# Adoption/Birth: Which costs more? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 2, 2007, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104 "2007-08-02T09:52:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/1 "2007-08-02T09:52:15Z")
No boring backstory here. Just curious. Which would cost more: Adopting a newborn or having your own baby (assume that expenses would be the same from age 1 or so until 18.) ---
**Author:** ![Avarie537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/48db29/32.png) [@Avarie537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avarie537)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/2 "2007-08-02T11:36:53Z")
There are lots and lots of variables here, but I can tell you that my prenatal care plus vaginal hospital delivery (minus any sort of complications or pain medication) was around $7000. Once you get into maternal/fetal complications and epidurals, those numbers can very easily double. I have no experience with adoption, but I understand that it can cost in the low to mid five figures. ---
**Author:** ![Solfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Solfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solfy)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/3 "2007-08-02T13:04:41Z")
Assuming you can get pregnant through plain old sex and don’t have to have reproductive assistance, and assuming a typical pregnancy that doesn’t require things like bed rest in a hospital, it’s significantly less expensive to make a child from scratch. I had cheap kids. Using a CNM in a freestanding birth center, I believe my insurance was only billed for about $3,500 each time. Friends of ours adopted within the US. The rough figure I believe was somewhere around $25,000. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/4 "2007-08-02T14:42:21Z")
Also, assuming you have health insurance, having your own baby can cost you close to nothing. And while some companies offer their employees a flat donation towards an adoption ($5000 or so) the rest comes out of pocket. Adoption gets pricey also (up to and over $20,000 I’ve heard). Invitro cycles run about $10-$12K a try + meds(another $8K). Meds can often be covered under your health insurance. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/5 "2007-08-02T14:42:28Z")
Each of my kids cost a few hundred (the hospital doesn’t take returns, even for store credit), youngest had some scary-ass complications but even the crappy insurance I had for him covered everything. Adoption assistance is $2500. If you have insurance building a new one is cheaper than getting a used model. If you don’t have insurance - gadzooks! ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/6 "2007-08-02T14:52:02Z")
Not to get off on a tangent here but premature babies that have stays in a NICU cost a fortune. We had twin daughters that spent two weeks in the NICU (and sadly passed) and the bill came to $500,000. Fortunately our insurance covered everything. There is a couple in town here that had premature sextuplets (6) on June 10th and all went to the NICU. Over the past 7 weeks 5 of them have passed on. I can’t even imagine what that hospital bill looks like. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/7 "2007-08-02T15:06:52Z")
With our insurance, our last kid cost $40 for the whole series of pre-natal visits, and $100 for the delivery. I think that’s about it. Not including, of course, baby supplies that you would have to get for an adopted baby anyway. The company I work for also offers up to $10,000 adoption assistance, but I don’t know if that would cover the whole cost of adoption, especially foreign adoption. As long as I work here, I can’t afford _not_ to have kids! (well, almost) ---
**Author:** ![SSG\_Schwartz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/8 "2007-08-02T20:02:59Z")
The cost of adoption can vary. We chose to go through a public adoption agency. We thought we were going to adopt newborn twin girls. We knew the mother, slightly. We spent over $5000 for the lawyer, social worker, and other newborn expenses. The mother decided to give custody to her brother, who had custody of her three other “mistakes.” So, the cost of a completed adoption will be $5000 plus whatever we have to pay for legal fees and social worker when we can try again. OTOH, if we could conceive our own children, the cost would be zero for the delivery and well baby checkups. SSG Schwartz ---
**Author:** ![ltfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/9 "2007-08-02T23:21:03Z")
We adopted our daughter thirty years ago, at the age of six weeks. No money was involved at all. The County Dept. of Social Services handled it from start to finish. No lawyers, no legal fees. In fact, my union at the time wrote out a $300.00 check for us…the same amount that was given when our birth children were born. ---
**Author:** ![IanExMachina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a3d4f5/32.png) [@IanExMachina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IanExMachina)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/10 "2007-08-02T23:29:12Z")
Well for my parents it was free. Then again UK here so NHS. Just thought I’d add for comparison. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2007, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-birth-which-costs-more/414104/11 "2007-08-03T14:22:09Z")
Many variables, as others have said. We have 4 bio-kids and 4 adopted. If your insurance is chancy, and you have a bio-kid with medical problems, you can spend a lot. On the other hand, with good insurance, or a no-problems delivery, the cost is minimal. Adoption, on the other hand, can range from zippo (see ltfire’s post) to a godzillion. Ours have run about $15,000 each, using frequent flyer miles for the travel (China requires at least one parent to travel to get the child) which saved us $2000-3000 or so. Then, if you live in the US and if you have a fair income, you get a $10,000 rebate on your taxes towards adoption costs–that’s the only reason we could possibly afford 4. So net for our adoptions was around $5000 each. YMM really V!