There’s no doubt that adopting a child who’s desperately in need of a loving home can be one of the most rewarding experiences in life. If you’re just starting to think about adoption, you may imagine adopting a certain kind of child and are leaning toward one particular way of adopting, or you may feel that the process and decisions can feel a bit daunting, with many questions to think about. There’s no right or wrong way to adopt, as the decision is as individual and unique to each family as the actual adopted child who’s brought home.

GETTING STARTED

Cory Barron, outreach director for Child Hope International, an international adoption agency, suggests some tips to help prospective parents get acquainted with the adoption process and begin to consider their options.

1. Ask friends, family and co-workers for recommendations and feedback.

According to The Adoption Institute’s Public Opinion Benchmark survey, 58% of Americans know someone who has adopted a child, has relinquished a child for adoption or is an adoptee. Ask around for advice and talk to others about their experiences.

2. Attend an agency informational meeting, schedule a consultation with an attorney or join a parent support group.

Adoption agencies offer meetings where prospective adoptive parents can meet with others who have adopted, receive information and application packets, learn how the process works, and generally ask questions. To find an attorney who specializes in adoption, you may want to find one who’s accredited by the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys.

3. Ask for a list of itemized charges and a financial timeline.

Non-profit agencies, for-profit agencies and adoption attorneys all work differently. Some charge fees up front; others only for certain services rendered. Through the state, there are certain subsidies that can help you with adoption, and you may be able to take a tax credit for qualifying expenses. Some employers have employee adoption benefits as well. Either way, try to set a budget.

4. Ensure that agencies are licensed and accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA) for the countries from which you may be interested in adopting.

Ask for reference families, who you can talk to about the agency or attorney’s ethical standards. For international adoptions, look for agencies that are Hague accredited; meaning that they meet the standards of The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which protects orphans from child trafficking.

5. Be aware that you will have to open up emotionally.

Susan Watson, Director of National and Community Partnerships at the adoption agency, Spence Chapin, says that parents should be prepared that adoption can be an emotional roller coaster, particularly for couples who have infertility problems and have already been experiencing hope and then disappointment. “In many ways, the adoption process can mimic the infertility process,” she says, such as in cases where birthparents change their mind. “Sometimes families go through a number of possibilities before their baby actually comes home.”

WAYS TO ADOPT

While the world of adoption has certainly gained more public awareness and visibility, partly due to the adoption of children by many celebrities, there is still a lot of misunderstanding in our society, according to Watson. “People really are stuck on ideas about adoption from 30 years ago, or all they know about adoption is what they’ve learned from Angelina Jolie,” she says.

Whether you decide to adopt domestically, internationally, through an agency or independently through an attorney, keep in mind that each way involves a different level of openness and a different level of control over which a family can execute the process.

Domestic Adoptions

In the past, secrecy about adoption was prevalent, and with adoption records sealed, many birthparents wondered about the babies they relinquished. Adoptees either were not told about their adoptions, or they could not find information about them. But with the general opening up of society and acceptance of unplanned pregnancies and many kinds of families, Watson suggests that birthmothers don’t feel the same need to stay in the shadows.

Today, in domestic adoptions, birthparents are playing an active role in choosing the adoptive family for their child, and many are staying in touch. “We do think that this takes the mystery out of adoption for adoptees. As they grow up, they don’t have to be wondering about some fantasy parent out there,” says Watson. “It answers questions for everybody.”

This involvement with the birthmother sometimes surprises people, as there are misconceptions that birthmothers are uncaring, irresponsible people who don’t care about their babies. Watson points out that the opposite is actually the case. “These are women who are old enough to really have a sense of what it means to have a baby and parent the baby,” she says, adding that most birthmothers are in their mid-twenties, not teenagers, as some people mistakenly believe. “They want to find a way to provide this baby with the opportunities and resources that they couldn’t provide. For whatever reason, they’re not prepared to parent their baby at this particular time. It’s a thoughtful and loving decision to make.”

