The Decision Making Process: What Adoptive Families Look Like & How They Come To Be

     Friends and Family of adoptive parents often want to know how your family came to be.  I am lucky enough to know quite a few adoptive families and they each look different (see below).  How these families came to be is due to the decision-making of the adoptive parents and the opportunities available at the time.  If I had an abundance of time and any inkling of how to do it well, I would write this post as a Flow Chart.  It would be so much more effective.  Bear with me.

 Different Types of Adoptive Families I Know:
1.  A Family who has adopted domestically and internationally.
2.  Two Families who have had biological children and adopted internationally.
3.  A Family who has had biological children, adopted internationally, and adopted from foster care.
4.  Three families who have had biological children and adopted from foster care.
5.  Two families who have adopted internationally several times.
6.  A family who has had biological children and adopted domestically.
7.  A single parent who was adopted herself (private adoption) who adopted internationally.
8.  A family who adopted internationally.
9.  A family who adopted through private adoption and international adoption.

Motivation to Adopt:
     Motivation to adopt may be for reasons such as infertility, marital status, wanting to help a child, religious reasons, feeling of purpose, ect.

Eligibility:
     Requirements to adopt (domestic or international) vary.  Examples are age, marital status, income, health status, ect.  Certain countries have different groups of children who are eligible for single parents (older children or special needs kids).

Research:
     The facts may depend on where a person finds their information.  I have received incorrect information a few times.  It may depend who calls you back first, what websites you read, if the information is up to date, are you receiving first hand information, ect.

Agencies:
     Sometimes parents know they want to use a specific adoption agency that they trust.  Someone once pointed out to me that prospective adoptive parents often trust an agency because they know someone who has had adopted from there.

Adoption fees:
     Adoption fees are lowest with foster adoption.  Private and public adoption fees vary, with international adoption having the most fees. Some of the cost of adoption is refundable. 

Profiling in Adoption:
     Currently, many adoptive parents in domestic adoption are chosen by the biological parent(s).  Some adoptive parents are worried about not being chosen because of their age, marital status, if they are already parents, ect.  Families also need to decide if they are willing to have an open, semi-open, or closed adoption.

Religion:
     Churches often do missionary work in other countries.  People's faith may draw them to adoption.  Their knowledge of certain countries may draw them to adoption from a certain place.  Domestic and international adoption are not uncommon in the church community.

Gender/Age of Child:
     Some families want to add a boy or a girl or siblings to their families.  Some parents would like to add a child under a certain age or a child compatible with the age of their other children.  Some people choose to adopt an older child to help transition them to adulthood.

Timing:
     Timing is everything.  All of the factors above (and more) may come into play when families are decision-making.  After parents have asked a thousand questions, sometimes it just boils down to starting the process and going with what they know or believe at that moment! 

     I consider all of the adoptions of the families I know success stories.  Families may start out on one path and during the decision making process, end up in a very different place.  Every adoptive family has their own story of how they came together.  Every family who chooses adoption has to ask themselves these questions (they will also be asked by their Home Study Agencies).  Did you imagine this blog in Flow Chart form?