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Frequently
Asked Questions for Adoptive Parents
How
long is the wait?
What
is the cost of adopting with Adoption Advocates?
What
are the qualifications for prospective adoptive parents?
What
is an open adoption?
What
steps are involved in an adoption plan with Adoption Advocates?
What
are the AAI Training Seminars?
Why
should I go? What choices do I have about the child I adopt?
I'm
not sure about being so close to the birth parents. Is that really
good?
How
long is the wait?
Adoption Advocates, Inc. is committed to placing a child
in your home within 12 months of full acceptance. To be fully accepted
in our program, your inquiry, application, and home study must be
fully approved. (See What steps are involved
in an open adoption plan? for more information.) Although we
cannot guarantee placement in about 12 months, we accept only the
number of prospective adoptive parents with whom we can reasonably
expect to place children within about a twelve-month period. Your
placement might happen much more quickly.
Because the
birth mothers generally choose the adoptive parents, you should
be prepared to be picked at any time after you are approved by AAI.
The more flexible you are about ethnicity and background considerations,
the faster your placement will likely be.
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What
is the cost of adopting with Adoption Advocates?
Adoption Advocates offers a comprehensive fee for the placement
of a child in your home. Our comprehensive fee covers administrative
costs, professional staff time, adoption educational programs for
prospective adoptive parents and birth parents, preparation of interstate
compact documents, and post adoption support services. Also covered
is our extensive outreach program to educate birth parents about
their choices available in an adoption plan.
Also included in this fee are counseling costs, maternity related
expenses for birth parents, foster care, staff travel and associated
expenses, overnight courier service, faxes, long distance charges,
legal costs for termination of parental rights and other miscellaneous
costs.
Not included are birth related medical costs in excess of $9,000.00 for both the birth mother and baby, DNA testing, and home studies.
Details about our comprehensive fee program will be forwarded to
you in our inquiry packet. Please call us for details about the
comprehensive fee.
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What
are the qualifications for prospective adoptive parents?
At AAI, we accept applicants between the ages of 25-50, although
this is somewhat flexible if needed for the placement of a particular
child. We accept both single and married applicants. If the applicants
are married, there is a two-year minimum marriage requirement. Applicants
must be emotionally and financially stable. We also encourage applicants
to be flexible about such issues as ethnicity and health history
and to be comfortable with open adoption. (See What
is an open adoption? for more information.)
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What
is an open adoption?
There are varying degrees of "openness" in an open adoption plan.
The important thing to know is that no two adoptions are exactly
alike. Participants in an adoption plan have different needs and
interests, and Adoption Advocates will work with you to achieve
a plan that best meets both your needs and the birth parents' needs.
About half
of our placements are fully disclosed adoptions. This means that
the birth parents and adoptive parents decided to exchange names,
addresses, and phone numbers. This is left entirely up to the adoptive
parents and the birth parents. In almost all adoption plans, the
adoptive parents provide pictures and letters and exchange phone
calls with birth parents. Sometimes there is visitation. In adoptions
that are not fully disclosed, AAI serves as the "middle man" to
arrange future meetings and exchange letters.
The most important
thing to remember is that an open adoption is what the participants
jointly decide that it should be.
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What
steps are involved in an adoption plan with Adoption Advocates?
AAI has a three-tier screening process for adoptive parents. First,
we ask that you submit an inquiry. This basically means that you
contact AAI to let us know that you're interested in getting more
information. During the inquiry phase, you will have a phone conversation
with an adoption counselor who can answer any questions you might
have about our agency or about open adoption. We want to meet your
expectations about adopting a child, and the inquiry level allows
us to inform you about what you should expect and whether AAI is
the agency for you. This is also our opportunity to provide adoption
education to prospective clients before they invest a significant
sum of money.
In the second
tier, you'll complete and submit an extensive application. This
application will include questions about your backgrounds, lifestyle,
relationship, and personalities in order to give AAI a good idea
of who you are, what kind of child you're looking for, and what
your parenting philosophy is like. After the application is approved,
you'll move on to the home study.
The third tier
is approval of the home study, which is required by Texas law. The
home study consists of a series of interviews and home visits, and
it must be performed by a qualified social worker. If you need help
finding a social worker in your area, AAI can refer you to one.
After your
home study is approved, you will create a biography, called a prospective
adoptive parent profile, to be submitted to birth parents. These
profiles generally include pictures of you, information about your
backgrounds, personalities, hobbies, and why you want to be parents.
AAI will let you know when we send out your profile, and there is
the possibility that a birth parent might call the agency to set
up a phone call directly with you. Often, the phone call results
in the birth parent's wish to select you as the parents for their
child. When you are chosen by a set of birth parents, you can chose
to accept or not accept the match. At this time, a case assesment
will be presented to you by the agency.
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What
are the AAI Training Seminars? Why should I go?
A free service AAI provides to ALL prospective clients is our AAI
Training Seminars, generally offered four times a year. Attending
a seminar really answers a lot of questions about the adoption process
and also allows you to get to know us better. These meetings include
a panel of birth mothers and adoptive parents in order to broaden
your understanding of the various lifelong issues of the different
types of adoption. There is no cost for attending, and this training
is actually required by the State of Texas for all agency adoptions.
To find out when the next AAI Training Seminar will take place,
click here.
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What
choices do I have about the child I adopt?
Just as birth parents don't get to choose the sex of the baby, neither
do adoptive parents. Generally, in an open adoption, the birth parents
select the adoptive parents before the child is born. We find that
placements happen much more quickly when adoptive parents are willing
to be flexible about issues like sex, ethnicity, and background
considerations. Also, although we specialize in infant adoptions,
we have placed children up to six years old.
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I'm
not sure about being so close to the birth parents. Is that really
good?
You've got to keep in mind that open adoption is for children. Adopted
children grow up thinking about both of their sets of parents —
you, their mommy and daddy, and their birth parents. How your child
perceives why he or she was placed for adoption depends on your
knowledge of the birth parents. The more you know, the more you
can share with your child. Your child can grow up knowing that the
adoption was an act of love and the unselfish desire that he or
she have a better life than the birth parents could provide. Your
child will know that the birth parents chose you to be the parents,
and that they did so carefully and with love and great hopes for
the future. Your child will learn that the birth parents' connection
to him is lifelong and always honored. Because when your child's
origin is honored, it's much easier for your child's self-esteem
to remain intact.
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