If you’re looking for a newborn, domestic adoption offers the best opportunity. The child is usually placed right after birth, usually from a day old up until a couple of months old, whereas in international adoption, the process can happen a bit later, as the baby is first open to be placed in its extended birth family, or the country’s domestic adoption system. There are also more opportunities to help the children stay in touch with extended genetic family – culturally in the U.S., due to the open adoption process.

There is a period of time in which a birthmother can change her mind, though it doesn’t happen very often, as birthmothers go through extensive counseling beforehand to make sure she’s certain. In New York State, if working with an agency, a birthmother has 30 days after she signs her surrender documents where she can ask that her surrender be rescinded. Babies are placed very soon after those documents are signed. If she were working with an attorney to facilitate the adoption, she would have 45 days to change her mind.

Ultimately, there are good options to adopt domestically and in the New York area, but the variables are a bit unpredictable. Families should be open to differences and risks. If parents have specific ideas of the kind of baby they want, they might wait a long time.

International Adoptions

In other countries, parental rights are given up the minute the birth mother relinquishes the baby, and in most cases, little is known about the birth family. “Probably the number one reason that people come to adopt internationally is the finality of the process,” says Barron. “Our families know with certainty when they bring their new child home after finalizing the adoption in the country, that it’s done, that the new baby is secure in their arms.”

The finality of the process is what helped sway an Upper West Side couple, Ingrid and Cory Flinn, to adopt internationally. Through the Wide Horizons for Children, Inc. in Oyster Bay, Long Island, the couple considered and applied to four different countries before ultimately adopting their son, Tristan from the Ukraine, as countries like China and Guatemala either had qualifying restrictions for parents, or closed off their program to the U.S. during the time the couple had applied. So international adoptions are also not completely predictable. Agencies such as Spence Chapin are also involved with helping international adoptees re-connect with their birth family.

Another factor for international adoption is a special calling to adopt and help orphans around the world who are living in poor conditions and really need a home. Michael and Linda Harris of The Bronx were initially considering domestic adoption, but after reading a New York Times article about the large number of Ethiopian children expected to die that year, the couple consulted with doctors and ultimately decided that they’d like to adopt. After traveling to Ethiopia, they adopted an abandoned six-month-old boy and a 12-month-old girl.

Grieving for birth parents and the birth country is part of the adjustment process for international children when they are brought in to a new culture. This can also include assimilating into the English language, missing certain cultural foods and friends in the orphanage, and speech and developmental delays. This was the case for the Harris’ little girl from Ethiopia, but ultimately after early childhood linguistics classes, she learned very quickly and enrolled in the gifted and talented program in her pre kindergarten class.

It’s important to have medical records read by pediatricians specializing in international adoption, as medical practices, lab tests and even terminology mean different things in different countries. Pediatricians accredited with the American Academy of Pediatrics have a lot of experience with this, and post adoption services at many adoption agencies can assist with counseling as well.

Families are encouraged to embrace the child’s heritage as much as possible, which includes displaying items from the country in the home, making plans to travel to the child’s native country when they are older and attending parent support groups and heritage events. For the Harris family, Ethiopian babysitters were hired to help take care of their children and preserve their language. Heritage events like FRUA (Families for Russian And Ukrainian Adoptions) also foster connections and friendships.

Independent Adoptions (Domestic)

The main appeal of independent adoption is that searching for a baby to adopt is within a family’s own personal control. And once the court approves the prospective parents, the process involves putting out print ads in newspapers, and Internet ads on sites such as adoption.com. Most newspapers require a letter from an attorney stating that the parents have met the requirements and are able to do a private adoption from that state, but not every state allows private adoptions.

In independent adoption, families have control over searching for the baby themselves, and doing this on a national scale, while many agencies tend to be localized. Also, parents don’t have to wait until they are matched or a birthmother picks them. Independent adoption could be a great option if families do have a particular kind of child in mind.

