this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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me_irl
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I think the drive to have children is so illogical one might call it a mental illness. Why do you need a kid? "I dunno, it just made me feel better". Why didn't you adopt? "I dunno, just wanted my own".
I think people don't realize just how expensive and difficult adoption is. My ex wife and I looked into it when we were having fertility trouble. Turns out, five rounds of IVF would have been cheaper than adoption. People got used to the idea that adoption is cheap in the 80s and 90s when China, Korea, and a lot of the Eastern European states had an excess of unwanted babies. That is no longer the case and babies are very hard to come by.
Like, how expensive? Isn't delivering a baby in a hospital like 10k? Is it really more difficult and expensive than 9 months of pregnancy?
Most aren't babies, though, and lots have been through a lot. Having a baby is already a huge commitment; you can't fault people for not wanting to take on a kid with a history of trauma or a significant disability. That's a tall order and the people who do it are saints.
If you have insurance, it's often not that expensive to actually have a baby. IVF is expensive though, and only sometimes covered by insurance. We were looking at $25k for one round of IVF and $5k for each subsequent round, if those were necessary. Adoption was around $50k from what I remember.
Some states require IVF coverage by medical insurance. With those prices, it may actually be cheaper in certain circumstances to move.
This is the best response. Yes, adoption is hard, takes a long time, and can be expensive, and it should be. Choosing to have a child without having the financial means set aside to hedge for their future would be irresponsible.
It's not just financial. It's the longterm commitment to care for another creature. Best example is the animal adoptions during lockdown. So many of those pets ended right back in shelters because people realized they liked the idea of a pet, not the actuality. That's a big part of the reason the barrier of entry is so high for adoption.