Adopting a baby can take years; if you are fortunate, it will take just a few short months.  While there is no magic formula to speed up the process, you can do a combination of things to ensure you are being shown to as many potential expectant mothers as possible.  A few things outside of the budget, we all know that budget plays a huge role in the speed of adoption.  

There are multiple adoption agencies: traditional adoption agencies, adoption consultants, public agencies (i.e., state foster agencies), and adoption attorneys.  For this post, we will focus on adoption agencies and adoption consultants. One of the biggest things to do before you start thinking about your adoption’s speed is to ensure you have chosen the right agency partner or type of agency. If you are looking for a list of the best agencies, you can find it here.  https://www.verywellfamily.com/best-adoption-agencies-4844669

If you need help picking an agency partner, check out this post for a free resource to help you interview agencies to find the right fit for your family. 

There are five things you need to make your adoption process go faster:

1. Be clear on what you feel equipped to parent.

2. Have an amazing profile 

3. Share your profile yourself

4. Seek regular feedback on your profile from potential matches

5. Be prepared for conversations with expectant parents.

Be Clear On What You Feel Equipped To Parent To Adopt Faster

Having a strong vision of what life is like after your adoption is critical to your overall success.  You need to think in vivid detail about everything from the health of the child, the level of contact with the birth family, the way you will tell your child they are adopted, how you will handle potential medical complications that come up in their life, what you will say to their doctors or their teachers, how you will talk about adoption in your immediate and extended family conversations, and well the list can go on and on.  

To do this, I suggest doing a simple vision casting exercise, grab a piece of paper and set a timer for 30 minutes, and imagine your life after the adoption in vivid detail.  There are no right or wrong answers here; it is just about capturing everything you dream about for your future family.  If you have a partner, I would highly recommend that they do this exercise, too and that you compare notes at the end to ensure you are on the same page.  Use the questions I shared above as a jumping-off point, or if writing isn’t your jam, you can create a physical version of this that you can look at every day.  I love Ms. Rachel Hollis, and I think she has a great version of this that you can do as a physical board.  She recommends doing it every year, which is excellent, but I also love doing this for particular things I am working on in my life to give it more detail.  https://www.facebook.com/letsrise.co/videos/666985027530601

Once you have done your vision exercise and compared it with your partner, you should communicate that back to your agency to make sure that they understand what you are looking for in your adoption journey.  As with most successful partnerships in life, being clear in what you are looking for will ensure that you get to the desired outcome faster. 

Have an amazing profile 

Having an amazing adoption profile is the most critical element to the success of your adoption journey.  The expectant mother is looking for the story of what life is like in your family and what life will be like for her child in your family.  If she cannot envision what life is like for this child or if the vision you paint doesn’t match what she wants, she will simply move on to the next family.  This one step is the most critical factor in your overall adoption journey. 

It is important to note that it is vital that you be authentic to your family and your story. The goal is not to be someone else but rather to attract an expectant mother who feels that you would be a good fit for her child. If you are not authentically yourself in all touchpoints, it will be obvious and disrupt your adoption process.  You are amazing just the way you are, so just be yourself.

Because this is so important, you may be wondering what makes the perfect adoption profile.  The answer is that there is no ideal adoption profile because each expectant mother is looking for something different and unique to her.  But I teach a framework to help you write your perfect adoption profile to attract your expectant mother.  If you want to learn more about that, click below to join my free Facebook group. Click to join the Facebook group. Or if you want to join the waiting list for the next time my profile course is open, you can click below.

Share your profile yourself

While the agency’s main job is to find you a match, if you truly want to match faster, you are going to have to put some sweat equity into this process too. Sharing your profile with as many people as you can get it to will simply increase your odds of matching faster.  I suggest breaking down the profile sharing process into two spaces: in real life and digital sharing.

When it comes to real-life sharing for your profile, it is about having the right information in the correct format to make engaging with your audience faster.  You can create physical brochures, business cards, or pamphlets about your family to share with expectant mothers.  I recommend making a list of all the places you can share your profile or that your friends and family could share it and make a plan.  

Sharing your profile digitally may sound like the easier way to get in front of more expectant mothers faster, but you also are more likely to encounter scammers this way.  Not saying that you shouldn’t leverage this option but just be mindful of this fact.  

As it relates to sharing your profile digitally, it is essential to have things you can share created ahead of time, so you are just posting and sharing them rather than trying to make them at the moment.  Ask your adoption agency if they have tools that you can use for this.  If they don’t, join the list for the next time my profile course opens, and I can help walk you through the step-by-step process to creating your profile and adapting it to all the various routes it can be shared to help you match faster. 

Seek regular feedback on your profile from potential matches

As with any good partnership, communication is essential.  The same holds true for your agency; you need to have clear and open communication lines on why an expectant mother chooses to speak with you in the first place and why they ultimately decided to match with someone else.  While it may feel harsh at first, having a clear understanding of their feedback will help you get matched faster.   

Here are a few questions to ask your agency to keep open lines of communication:

1. Why did they pick us to be considered?

2. What was it about our profile that stood out?

3. What did they not like about our profile?

4. Were there more details that they were looking for in an adoptive family? If so, what?

5. Any suggested areas where we could improve our profile?

   
   

Be prepared for conversations with expectant parents.

Being prepared for conversations with expectant parents may seem like the most straightforward part on the surface, but I promise it is the most nerve-racking point of the entire adoption process. Having a simple guide on how to conduct these conversations is really important.  Think back to the work you did in the vision casting exercise and use that same formula here.  

What do you want to talk to her about?  How do you want the conversation to go? How will you answer some of those tricky questions? Do you know what you want to be able to tell your child about their biological parents?  If so, what questions would you ask as a result of that? 

The other thing you will want to be prepared for is spotting a scam.  This can be so tricky because you will be so excited to have an opportunity that you will likely turn a blind eye to just about anything.  However, you must stay true to your visitation casting where you clearly outlined what you want for your life and the life of this child.  If something doesn’t fit there, then it is time to walk away.

The most important thing to remember is that if you want it to move faster, you have to put in work.  Yes, all good things come to those that wait, but it comes faster to the ones that hustle, learn, optimize, and pivot.  And remember, if you need help, come jump in the Facebook group.  I am in there several times a day answering questions, and you will get tons of fabulous feedback and advice from the community as well.

You can do this, and I have got your back!

-Amanda

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