young with medical problems, told to adopt lots of questions!

Adoption is a great option.1. Adoption ranges in price depending on agencies and which route you go. adoption through your local government is nearly free while moat agencies are a minimum of $10,000. There are tax credits and stuff though.2. The process is long. To get everything signed and courses completed and forms in could take a few months to a year. Then you wait. Depending on a lot of factors you could wait for another few years, or it could be months. I would expect the whole process to take a minimum of a year if you are lucky. Unfortunately birth parents can change their minds, and it happens. But I have also heard that they often end up not being able to take care of the child in the end and they become available to adopt at a few weeks old. Getting back medical costs depends on the state you are in. I think only a few of them require the mother to pay back the money if they change their minds.3. Neither is necessarily easier, but domestic is far cheaper. International also typically a consideration for older children, although I am sure there could be babies available too. Keep in mind with international that it all depends on the country. Some will make you jump through hoops and others won't. 4.I am 23 and I am adopting and thus far I have been taken seriously. 28 is by no means too young and you could be at an advantage. If you do domestic adoption the birth mothers often get to pick you, so being young would make you more relatable and you likely have more interests that would draw a birth mom in. 5. Open or closed is a personal choice and depends on the situation. An open adoption can simply be pictures twice a year, or it could be visits. I have also heard a lot about contact slowly ending because it is hard on the birth family. Hope this helps :)

I think average for a domestic adoption is $25,000-$30,000, last I checked; this would generally be newborn or at least infant. Some are less, others more. If you adopt through foster care, the cost is minimal (generally just the finalization costs). Foster care adoptions usually involve fostering first, with the foster parents considered as an adoptive resource if children are not reunified; children who are legally free for adoption tend to be older. The length of time varies. For me, the homestudy and all took about 6 months, I waited for almost exactly a year, and then got a call that I had been matched with a baby boy who had been born 6 days previously. No one truly makes the decision to place a child for adoption until after the child is born. Even if someone makes a decision, it is a theoretical one until there is an actual baby to apply it to. Different states have different laws about revocation period - how long after signing relinquishment papers a parent has to change her or his mind (remember that fathers have rights as well, which are also handled differently in different states). Generally, any expenses paid to an expectant mother are considered a "donation" and are not repaid if the mother decides to parent. I believe there is one state that is an exception to this, but most often if a woman needs to accept those kinds of expenses, she is not going to be in a position to repay them anyway. There are, however, different ways that agencies work. Some have potential adoptive parents pay expenses, others work on a "flat fee" system, where the agency charges a fee (usually higher than those agencies where PAPs pay expenses), and then the agency pays any expenses that the emom needs; if the emom chooses to parent, the PAP's fee is either refunded or "rolled over" to the next match. I wouldn't say either is "easy" - adoption is a difficult and time-consuming process. With your health history, there are some countries you would not qualify to adopt from (every country has its own requirements in addition to US and agency requirements). Which adoption route - private domestic, foster care, or international - is right for you is a very personal choice. I was 37 when my son was born; I was worried that I was too old and no one would want to choose me. What makes eparents choose a particular person or couple is very personal, so yes, there are some people who would want older parents, but there are others who might find you just perfect. That is a tremendously loaded question, and you will get all sorts of answers. I am a huge proponent of open adoption unless there are safety (physical or emotional) issues. Then again, I don't have an open adoption, because my son's bparents chose a semi-open, with me sending letters and pictures but no communication from them. Sometimes what you want doesn't end up being what happens. I would suggest doing a lot of research on openness in adoption in order to understand the positives and negatives of all the options and to figure out what will work for your family. I would say to never agree to something you aren't going to honor, and once you agree to something, you need to figure out how to honor it, even if it gets hard or uncomfortable, unless the contact constitutes a true threat to your child or family.

Is it possible I could denied based on my health history? I have never been told that I have a short life expectancy and my doctors anticipate that if I take good care if myself I will live a long healthy life. My biggest problems are history if cancer, mild cardiomyopathy and a clotting condition? Would these be concerns? My husband also has Graves' disease (but that is a thyroid problem and of no concern)

You will have to complete a medical and I'm not sure if they are standard, but I know mine asked 3 questions, all of which revolved around medication and if I was able to parent safely. I think the only really big thing is if you are having to constantly go back and forth to a hospital or it will affect your mental state. A history of medical issues is typically not an issue because they are supposed to look at it as a challenge that you have worked your way through. If you are not sure you want to take the risk of going through with the paperwork then just call and ask a few agencies in your area. They will be able to tell you if they think it will be a problem. What they want to see is that you can take care of the child, can support them financially, and that you have no current medical issues that would cause any of that to be a problem.

I had homestudies done by two different agencies (the first closed while I was still waiting, so I needed a new one); the two were very different. The first agency had a one-page form that basically asked if I was healthy enough to raise a child. The second was several pages long, asked for results from all sorts of tests (from pap smear to cholesterol levels to STD tests), a fairly comprehensive personal and family medical history, and an assessment of my life expectancy. States have requirements for what the medical part looks like, but agencies all have their own interpretations of that. If your medical history makes it unlikely that you would be able to raise a child to adulthood, you might very likely be denied, but it sounds like that's not an issue. They are concerned about medical issues that would impact your parenting, so I would talk with agencies about your medical issues upfront, before you start your homestudy and see what they have to say.