The process of adopting a newborn can often be confusing and complicated.  It is even further complicated because there are about a million different terms that are used interchangeably.  For instance, people often use finding a birth mother on your own, adoption self matching, adopting through a private attorney all to mean that you adopt without an agency.  That doesn’t even account for calling a woman a birth mother versus an expectant mother and then all the variations from there: finding an expectant mother on your own, self matching with an expectant mother, adopting with a private attorney with an expectant mother.  

So while there is no right or wrong way to call the act of adopting without an agency, it is essential to clarify the right terminology for the birth mother vs. expectant mother.  A woman is an expectant mother up until she signs the paperwork to place her child for adoption, at which time she becomes a birth mother.  

Now that we removed some of the confusion around what to call various adoption types let’s talk about how to adopt a baby.  There are so many different ways to adopt a newborn: adopting from foster care, using a private agency to adopt a newborn, and even self matching with a private attorney.  Each route has its pros and cons and varies on what it costs to adopt a newborn, the steps to become approved to adopt a child, and even the length of time it will take to adopt.  You must do some soul searching on what you envision life to be like at the end of your adoption journey to determine what is right for you.  Before we dive into how to adopt a newborn through self matching, let’s talk about all the options to adopt a newborn.

Options To Adopt a Newborn:

1. Foster Care

2. Private Agency

3. Private Attorney

4. Self Matching to Find an Expectant Mother

   
   

Adopting a newborn from foster care:

This is typically one of the most challenging routes to adopt a newborn as the birth parents’ rights have not been terminated.  In most states, it takes 1-5 years for a child to become fully eligible for adoption.  However, this is one of the least expensive routes to adopt a child.  This comes back to the need for vision casting to determine your course of adoption.  In that exercise, I encourage you to do some soul searching on whether you feel you can deal with uncertainty and what level of uncertainty you feel equipped to handle.  Adoption is full of uncertainty, but you could potentially have years of uncertainty before knowing if a child is eligible for adoption with foster care.  Please know that I 1,000% agree that all children in foster care deserve the opportunity for adoption. I just want to make sure that you choose the option you feel most equipped to handle.  Because if you are not equipped to handle foster care, you can do more harm than good.  

Adopting a newborn from a private agency:

Adopting a newborn with a Private Agency is less challenging than adopting an infant from foster care to achieve but involves a tremendous amount more in costs.  Each agency will have its process and requirements for adopting a baby through their agency.  Typically, you have a mountain of paperwork to complete and several necessary background check type steps that include everything from state and federal background checks, interviews with friends and family as references, and medical approvals.  The cost to adopt a child from a private agency can be as little as $10K to as much as $50K depending on the budget you set and the agency’s costs.  When you pick an agency, be sure to ask about their risk-sharing fees, which is vital to know how to protect your investment. If you want to learn more about the process, you can check out this post to help you understand the ins and outs.

Adopting a newborn from a private attorney:

Adopting a newborn with a Private Attorney, which can be confused with self matching because some attorneys find expectant parents and some adoption attorneys do not.  Adopting with a private attorney is moderately challenging to achieve, depending on the attorney you partner with to adopt a baby.  

The timeline with private attorneys tends to be a bit longer as they do not have the advertising reach to work with birth mothers placing their children for adoption.  This option tends to have the least amount of risk-sharing, meaning if there is a disruption of any kind, the investment is typically lost. This route typically costs about $5-20K depending on the birth parents’ situation and the state’s laws where finalization of the adoption will occur.  This option tends to have the least amount of risk-sharing, meaning if there is a disruption of any kind, the investment is typically lost. 

Adopting a Newborn through Self Matching with an Expectant Family:

With the rise in adoption costs and social media proliferation, adopting a newborn through self matching with an expectant family has become an increasingly more popular option over the last ten years.  Basically, with this form of adoption, you are finding your own expectant family, virtually eliminating the need for foster care or private agency.  However, you will still need a private adoption attorney to make the adoption legal.  I would suggest that you get paired with an adoption attorney before you start seeking expectant mothers as they can advise you on how to ensure you are staying within your state’s requirements. They are also an excellent sounding board when you find an expectant mother so that you can understand the requirements in her state as well. 

