5 Ways To Adopt A Baby
There are five different types of adoption. In this blog post, we will walk through some key information about each one that will help you make your decision about which type is appropriate for you. It’s important to understand all of these steps so you can make an informed decision for your family.
5 Types of Adoption:
Foster Care
Adoption Agency
Adoption Attorney
Consultant
Self-Matching
Option 1 Foster Care
Time: Varies depending on state and situation; can start fostering from birth but can take years
Cost: Free to $5K; that does not include the cost to care for the child while they are still in foster care
Requirements: like typical adoptions home study is required but additionally, there will be extra education, visits with the biological parents, additional check-ins with the state for medical, legal, and social worker visits.
Contact after finalization: very little if any, however you can petition to what you feel is best for the child
Foster care does not technically mean that a child is not eligible for adoption. It just means they’re in the foster care process or system. The primary goal of the foster care system is reunification is getting those children back with their biological parents or a biological relative. In the case that that's not an option for that particular foster child, the child will become eligible for adoption.
In order to adopt from foster care, most states require that you are foster parents. In most cases of foster care adoption, the adoptive parents have fostered the child throughout the entire process. The goal is to have less disruption to the child because that is overall what is best for their well-being.
The cost of foster care adoption includes creating a home suitable for foster care and the fees to foster and or to finalize an adoption. The fees to finalize the adoption can include court fees and attorney fees. The fees range from free to about $5,000. The wait time on a foster care adoption is very dependent upon each state.
According to AdoptiveFamilies.com, once foster children are eligible for adoption about 64% of children are adopted the first year and about 76% are adopted within two years. This timeframe does not take into account any wait times of becoming an eligible family, or things of that nature. It's just the finalization of the adoption itself from a contact perspective.
During the fostering process, the court mandates the communication required with the biological family, social workers, doctors, a therapist, and any other specialized services they see fit to help this child through the process and even after the adoption is finalized. The amount of communication you have to do with these individuals is dependent on what the judge says and many other things. It can vary greatly from case to case.
Option 2 Adoption Agency
Time: AdoptiveFamilies.com 60% in a year
Average Cost: AdoptiveFamilies.com $41,000
Contact after finalization: You can determine what you feel is best and request it from the expectant parents (they do have to agree).
Matching through an agency is the most common type of adoption that most people know about but many people get turned off by the idea of an agency because they automatically assume that it is super expensive.
Adoption with a private agency means that you are matching with an agency that is advertising their agency to expectant mothers to find potential matches for hopeful adoptive families. The average cost for a private domestic adoption via an agency is about $41,000 according to AdoptiveFamilies.com.
According to AdoptiveFamilies.com the wait times for matching via an agency run about a year for about 60% of their families. Another 20% of those families will be placed within two years. This dramatically depends upon the exposure levels that your family is getting to expectant families. Your exposure level is based on how often adoption agencies share your profile. They share your profile typically based on one of two ways: either on a first come first serve basis or only if you meet the criteria of the expectant family.
So, contact varies based upon what you know the expected family wants. Most adoption agencies now are requiring what they call semi-open adoptions. This means that you're willing to communicate through the agency and for pictures, letters, videos, things of that nature. Some agencies have even kind of changed the meaning of semi-open to mean that you are actually in communication directly with the birth family in some fashion. A lot of hopeful adoptive families choose the fashion of like a Google Voice number or a Gmail account that is, you know, something generic, like Sarah and John Adopt.
This is a highly individual choice that only you can make that you need to know what you're comfortable with so that you don't end up in a situation where you don't feel like you're equipped to parent or you don't feel comfortable with having conversations with the birth family. You're required to so just be clear on what's best for you and your family.
Option 3 Attorney
Time: according to AdoptiveFamilies.com 60% of families will adopt in about a year.
Cost: According to AdoptiveFamilies.com about $35,000
Contact after finalization: You can determine what you feel is best and request it from the expectant parents. They do have to agree.
Adopting with an attorney means an attorney has a pool or a list of expectant mothers that they are pairing with hopeful adoptive families. The attorney is doing the legwork and finding the families in this option rather than you finding the expectant mother, which is the main difference between this and self-matching.
