Because adoption is both a business process and an emotional process, sometimes people find it difficult to balance these two sides of adoption. A successful adoption process requires that you make sure you consider everyone’s emotional needs while keeping the case legal, formal, and organized. The private adoption option lets both parties involved – the adoptive parents and the birth parents – decide the terms of their own case, and, in successful cases, they can combine the business and emotional aspects into one.
Many people like private adoption because they have much more control over the adoption process. In this kind of adoption, people looking to adopt can place an ad in newspapers or on the Internet, or even communicate by word-of-mouth to search out someone looking to place a child in an adoptive family. Once the prospective adoptive parents find some birth parents with whom they feel capable of working out an agreement, they hire an attorney to help them fill out papers, and the attorney files the papers with the court. Instead of going through an adoption agency and social worker, the adoptive parents and birth parents work everything out independently, so they must be able to communicate very well.
Advocates of this kind of adoption like it because it allows birth parents to have greater control over the choice of adoptive parents. Sometimes in agencies, birth parents have the most difficult time because of all the people working with them, when they feel that the case should be about their baby and their own desires. Also, for adoptive parents, this kind of adoption may mean a quicker search – anywhere from a few days to a year or two, but usually somewhere around six to twelve months. Adoptive parents may also like this kind of adoption because they can sometimes find out more information about the child’s medical, religious, and social past. Also, adoptive parents can often take the child home straight from the hospital, so they can both experience more immediate bonding.
Private adoption also has some setbacks, as well, though. For example, the adoptive parents usually can’t choose the gender of the child, because they just have to take what they find first. This type of adoption may also cause more stress on adoptive parents because the birth parents can change their minds about adoption as late as 30 days from the child’s birth, in most states. Also, this type of adoption involves more unpredictable costs, whereas with adoption agencies, you know what you will spend from the beginning because agencies tell you a fixed cost upfront. In private adoption, however, many factors can affect the cost. For example, the adoptive parents and the birth parents have to pay for separate legal representation, the cost of a licensed professional to do a home study on the adoptive parents, possible advertising and travel expenses, and also counseling or medical expenses for the birth parent. Although price varies, altogether it could range from ten to fifteen thousand dollars. However, you can still get tax credits.
Most importantly, when adopting, make sure you have enough social support, which you can find in clubs and groups of adoptive parents who also adopted, and with whom you can share peer support and guidance.
By Lisa Zyga