Hopefully, by now, you have taken me up on the offer for the free guide and dug into your vision casting exercise to ensure you have picked the right form of adoption for your family.  If not, grab it here.

Now let’s talk about the steps to finding your expectant mother or adopting through self matching.

The Steps To Self Matching To Adopt A Newborn:

• Find an attorney

• Get an approved Home Study

• Decide how to find an Expectant Mother

• Create your profile

• Share your story

• Match with an EM

• The Birth

• Finalize 

Find An Adoption Attorney For Adoption Self Matching

Finding an attorney to use for your adoption may sound pretty simple; just google and see how is near you, but as always, there is a bit more work to do than just a quick google search when it comes to the adoption process.  You must find someone experienced in adoption law in your state and have a clear understanding of the adoption laws in any other state that you might consider adopting from. 

Adoption law is complex, and since the stakes are so high, you want to ensure you have picked a partner that understands the law and is a good fit for you from communication and ways of working standpoint.  If you need an idea of what questions to ask the attorneys as you interview them, be sure to get the Ultimate Guide To Self Matching Your Adoption.

Get Home Study Approved

Getting home study approved sounds so daunting, and often people freak out about this stage, but it isn’t as bad as you fear.  I promise!  A social worker is just coming to physically inspect that your home is safe enough for a baby.  While it may sound absurd, you will need to ensure that your home is childproof at this stage.  Typically, you do nursery set up but need to have plans to pace a nursery.  When you first talk with the social worker, they ask for the detailed checklist that you must adhere to prepare for their first visit.

In addition to inspecting your home to ensure it is safe enough for a baby, this home study visit will include an interview where they will ask you questions about how you parent the child.  The questions typically include what life will be like with you daily, your family history growing up, etc.  These background questions will feel unnecessary, but it is important so that they can create an overview of what life will be like in your home and ultimately sign off to the attorney and the judge that you are fit to adopt a baby.  I have included some commonly asked questions and home study requirements in the guide.

Brainstorm Where You Could Find Expectant Mothers

The two things you must be confident in doing to quickly and successfully self match for your adoption is networking and telling your story.  You are trying to find something rarer than a needle in a haystack.  So it is going to be vital that you get super creative on where you could potentially find an expectant mother who wants to place her child for adoption.  I recommend that you do this both in real life and virtually.  

From a real-life perspective, I suggest that you think about what people you know and places you frequent that could also come across someone that would consider placing their child for adoption.  Make sure that everyone, and I mean everyone, knows that you want to adopt.  Give them business cards, pamphlets, or pdfs that talk about your desire to adopt and how to get in contact with you.  

From a virtual standpoint, make sure you are hanging out where your ideal expectant mother is hanging out.  So if you picture an expectant mother as someone who is in love with watching TikTok videos or someone that obsessed with a particular celebrity on Instagram, then you should be there too.  You want her to organically come across you because of your common interests in addition to just using the right hashtags on Instagram or loving the same videos.  

This is a crucial moment for you to reflect and ensure you feel confident that this is the right choice for you.  If you do not feel confident in your ability to network your heart out and share your story once you find an expectant mother, self matching might not be the right choice for your family.  If you feel like you just need to be in a community with others in the same situation, join my Facebook group. 

Create Your Profile

This is the second part of finding an expectant mother quickly for successful adoption, and honestly is the most important part of the entire process. Telling a clear, concise, and compelling story is very tricky, but it is vital for an expectant mother to feel comfortable talking to you.  You can think of this as the first hello in the most important conversation of your life, and here first impressions matter.  

Creating a profile that an expectant mother wants to engage with comes down to the art of telling the story of your family.  And yes, it is an art because while I can tell you the structure of a great story, you are the only one that can ultimately tell it the best.  It is also very important that you have the right mindset when you tell the story. You are telling your story so that your ideal expectant mother picks you.  You are not chasing every expectant mother in the universe. You are not a chameleon changing your story to fit every situation that comes to your door.  You are standing tall and true in your story, and what types of situations feel equipped to parent and sharing that story.  

