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I am still hoping to adopt. Here are a few things I wish I knew about adoption/foster care when I started. I am only half-way through this and would love to hear about things other people wish they knew as well.
1. Foster care- is run by the state. They are focused on finding homes for kids quickly. Adoption is not on their mind. Don't expect alot of help or support from the foster care system. What they want from you is a safe house for fostering. If you go this route to adoption -expect to have to take in 3-5 children before finding one that will be all yours. Expect that when they call you for a placment they have little information about the child. Don't expect the information they do have to be correct(I dont believe its intentional-its just not available or a poor system).Advantage- its free. You can foster-adopt any age... (including newborns)
2. Private Agencies- These focus mostly on "birth mother" matching for newborns. It will cost you $25,000 to $35,000 for this newborn match. The babies you are matched with through private agencies are likely to have the same type of prenatal history as those you would find in the foster care system (ie drug/alcohol exposed) etc. The advantage is mom signs over her rights to you quickly. (3 days) -In the foster care system it can take over a year to terminate parental rights (and thats after they have already decided to procedd with it). The other advantage is that private agencies are working with you: ie they do answer the phone when you call and try their best to answer your questions... good luck having the foster care system call you back within a week....
3. Out of State foster Adoptions.
Don't expect your state to help you with this. That means if your home-study was completed by your state, they have to give you a copy of it by law -but don't expect your caseworker to help you contacting out-of-state children's caseworkers for information. AND HERES THE OTHER PROBLEM - a lot of other state childrens caseworkers won't accept a homestudy from you directly (I guess they think maybe you will change it)... so that means you have to plead and beg your state caseworker to send them a copy in a relatively timely manner(and they are already pretty busy working on foster situations -so your journey to adopt is not their priority). The children out of state with fewer issues recieve hundreds of homestudies and so, if you snooze you loose. There are a few private agencies that offer "older child" or "special needs" adoptions (AKA Foster care). If you want to expand your adoption options by going out of state it may be to your benefit to get a private agency foster homestudy...-JUST MAKE SURE they agree to send out your homestudy promptly at your request. AND make sure they are not going to charge you a fee everytime they send it out. -Also make sure to ask about matching fees(paid for by the state of the child, but some states dont pay!) and legal fees. Private agencies like fees.
4. Homestudies- Apparently there are different types! A homestudy done by the state for the foster system or by a private agency for fostering has a different focus than a homestudy done for a private newborn adoption. So if you were hoping to use the same one for both- you cant. You will end up having to repeat the homestudy process and pay for an admendment or a whole new study.
-shop around for a homestudy. they can be from $1,000 to $2000. -the key question is -what other services will the agency offer with that fee? Alot will only do the homestudy and then you are on your own.
5. International? -think about spending more than $35,000 to adopt a child that has more unknowns than children from the states. Think about it taking a VERY long time and alot more paperwork.
5. HOPE- HOPE-HOPE. This whole process is a roller-coaster no matter which way you go...
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kmtsd
2. Private Agencies- These focus mostly on "birth mother" matching for newborns. It will cost you $25,000 to $35,000 for this newborn match. The babies you are matched with through private agencies are likely to have the same type of prenatal history as those you would find in the foster care system (ie drug/alcohol exposed) etc. The advantage is mom signs over her rights to you quickly. (3 days) -In the foster care system it can take over a year to terminate parental rights (and thats after they have already decided to procedd with it). The other advantage is that private agencies are working with you: ie they do answer the phone when you call and try their best to answer your questions... good luck having the foster care system call you back within a week....
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you're right - that did sound sweeping.... not my intention.... in my area, I called and visited a lot of agencies.... thinking that birthmoms who seek out agencies were more responsible and more likely to care for themselves and their baby, thus, I thought, agencies would offer the opportunity to adopt children with a better prenatal history...
what I found out was that agencies have a high percentage of placements -they call "emergency placements". One popular agency in my area that charged over $30,000 had 84 adoptions last year, 60 of them were "emergency placements". -these are birthmoms who showed up in the hospital without prenatal care and delivered...
so my intention was not to dis birthmoms who struggle with the most difficult decision of their lives, but to point out that you need to ask alot of questions to these agencies... some of them are scams!
so I dug further -what actually happens when a birthmom delivers in a hospital and wants to give up her child? Well, in NJ, the hospital social worker is required to give her 3 agency information packets. (one of which is the state, the others are private).... private agencies make huge numbers of brocures and make them easily available to hospitals to handout in this situation increasing the likelihood that the birthmom will call them.... this is the SAME birthmom that could have easily given her child up to the foster system.... so my point is: What the heck are you paying for?
kmtsd
.... this is the SAME birthmom that could have easily given her child up to the foster system.... so my point is: What the heck are you paying for?
JCM, Many babies from my era were simply surrendered at birth to the state...NO CPS prior involvement or any of that stuff that would have been an automatic removal at birth...just simply because that is what mothers did if they hadn't been shipped off to a adoption agency run maternity home by their parents... The state had a list of parents waiting and matched them up by requirements of the mother, religion, race (50 years ago), etc... I was one of those babies and the state had to look for parents for me and finally convinced my parents to adopt again - my parents paid for their lawyer to submit the petition to adopt and paid the hospital something like just over a hundred dollars, for my delivery I guess... Adoption is a big business...and that makes it at risk for ethics to be thrown out the window... D
Dickons,
I need to read up about how and why they changed the system. I am ashamed to admit, I know nothing. :(
Any time you swap $$$ for human life, I'd think it would be hard to stand on ethical ground. Again, it's the system we have, so I am not saying everyone who adopts has no ethics. I KNOW I do, as do a lot of the people I have "met" on here.
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JCM, I know that or I would not be here or would have been banned many many year ago. It is the industry (yes I know people hate that term). The way I see it is that a fair amount of people arrive at adoption without a clue and trust that it is good.good.good and they will finally get to be parents and that is their focus...and only afterwards they have the knowledge to reflect and say - wait a minute - some things should be fixed...(How was that for being PC and gentle?) D
That was quite PC and gentle! lol
I had no clue when I first ventured into adoption, but I made it my business to KNOW. I came here, I listened to what people who had experience had to say, I also went to the adoptee boards, and listened to their concerns. I talked to a lawyer, questioned agencies, I used a list I culled from generous people I "talked" to on here. I went to seminars.
I knew I wanted a baby. I also knew that "my" baby was going to already have a family, their first family. Maybe it's because I have a deep understanding and first-hand knowledge of being raised in a family that is not completely biological. My step-dad was more of a parent to me than my bio or first dad, but I always knew who "my people" were. So I knew going into adoption that my potential child would have connections that had nothing to do with me, and that another human being was in fact, involved. Wasn't just some baby oven. I guess that is where I took care.
So the thought of some big corporation-like entity handling my adoption was just not going to happen, wasn't a right fit for me and my DH. When our agency told us they place mostly baby-born situations, I didn't even really GET what that meant at the time. But I do now, and it just makes so much more sense to me.
Dickons
I think baby born situations are better...for so many many reasons, and even though there is less time to get organized when you get the call, not all babies are born at 40 weeks either and can come really early - months early so surprise arrivals happen in biological homes too.
D
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