The prospect of putting themselves out there through advertising can be uncomfortable for some people, though 800 numbers can be set up. Tim Jenkins, an adoptive father from Long Island City, says that the state has regulated independent adoptions a great deal. “It protects the children from the black market,” he says. As far as birthmother contracts and money issues go, let the attorney work out the sticky situations to make sure the birthmother is legitimate.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS

Adoptive families, just like any other family, can have their own set of issues. But David Brodzinsky, clinical psychologist and author of Being Adopted, The Lifelong Search for Self points out that one needs to distinguish between what is an adoptive issue and what’s not, as many problems such as prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol or development issues, for instance, were problems before the adoption actually took place.

The child starts the grieving process for his/her birthparents and wonders about the reasons he or she was given up.

“There’s emotional pain – no matter what the reason,” says Maxine Rosenberg, a psychotherapist specializing in adoption in the West Village. She adds that the grieving process usually begins at age six or seven when the child begins to conceptualize what adoption means. “The fear of abandonment and separation anxiety is tremendous,” she says. “There’s always this fear of, ‘Am I going to be given up again?’’’ Rosenberg recommends that parents start using the word “adoption” from day one. “At least the word ‘adoption’ is said in a positive way; so that if the child is at school or the playground and someone says it, it’s not a word to come home crying about.”

Children may feel confused about whom to identify with - the birthparents or adoptive parents - especially in their teen years.

Parents need to recognize that there are parts of an adoptive child’s identity that remains incomplete. Brodzinsky recommends that open communication be in place within the family so parents can hear what’s going on and normalize the child’s feelings of sadness or anger. Let children know that there are no “right” or “wrong” feelings. And embracing the child’s culture or helping the child learn more about his or her birthparents can help this process.

In older children, especially those who have been in foster care, there may be anger, mistrust and abandonment issues.

If the child has been abused, Rosenberg recommends that parents take him or her to therapy as soon as possible. Brodzinsky also advises that parents need to know that it takes time for children to learn to trust their adoptive parents. Ongoing education, and adoptive parent support groups, is a great way to stay abreast on the issues. The vast majority of older kids do very well, and adoption has shown to be a very important protective factor, especially against homelessness.

The child develops attachment issues.

Attachment problems are more common in families who have adopted older children or in international adoptions. Generally, the more information parents have about the child’s birth family, the easier it is for families to manage the issues. “A lot of parents withhold information that they have unnecessarily. They think the child is too young and will overreact,” says Brodzinsky. Another misconception, he says, is that sharing the information fairly early is getting it over and done with; that it fulfills the responsibility. The telling process should be an ongoing affair.

The parent develops attachment issues.

Jacqueline Simon, a psychologist specializing in adoption and posttraumatic stress disorder, points out that adoption can be an anxiety-provoking process, especially for parents who were hopeful to have a biological child. Parents need to think about how adoption fits into the idea of what they wanted, and acknowledge and embrace the needs of the individual adopted child. Joining support groups for adoptive parents and children helps families to see that they’re not alone in the process. Watson thinks there’s a misconception that attachment is connected to a genetic, biological relationship. Adoptive parents can take comfort in knowing that it’s actually the care-taking that makes attachment happen.

ADOPTING OLDER CHILDREN FROM FOSTER CARE

The latest AFCARS report stated in 2010 that 107,000 foster children were waiting to be adopted or put into permanent homes.

Pat O’Brien, the director and founder of You Gotta Believe, a non-profit corporation and homelessness prevention program says that older kids have a powerful understanding that the people they are placed with actually make a major difference in their lives. “It’s something that has its rewards, if you’re committed to hanging in there with the kids through their adolescence,” he says.

A 10-week course, available at twelve different locations in the New York area, introduces parents to the process of older child adoption, where parents will hear from teens and parents and talk about many issues. Prospective parents can visit the state’s website for kids who are waiting. Then a meeting with the child’s social worker is arranged after the prospective family gets licensed by an authorization, such as a New York State-approved agency like You Gotta Believe.

Visit yougottabelieve.org to sign up for a weekly orientation in your area or visit http://www.ocfs.state.ny.us/adopt to see how to adopt a New York waiting child.