Has Anyone Considered Adoption?

We adopted our daughter at birth. Our situation was slightly different because she was legally our niece but the process is pretty much the same. Everything depends on whether you want to adopt a newborn or an older child and whether or not you want a private, indepentdent adoption or go through the foster system. If you are worried about a biological mother "changing her mind," there are laws that protect you from that. And don't forget to factor in the biological father as well. Once they agree to terminate their parental rights, they do have a certain amount of time to change their minds. It varies from state to state but it's usually 2-3 weeks. After that, you are free to proceed with the adoption.

You'll probably need to do a Home Study. That's not as scary as it sounds; someone (usually from Social Services) comes to your home to see where the child will be living and growing up. They are NOT judging you, only verifying that you have a loving home for the child. They'll want to see the child's room, interview members of the household, etc. It's pretty painless and really seems like more of a social call.

We did our adoption ourselves (without legal counsel) but I do suggest that you at least get a consultation with an adoption lawyer and get all your specific questions answered and learn about the adoption laws in your state and county.

That all said, the tone of your post tells me that you are still unsure about adoption. Please be absolutely sure you are open to this option before you commit and don't feel pressured to do it just because your husband wants to. If you go forward and adopt while you're still unsure, you could end up resenting the child or, at the very least, treating him/her differently from your biological child, which they are not.

If you are not emotionally ready to make this committment, you should probably hold off and discuss it further with your husband and, if necessary, with a third party (clergy, family therapist).

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh or if I've over-stepped. I just want you to be sure you are making the right choice for you and your family. Adoption is a beautiful gift, both for the child and the (adoptive) parents. Yes, it's a little stressful and definitely emotional, but you should be sure in your decision and enjoy the journey, wherever it takes you. Good luck, and Blessings to you and yours.

Just a little perspective on the side of an adoptee, adopted at birth through a private agency. My parents said they worked with the agency for more than two years initially to get my older brother and then immediately started working towards getting a 2nd child so that we wouldn't be so far apart in age. So, my brother and I are two years apart. However, my parents ended up divorcing when I was three. Personally, I think divorcing when you've adopted stinks even more than when you do it with biological kids. My own resentment, I'm sure, but I say that to impress to you to make sure that YOU want to adopt. If your husband is the only one who is gung-ho then encourage him to do some kind of volunteer work with at risk youth OR you can go the foster parent route like some of the other posts have suggested. Bringing a child into your home is such a huge decision and responsibility. I agree with your husband that there are so many kids who really need a stable, loving home. I, too, would love to be able to provide that home for a child through adoption as a way to connect with my own life experience. However, my husband has no interest in doing it at all. In my marriage I have learned that when we are not fully in agreement on something - it's a NO GO. Plowing ahead with any decision that we aren't together on has always been a disaster.
Best of luck to you whatever you decide.

My suggestion would be to try becoming a foster parent first. I had been trying for 3 years to get pregnant. As soon as I started looking into fostering/adoption, I got pregnant. I hope this helps. Good luck and God Bless.

You and your husband need to be in 100% agreement before moving forward with any plans for more children biological or adopted.

There are many great resources for adoption available at major bookstores. That's where we started.

It is a really big decision and it can be scary. There are a lot of things to decide on and it is a long process. My husband and I have just decided to start the adoption process. We have know since we met when we were sixteen that we would adopt a child one day. We have a two year old and four month old. The first thing we have been asked to do is talk to all of our family members and find out how supportive they are going to be. Then we will need to apply for a home study and write autobiographies about ourselves to be included with our application. A good place to start is to do some research on the computer to decide how you are going to go about the adoption, whether you want to do a domestic or foreign adoption, what age range you are interested in adopting and whether you are interested in sibling groups. Each country has different requirements for adoption such as age, health, income. From what I have read as long as you do not have a criminal background and can provide a loving home you will be matched with a child. We plan on spending a lot of time in prayer throughout the process. I hope this helps. Good Luck with everything.

I want to adopt very badly, but my husband doesn't. I have 2 boys age 15 and 8 and really want a girl. I have NO desire to have another boy, therefore my reason to adopt. Did your husband tell you this before you were married? If not then he should push you into it. I have a friend with 3 boys and she just adopted a girl and she and her boys and hubby too love her. It was about a year and the mother can still take her, but we must keep hope that things will end up well. Good luck with your decision.

