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I am adopted, and I plan to adopt when I have children. I have kind of an odd question. If a friend or family member gets pregnant and wants to give the child away, can you adopt it? Would you have to go through the normal paperwork, get an agent, and wait on a list; or would the birthmother be able to hand that child over to you and let your name be put on the birth certificate? Does anyone know anything about this situation?
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You'd have to do paperwork (home study), get a lawyer but not wait on any list. The expectant Mother could NOT just "hand over" the baby and put your name on the certificate. Beyond that, if you want to be ethically sound in a case like that, it would behoove you to make sure the expectant Mother received third-party counseling from someone not affiliated with a lawyer/agency.
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We were working with private agency and on their waiting list, but they said if we knew someone who wanted to plac e their child wanted to choose us as the parents, we could refer them to the agency, and just have the expectant mom give them our names. They call this a designated adoption. This way, we'd be sure everything was done legally, completely, and the mother would get all the counseling and assistance they offered.
You would need to have an attorney, one for you and one for the bmother as well as a homestudy. You would not wait on any list and would be able to bring the baby home from the hospital as long as you are approved with your homestudy. Our private adoption was just under $6k total. Yes, if you look at our daughters birth certificate you would not know we didn't give birth to her. There was a "first" birth certificate that her bithmother has but I have never seen it so I don't know what it says!