Mental Health and Domestic Infant Adoption

March 30, 2017

My sense is that some agencies will accept bipolar clients, while others won't. Your best bet is to speak with a number of homestudy providers and placement agencies, telling them what you have said here. It certainly works to your advantage to have a history of stability, the ability to get recommendations from mental health professionals, and experience as a successful wife and mother.

Remember that, by the time a provider agrees to do your homestudy, the provider has determined that, unless what you said on intake is not supported by his/her findings, or unless some additional problems are identified, you are likely to be approved. Homestudy providers do not want to waste their time and your money by starting a homestudy that cannot possibly be approved.

Now, there are some agencies that may want you to see a psychiatrist of their choice, to validate what the doctors who provided your recommendations stated, or to overcome any concerns about accepting a bipolar individual. However, that won't be necessary, in most cases. I have seen one case in which a family was rejected after seeing a "second opinion" therapist, but in that case, frankly, the prospective adoptive mother had other issues in addition to bipolar disorder, such as OCD, and had a history of frequent hospitalizations.

I think that the agency really liked the couple, and was trying to find a way to approve them -- they are lovely people -- and was hoping that a highly regarded expert would say that the wife was stable enough. Unfortunately, she really wasn't. and the agency did what it had to do, which was to reject them. The woman is a relative of mine, and I have known her since she was a child. I can say only that I saw no evidence of bias on the part of the very conservative agency. This relative has never been stable on medication, since her teens, although she has managed to marry a nice man, has wonderful longtime friends, and has even worked in day care. She tries so hard to live a normal life, and is such a strong person, but her illness can't be overcome with willpower, and doesn't respond well to the many different medications and therapies that have been tried.

Sharon