Domestic adoptions are adoptions that take place in the United States. The adoptive parents reside in the U.S. and the child to be adopted resides in the U.S.

There are three kinds of domestic adoption in my limited understanding. First there is an adoption by relatives or friends that is handled with an attorney working with birth parent(s) and the adoptive parents.  Then there is the adoption of newborns placed by reputable agencies with families that are on a waiting list for a newborn.  Lastly, there is foster adopt, which is what Tia (sagerats) and many of the moms on HSB do.  This is where an adoptive family adopts a child or group of siblings thru the government foster care system. Often these children are older (at least older than newborn) and often they have special needs.

In this article, I’d like to give a brief run down of the pros and cons of adopting internationally and adopting through the foster adopt program. 

Pros:

·        Costs are minimal to none

·        Adoptive parents have a comprehensive file on the child’s back ground

·        Children’s Services tries to educate foster adopt parents as thoroughly as possible

·        The parents are often provided with a subsidy to help pay for medical or special needs costs until the child is 18.

Cons:

·        The social worker is a government employee with Children’s Services. This might be seen as a negative to some folks.

·        Parental rights take some time to relinquish in this country, so the children you are waiting for might not be available for adoption for some time

·        The process of the adoption will vary from child to child because of life situations beyond his control and beyond the control of the government agency.

 

Adopting through the government is definitely easier on the pocket book. Most families don’t pay anything at all. Often families are subsidized even after the adoption for medical care.

When you choose a child from the foster system, the child will most likely come with a thick file describing his past and possible issues. You will know more about this child than perhaps you care to know.  I’ve heard from foster adopt moms, though, that sometimes a child will have a list of issues longer than her arm, but when she gets the child in her home, most of those issues don’t actually exist.  The social workers and previous foster parents and pediatricians and therapists do their best to give the new parents a good idea of who their child is and what their child has been through, but no one knows a child better than the mom and dad who live with him day in and day out.

Regardless, you’ll have lots of information to build on, which can be very helpful when this little stranger comes in your front door for the first time.

These two points make foster adopt a most attractive program for parents who desire to open their homes to children who need a family.

One of the difficult things about adopting through the foster adopt program is that it can take a very long time to get the adoption finalized. Often children are placed in a home before the birth parents rights have been relinquished.  The child and adoptive-parents-to-be are bonding, while at the same time watching to see what the courts are going to do with the birth parents.  Social workers try to be careful not to promise things they can’t deliver, but there are social workers…and there are social workers.

On the other hand, this waiting period can be beneficial for the new family and the child. It can be seen as a temporary home while the parents and the child are adjusting to each other, seeing if the fit is good or even possible.  During this time, the child will walk through the honeymoon period, and then afterward, the parents can see the child as he really is…and the child can see if the parents are who they really seemed to be.

This is not always the case. Sometimes children are placed in the home after the birth parents’ rights have been relinquished. At this point, it doesn’t take long for the adoption to be finalized.

The last point is the social worker and the government agency itself.  Some might see this as a very negative part of adopting domestically. Others might see it as beneficial, or as a neutral issue.  In both international and domestic adoptions, investigations must be done of the adoptive parents.  In both cases, a homestudy will be completed by a social worker.

In a domestic foster adopt situation, the social worker is employed by the government as part of a Children’s Services program.  The social worker chosen to work with the family will be looking over the paper work for the homestudy and will be visiting the home.

The main difference between a social worker for foster adopt and a social worker for international adoption is that the social worker for foster adopt will be employed by the U.S. government, and the social worker for the international adoption may or may not be employed by the U.S. government.  The agency for the a foster adoption is the Children’s Services division of the U.S. government, so they use their own social workers to investigate and help bring the adoption to fruition.

Whether this is a pro or con depends on how you view this particular government agency. Many, many families have benefited from dealing with this agency and many, many children have been placed in happy, loving homes through them.

For more on the pros and cons of foster adoption, see the article at http://www.adopting.org/uni/frame.php?url=http://members.tripod.com/dad-of-8/adopt.html .

Next week we will take a look at the pros and cons of adopting internationally.

Shurleen is a homeschooling mom of 8 and Nonnie of 3 in the Pacific Northwest. Shurleen and her husband, Tim, adopted two boys from Liberia to add to their good sized birth family.  The family has been priviliged to have experienced both the best and the worst in their adoptions.

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