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course. If you’re not comfortable with continued contact, you can choose to work with only a birth mother who doesn’t require it. These are all things you should think about when you’re filling out the questionnaire.
    “Your next step is to have a home study, where a social worker will come to your house and talk to you, and make sure that you’ll provide a safe and suitable home for the child. And, finally, you’ll create an adoptive-parent profile, which is basically a way to sell yourselves to potential birth mothers. It should tell who you are, the sort of life you lead, why you want to be parents, and will include photographs of the two of you,” Mike said. “But before we get to all of that, the first decision you have to make is who you’re going to hire to facilitate your adoption. Of course, I hope you choose to hire me, but I understand that this is an important decision, and you might want to talk to other attorneys or adoption agencies before making your choice.”
    This seemed like a good time to jump in with my main question. “How much do you charge?” I asked.
    Mike smiled. “I probably don’t have to tell you, adoption is not inexpensive. I charge three hundred dollars an hour, and require a two-thousand-dollar retainer to start. If there aren’t any legal complications, the legal fees will normally be in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars.”
    Five thousand dollars? Not nothing, but not nearly as much as I thought it would be. But then Mike continued.
    “Of course, there are other expenses, some of them quite significant. The law in Florida allows for adoptive parents to pay for a birth mother’s expenses, including medical and reasonable living expenses, such as rent, groceries, and clothing. As you would probably guess, many women who are considering putting their babies up for adoption are not financially secure. Occasionally, we’ll have a teen mom who’s still living with and being supported by her parents. But that tends to be the exception, not the rule, so you should plan on covering her living expenses.”
    “But that could be …” I did some quick math in my head. “Thousands of dollars.”
    Mike nodded. “I tell clients to budget about three thousand a month for it.”
    I wondered if this number gave India the same stomach-sickening wrench it gave me. Three thousand dollars times the nine-month gestation period was a grand total of $27,000. Which, along with Mike’s fee of $5,000, got us up to $32,000. And that was for a noneventful adoption. What if an event came along? What if the birth mother required an emergency C-section, or ended up in the hospital for a month?
    “The good news is that you can use the time it takes to find a birth mother to get your finances in order. If you don’t have that sort of money readily available to you …”
    “We don’t,” I confirmed.
    “Then perhaps you could look into getting help from your family, or perhaps refinancing your home,” Mike suggested. “You’d be surprised how resourceful you can be when you have to be.”
    Even if India and I subsisted on ramen noodles and boxed macaroni and cheese for the next eighteen months, that was not going to make a dent in the $32,000—at a minimum—that we’d have to come up with. I looked at India, sure that she would be reaching the same conclusion, and braced myself for the inevitable look of despair and hopelessness. I wondered if we had enough left over in our emotional stores to ride out yet another devastating blow.
    But to my surprise, India wasn’t at all upset. Instead, her face had a glowing intensity to it, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed.
    “That’s true,” India said. “It would give us the time to figure out how we’re going to pay for everything.”
    “Do you have any other questions?” We didn’t. Actually, I did—primarily where the hell was I going to come up with thirty-two grand in the next six months?—but I knew Mike wouldn’t