When an attorney is finding an expectant mother their goal is to find a great fit for both parties because most times they are representing or they have a partnership with someone who is representing the expectant mother.
From a contact perspective, this is going to be highly dependent upon your situation, as you will find with most adoption types or adoption options. In most cases, an adoptive family tends to want some sort of contact and so does the expected family. It's really important that you're super clear on what you're open to so that you can ensure you find the right fit from the beginning.
Option 4 Adoption Consultant
Time: 6-12 months
Cost: $10-15K in addition to the matching fees with the agency
Requirements: You have to sign a contract that you will work with them and not go around them to another agency.
Contact after finalization: You can determine what you feel is best and request it from the expectant parents. They do have to agree to the terms.
Matching via consultant is when an adoption consultant represents your family to a bunch of different adoption agencies. They're going to work with an average of 10 to 15 (maybe even more) adoption agencies. They will share your profile and requirements to see if they have a match that would be good for you.
The criteria that adoption consultants share with adoption agencies are:
What you're looking for
A match as it relates to budget
Contact preferences
Exposure levels
Ethnicities preferences
Gender preferences
They will use these to determine if you're a right fit on the surface. Once you meet an expectant family through email, or text or zoom, or, or even in person, you're going to get a better idea if you're a right fit.
The adoption consultant's job is twofold:
Represent you to a large number of adoption agencies so that you can move a bit faster.
To facilitate those initial conversations and ultimately get you matched into a successful adoption from a cost perspective.
An adoption consultant is different from an agency because they get a matching fee. That matching fee (varies depending upon the agency or consultant) it's going to run anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000. It’s also going to be variable because some agencies and require you to pay them per viewing or per initial conversation, or some others don't require payment until you've had a successful placement. It's super important that you're clear on the fee structure with that particular adoption consultant.
Whenever you're having that initial conversation, the wait time with a consultant does vary. It's not something that's widely reported on. Some of my clients have matched as quickly as three months and then others have been closer to the average wait time for an adoption agency which is about a year. It does vary. I will say that those particular clients were gender-specific and pretty restrictive, as it related to, what race and exposure levels that they were open to. Being selective dramatically impacts your wait time.
From a contact perspective, it comes back to what the agency you're working with requires and what the expected family wants to know how your contact will run.
The other really important thing to think about with consultants is that you're also paying the fees for the adoption agency. You may pay the consultant $10,000 for the match. Then the adoption agency they match you with may also have setup fees plus fees that are specific to that individual adoption. An adoption consultant is one of the more expensive options, but you tend to match faster this way. Sometimes it is worth it depending upon what are your motivators and criteria for your adoption journey.
Option 5 Self-Matching Your Adoption
Time: 1+ years
Cost: $5,000-20,000
Requirements: Find your own expectant family
Contact after finalization: You can determine what you feel is best and request it from the expectant parents. They do have to agree.
Self matching is pretty similar to matching privately with an attorney, except you are the one finding the expectant mother. Finding the expectant mother is a whole other journey. Finding an expectant mother is pretty difficult just to be frank and that impacts the wait times that you see with this option for adoption. This is not something that is widely reported on so it is hard to find facts. I can share the experience of my clients and friends who have done this. I've seen some move as fast as a month and then I have other clients that have been waiting for a couple of years.
For those clients that have been waiting for a couple of years: The number one recommendation I have for them when we first meet each other is to focus on their adoption profile. If you've been waiting for a few years in the adoption process then your profile is where you've got to start digging in. Your profile is the reason why you will get matched or not.
Self-matching is where you're finding your expectant mother through social media, typically. Sometimes you're going to find them in person, which is random, but it's possible. Self-matching is similar to the other ways to adopt; it's all about what you're comfortable with.
Because you did initiate a conversation directly one-to-one at the beginning, I do find that most of the adoptive families I work with, that have self-matched their adoption, have a greater level of contact after finalization than those people that might have adopted via an agency.
If you would like extra the exact steps on how to adopt a child, I have a course that will walk you through that step by step you can check it out at the link below. There are videos and on-demand PDFs that walk you through the entire process.
Hi, I Am Amanda
I help women build their families through adoption by giving them the step by step guide to adopt a child and support them on their journey