A successful adoption profile consists of 4 parts: getting clear on who you are, writing it compellingly, getting concise in how you tell the story, and consistently sharing your story.  If you want to learn more about how to build a successful story, check this post out.  If you want to learn more about this, sign up for my upcoming class

Share Your Story

Sharing your story means ensuring that you have different types of profiles is essential so that an expectant mother can read about your family no matter which way she wants to engage.  So think back to how she could come in contact with you and have a profile that is fit for that particular space. If you are handing out business cards or pamphlets in real life, are you directing her to a website, a social media handle, or a phone number?  Or if you are engaging with her on TikTok, where are you sending her to learn more about your family.  Ensure that you have someplace where she can go to learn more about your family.  

Once you have decided where you are sending her to learn more about your family, you need to ensure you share your story in an appropriate way for that particular location.  If you are sharing TikTok, then you need to have some engaging video content.  If you are sharing via Facebook or Instagram, you need to have several posts that tell your story.  Challenge yourself to think about what makes you stop and engage with content from others and create content with the same characteristics.  If you want to learn more about this, sign up for my upcoming class.

Match with an Expectant Mother

Once you are talking to an expectant mother, the first step is to ensure you are not being scammed.  I know this is hard to do, but you need to guard your heart and not fall in love with everything she says until you verify that this is a real opportunity.  It is a hard conversation to have, but most people find success in having their attorney do a pregnancy confirmation before they get too deep into weeks and weeks of discussion.  You don’t want to bring this up in the first few conversations but do want to do this before your conversations get too serious.  Talk with your attorney about how they typically do this and find the right place to weave it into the conversation. If you are worried about how to spot a scammer get the Ultimate Guide to Self Matching Your Adoption below.

Now assuming all is well and good and found a real expectant mother, this is it! This is the moment you have been working towards, actually getting to talk to a real-life expectant mother who is considering placing their child with you.  It will feel like the most important first date you will ever have, and if you are anything like me, you will over-analyze every little thing that is said or not said.  Please remember to breathe; it is kind of important, haha.  

But in all seriousness, it is important to remember that she will be nervous too.  She will worry that you might not like her, might think less of her for placing a child for adoption, and a host of other worries and fears that we adoptive parents cannot even begin to understand.  The best thing you can do is listen and not listen so you can immediately respond with why you would be an excellent choice for her child. The kind of listening to her that involves your heart and your mind, the type that is not focused on selling your family.  Just truly listen.

This is the part of the journey where you need to form a bond with your future child’s mother.  A bond that will exist for the rest of your life, no matter if you have contact or not. Take notes, ask questions, soak it all in, and be present and listen.

The Birth

This step will vary dramatically by opportunity.  You may get the chance to be there for the birth or not, or you may even get the opportunity to be in the room though that is very rare.  This will be something that you will naturally work through in each opportunity.  It is important to remember that emotions will be running high for both sides. The hospital staff will always err on the birth family’s side because, legally, who is in charge until finalization occurs.  Ensuring that you adhere to any agreements that were in place before this phase is critical to ensure the placement continues to run smoothly.  Be in regular open communication with your attorney about what is going on and any questions you have.  While this is a joyous moment for your family, it can be rather sad for the birth family.  Communicating with honesty, respect, and love during this time is key.

You likely have a million questions about this particular part of the process, so jump over to the Facebook group to ask away.  

Finalization

The final step in any adoption process is to make the adoption legal.  This will vary so much from state to state and by the situation that it is impossible to paint an exact picture for you.  However, here are the general steps that will happen either before or after birth, depending on your state.  The expectant mother will meet with the attorney and outline what assistance they need; the attorney will share what is allowed in the state that you will finalize in, you will create an agreement that works for both parties, paperwork will be signed, birth will occur, the mandatory waiting period will go into effect, paperwork will be filed, adoption will be finalized.  

Your attorney can give you the best step-by-step process here, so we will leave that to the professionals, but if you have any questions about the experience itself, jump into the Facebook group, and we will help you know what to expect next.  

If you have made it this far into the blog post, congratulations because it was a lengthy one.  But then again, the adoption process is lengthy too.  I hope this roadmap gives you a good idea of how to accomplish your adoption goals.  If you have more questions, make sure you pick up The Ultimate Guide To Self Matching Your Adoption and jump over the Facebook group.

Remember you can do this, and I have 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