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Most of the people who adopt the 120,000 some children adopted each year in this country adopt domestically.
It’s hard to find current, accurate statistics for domestic adoption, but since 10-12% of the children adopted each year are adopted internationally, that leaves a little over 100,000 who are adopted domestically.
About half of those children are adopted by biological relatives. Some of those may be through the foster care system and some privately. So that leaves 50,000 children + each year who are adopted by non-biological relatives. I couldn’t find out how many are adopted through foster-to-adopt or through public adoption, or how many are adopted privately.
I’ve heard that for every infant born in the United States there are 3 potential adoptive parents.
The cost to adopt an infant, privately? From 10,000 to 40,000. Most agencies will quote their costs at about $20- $25,000, although this does not include prospective birth mother expenses. The cost is on the lower end in a designated or targeted adoption, but in many states prospective placing parents as well as the prospective adoptive parents must use an agency in that situation as well. This depends on state law.
Here’s what the encyclopedia at adoption.com says about designated adoption:
When an adoption agency oversees the designated adoption, a key advantage to the pregnant woman as well as to the adopting couple is that they will all receive professional counseling and the full range of agency services. If, for some reason, the adopting couple is deemed unsuitable or they drop out of the adoption, the agency can recommend other approved couples to the birthmother. Also, increasing numbers of attorneys are requiring counseling or preplacement home studies of prospective adoptive parents and are also giving birthmothers the opportunity to receive professional counseling as well.
The disadvantage of a designated adoption for most couples is the difficulty in locating a pregnant woman considering adoption. When an agency becomes involved it is also possible that an agency social worker could veto an adoption for any number of reasons, even though a couple may have invested heavily of their emotions, time and money. Another disadvantage of an identified adoption is that the birthmother may have difficulty in choosing appropriate parents, particularly if she is close to delivering and feels desperately eager to resolve her situation.
How long does it take to do a private adoption of an infant in the U.S.A? Unclear. When my husband and I went to a private agency before deciding to go with Russia we were told we weren’t attractive (since we already had one child) and it would take at least 2 years…but recently I spoke to another agency and she disagreed. She said that some parents want a larger family for their child…and the fact that we now have 1 adopted, 1 not, might make us very attractive. I’ve heard different things from different people.
Then there are open, semi-open, and closed adoptions. What do these terms really mean? I suspect the answers would be different for every family you ask.
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be exploring this topic more thoroughly. Before this blog I’d honestly never even heard of “identified adoption.” I thought all private domestic adoptions went through agencies. I think the pros/cons and trials and tribulations of these type of adoptions will be fascinating for me to explore.
