and parent. At times, we’ve told a mother we’ve gotten to know: “You can do this.” And it’s beautiful.

The flip side of that is, we already spent a few thousand dollars helping her become stable—paying a couple months’ rent or whatever. We don’t recoup that cost, so it rolls over into other expenses.

It’s expensive to do what we do. Our role is to give hope to adoptive families; just as friends and even strangers helped provide resources to make adoption possible for our family, it is absolutely doable for other families called to adopt.  

Bound4LIFE: As an adoption advocate, clearly you run in circles that are not faith-based or pro-life. How do you share your convictions when opportunities arise?

Randy Bohlender: People know we’re pro-life because we talk about it. I don’t shy away from it at all. People ask “Why did you get into this?” and we tell them.

Even if they are not pro-life, they understand our conviction: If we’re going to be pro-life, then we have to take care of the babies. They admire that, even if they don’t share our convictions. They see the answers we offer as legitimate.

Josh M. Shepherd serves in communications at Bound4LIFE International, a grassroots movement to pray for the ending of abortion, for the heart of adoption and for revival worldwide.

Reprinted with permission from Bound4LIFE.