If your husband's intent is to help someone in an orphanage or in foster care, then that is where you should look to adopt. There are countless couples in our country who want to adopt because they are unable to have children on their own - far more than there are available babies. So you would only be taking away from another couple if you went the route of private infant adoption (unless you have the means of adopting from overseas.)

To really make a difference in a child's life, you could become foster/adoptive parents for the state you are in. You would go through a home study process, and then be a potential placement. But, you really wouldn't have the opportunity to just adopt a baby that became available unless you fostered it first, because that's where they go (to foster parents first).

There are countless older children in the system as well. See www.adoptuskids.org. I wish you well in all this. We had wanted to adopt an older child, and ended up doing a little respite and emergency foster placements, but I really didn't care for fostering - wanted to adopt. But the state we were in was way too incompetent and understaffed to ever make it happen, and we've since moved and haven't started up the process again (and have had another baby since as well.) We figure maybe the timing wasn't right, and when our kids are older it might be better timing.

Hi H.,
First I want to commend your husband for bring up the subject because most men are not that crazy of this idea at first. We adopted in 2004 and although there were alot of emotional situations, we followed the advise of our SECOND social worker (the first one I fired) and everything turned out just fine. At first we were going to do the international route mainly because of the fear of my child being returned to his biological mother. My thinking was that if I adopted from Russia or Columbia there would be less chance of anyone taking my baby back. BUT, my social worker (who adopted two children herself) talked to me about my concerns. She assured me that if you follow all procedures and stay within the legalities that a domestic adoption would work fine, and it did. With all that said and done if I had to do it all over again my husband and I would in a heartbeat. We started the process through a private adoption attorney, listened to the experts and did what they asked and approximately 10 months later we traveled to the hospital and took our newborn baby boy home. No matter how old the child is, when you open your heart to something like this your love for that child is overwhelming. Obviously we had a good experience and would be more than happy to share all the ups and downs that go with adopting. If you would like to talk more, I would be happy to.

God bless you guys.

Cindi, Brian and Carter

I personally would love to but my husband is not ready yet. I have a friend who has 2 biological boys, 2 girls from China, and is in the process of adopting 2 more from Uganda. Check out her blog at oatsvallteam.blogspot.com. There are 147 million orphans out there that need a home. It is a great idea if you would consider it. Just pray about it and God will change your heart if it is His will.

That is an awesome thing. Infants are hard to get, but if you get a child any older, you need to know what the child has gone thru up to that point, and be prepared. There is an agency where the mother picks you. My friends did that and they brought their beautiful baby girl home from the delivery room. They were there for the birth and all. If you want more info on that process, let me know and I will get the agency info. It cost about 20,000, I think. Very thorough checks on both ends from this agency. Good luck and God Bless.

Hey, H.,

Here's an amazing, wonderful adoption story (stories) for you!!

We adopted all 3 of our kids (now 11, 14, and 16) and all three combined, from initial contact to our arms was less than 9 months. COMBINED!!

We went through an agency in TX (where there is no waiting period for the birthmom, her relinquishment is final as soon as she is able to sign the papers after the birth). We were there, in the room, for each birth; the babies went home with us straight from the hospital.

Our 2 girls have the same birthmom, different birthdad and our son is the middle child in his birth family. His mom was 16 when she had him and wrote him a letter a year later to tell him how it came to be that she made an adoption plan for him and not his siblings (her husband was absent during that pregnancy, then they got back together later...)

All are open adoptions; for the first 10 yrs we wrote and sent photos every 4 months and now that the kids are old enough to make their own decisions and communicate on their own the birthmoms and they exchange letters and phone calls. We have visited with them in person a couple times (determined by the kids' wishes).

All 3 have their special issues and special gifts...just like our birth kids would. We have never looked back.

(My 14 yr old daughter just asked me what I am writing and then responded, "Adoption is wonderful.")

Please write me if you want more information or more of our story. I am GLAD to share.

H.

I'm a mom to two children adopted as newborns. I think Rocio's answer is great and thorough. The wait for a newborn can be long, stressful and expensive. From the time we began our paperwork until the time we brought our chidren home - it was almost 2 yrs. for each of them. I'm also the godmother to a little boy who was adopted through the foster system. His parents had a few other foster children in their home before the right situation came along for them to be parents to this little boy. I don't even think they got into fostering thinking they would end up adopting, but they did and he is a joy. They have two older bio daughters.

