Test Your Knowledge

The process of adoption can at times be lengthy and time-consuming. There are several options that should be considered at the beginning of the process. After deciding to adopt, individuals or couples should select an adoption agency, company or attorney.

An estimated 15,000 adoptions are handled through a public agency in the United States with fees ranging from only the court filing fees to $12,000 or more. This includes the cost of the home study, counseling for birth parent(s) and prospective adoptive parents, medical expenses and foster care if it is needed. These fees are normally divided into payments with no more than two-thirds required before placement of a child in the home.

There is also an option to adopt a “waiting child,” one who may have special needs or an older child in foster care who is difficult to place because of his or her age. The fees for a child that may have physical, mental or behavioral disabilities (or because age, skin color or ethnicity makes it hard to find a home) often range between $1,500 and $3,500. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human services, the estimates of the number of children in foster care in 2002 exceeded 532,000. Approximately 126,000 of those half a million children were eligible for adoption, but less than half were adopted (about 53,000).

Children can also be adopted through a private agency/adoption attorney as well. Using a private agency is also known as an independent or private adoption. In this scenario, the adoptive parents take an active role in searching for a child. Representing the parents, the attorney will negotiate directly with the birth parent(s) instead of using an agency. This should not be confused with an “adoption facilitator” service, which does not actually locate and place children in adoptive homes.

Some adoptive parents typically choose a lawyer that is a member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, which means they have met certain criteria and standards of ethics, competence and experience. This is an important consideration as not every attorney possesses the expertise and knowledge that is required to professionally handle an independent adoption. Also, when inquiring about the attorney’s experience, prospective parents should make sure that the attorney has handled more than step-parent adoptions. Private agency adoptions are different from public adoption processes and require additional knowledge. Fees for this type of service vary widely – anywhere from $12,000 to more than $35,000.

Adoptions may be domestic or international creating a number of differences. According to the government agency the Child Welfare Information Gateway, more than 18,000 children from other countries were adopted by U.S. families in 2000. Most children who are adopted internationally are younger (less than 5 years old) than children adopted from foster care in the United States. In fact, many international adoptees are infants, compared to just 2 percent of the children adopted from foster care in the United States, according to the Adoption Institute.

It is important for prospective parents to realize that international adoption is considered a private legal matter between the prospective parents and a foreign court operating under that country’s laws and regulations regarding adoption. The U.S. government is not able to intervene on behalf of a private individual (or couple) who wishes to adopt and the governing court. It is recommended that people pursuing this type of option research the laws that relate to adoption for the country in which they wish to adopt.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 127,000 children are adopted each year in the United States. In the past two decades that number has remained fairly steady at between 118,000 and 127,000, according to the agency. Additionally, public agency and international adoptions account for more than half of all adoptions. Fee ranges include domestic public agency (court filing fees of about $150 to $2,500); domestic private agency (fees of $4,000 to more than $30,000) and domestic independent adoption (fees of $8,000 to more than $30,000).

There are three types of adoption:

• Open adoption. The adoptive parents and the birth mother have some level of contact with each other. The connection may be as close as the adoptive parents being involved in the actual birth of the child. Or, it may be less involved, such as periodic interaction between all of the involved parties. Open adoption, which is growing more common, allows the birth mother to choose who will adopt her baby and also to negotiate the terms for contact as the child grows.
  
  
• Semi-open adoption. This type of adoption is more of a middle-of-the-road approach in which some identifying information and background is exchanged, but not actual names of the birth parents or adoptive family.
  
  
• Closed adoption. Sometimes adoptions are confidential. In such cases, neither the birth parents nor the adoptive parents’ identities are disclosed. Although open adoptions are growing in popularity, many public and private agency adoptions still prohibit contact between the birth parents and the adoptive parents.