Agency vs. Private Adoption
If you decide that a domestic adoption is the best type of adoption for your family, you then need to consider whether you want to proceed with the adoption through an agency or independently with the help of a private attorney. Generally, if you are interested in adopting a newborn baby, to adopt a healthy newborn through an agency may require a long waiting period. By contrast, independent adoptions are usually successful within a year. There are hundreds of agencies around the country and most agencies specialize in placing different types of children including healthy newborns, "special needs" children, international children, and children of mixed races and ethnicities.
Each agency will have its own rules and requirements for the people who want to adopt a child through that agency. Very often, these agencies have particular requirements which adoptive parents must meet in order to adopt a baby through the agency. Often, there are restrictions regarding marital status (many agencies require that adoptive parents be married for a specified period of time), age (adoptive parents cannot be older than a certain age), race, religion, among other restrictions. On the contrary, in an independent adoption, there are no social restrictions placed on adoptive parents. Anyone can adopt, provided you meet the legal requirements, regardless of your marital status, age, race, religion, or sexual orientation.
In an independent adoption, the adoptive parents (as well as the birth parents) have an active role in the adoption process. Adoptive parents usually have contact with the birth parents prior to the birth of the child, they can experience the birth mother's pregnancy and the development of the unborn baby, review background information and pre-natal records and, in some situations, even be present during the birth of the child. In an agency adoption, both adoptive parents and birth parents may play a passive role in the adoption process.
In summary, one should consider private adoption because...
- Private adoption is flexible, allowing both the adoptive parents and the birth parents to create the type of relationship and adoption they want. The parties are not required to subscribe to the philosophies of a third party and how they perceive an adoption relationship should proceed. Adoptive parents and birth parents share full or partial identities and become personally acquainted before the birth. This is rewarding for the birth mother because it allows her to develop trust and confidence in the adoptive parents, enhancing her likelihood of placing the baby for adoption as planned.
- Private adoption invites the birth mother to personally select and meet the adoptive parents. Birth parents are proud of their involvement in personally selecting the adoptive parents, rather than relinquishing that job to an agency.
- Private adoption allows adoptive parents to use their own initiative and enthusiasm to identify and meet a birth mother, rather than wait for an adoption entity to do it for them.
- The child is placed in the physical custody of the adoptive parents immediately after birth, rather than temporarily placed in a temporary foster care home, which may happen with an agency placement.