Each situation is different, and the scary part is the unknown. Please be sure you are really committed before proceeding. If you have any reservations, be sure to explore them fully. You need to be honest with yourself and with your husband. Maybe now isn't the right time for you to adopt. Maybe you should consider having another bio child and then adopting a third child later. Talk it out and when you decide to proceed, I wish you the best of luck.

I have a friend who adopted 2 kids through "foster to adopt" program. She said it was "painless" and they had kids within the year.They did not have to pay anything either. Adoption was the only way she and her husband could be parents though, so I think they looked at it a bit different. SHe said they too wanted to give kids a better life, but at the end kids gave them way more than they imagined. I have always wanted to adopt. Growing up in the city I would always pass a "children's home" on the way to school. I would hear a nonstopping screams every time........
My husband and I used to work at the homeless shelter, so 2 months after we got married we ended up with 5 kids that we "adopted" as our Godchildren.
Go for it,it will worth it !!!!

Hi H.,
My husband and I went through 8 years of infertility. With several miscarriages and many broken hearts we had given up hope of every being parents. When one day I was crying to my best friend about how unfair it all was when she said to me "do you want to give birth only or do you want to be parent" well that day my husband and I decided we could adopt that we would be great parents to "any" child... we just wanted a child or children to love. We did not care about race, sex or challenges we just wanted to be parents.
11 months later a social worker in Fl placed our 5 day old son in our arms and said here is your new family. 14 months later we drove from MN to MS to hold in our arms our beautiful 4 day old baby girl. Our adoption experience was wonderful to say the least. Our agency was exceptional... hard to believe we worked 8 years to have a birth child and it only too us a little over two years to have 2 babies!
Now our son, 5 years old and our daughter 4 years old are the light of our lives. Because of them we are the parents we have always wanted to be AND because of their birth mother's choosing us to be their parents we are family. To this day I thank God for my children and for their birth mothers for the gifts they gave to us.
I say place it in God's hands.. he will now what is right for you!

Hi,

I don't have any advice to share, but I thought I would respond anyway because DH and I are planning to do the same. Our son is 19 months, and while we would like to have one more biological child we are also looking at adoption agencies, etc. as we would like to have more. We are leaning heavily toward international adoption for a number of reasons, and I have heard really good things about European Adoption Consultants. I have spoken with them and so far have a good impression. Don't let the name fool you; they do adoptions from all over the world, not just Europe.

I think it is great that you all feel the urge to use your means to help others. I feel it is going to be one of the most valuable things we do in our lives, and it is great to hear about people who feel the same way :).

I know many adoptive couples -- some who adopted children as newborns, as infants, from foreign countries, and from the foster system. The thing about "no guarantee" that you would get a child probably mostly refers to trying to get a newborn. Most people who want to adopt want to get newborns, so there is high demand. It will be much easier to adopt an older child. Most of the couples I know who adopted non-newborns live in other states and/or had their children prior to my knowing them, so I couldn't say how long, expensive, or "nerve-wracking" it may have been for them. I think most of the negatives -- the expense, the length of time to adoption, and the uncertainty of getting a child -- relate to newborn adoptions. Most older children would be already in foster care because their parents were unable or unwilling to take care of them, and had their parental rights terminated already. But newborns would be different -- the typical scenario that people fear is women who decide in pregnancy to give their babies up for adoption, and then change their minds after birth. In many cases, adoptive couples were told they would be able to have that child, and may have even spent money for the pregnant woman's medical bills, on an adoption lawyer, etc., and end up with nothing.

Check with your local Department of Health and Human Services, or Child Protection Service, or some other similar organization and just ask them about the process, availability of children for adoption, cost involved, etc., and they can probably either answer your questions or refer you to someone who does know.

My husband and I have two biological son's who were 10 and 14 when we adopted our daughter at birth. Our adoption is a private, domestic, open adoption that found us when we were not looking. The best advice I can give is make sure you want another child and that you are not just adopting to be "giving a chid a better life." Adoption is by far the neatest journey I have ever been on and I think everyone who has a desire to adopt should be able to. If you can find a birthmother on your own and use only an attorney, no agency involved, your cost is so reasonable. We are in TN and our birthmother lives about 10 miles from us and our entire adoption start to finish cost under $6000. Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions, I'd be glad to help. Our kids are now 19, 15 and 5!

Contact Department of Children's Services about being a resource parent or foster parent and see how you feel about raising a child that is not your biological child.