How Do You Adopt A Child

You've decided that it's time to start a family or to add to the one you already have. Maybe the desire is philanthropic or maybe it's fulfilling the dream of being a mother. Hundreds of thousands of children are adopted every year many different ways. How you adopt a child will depend on your financial situation and the kind of child you see yourself raising.

Many first-time parents prefer to raise a child from infancy. Infant adoption is generally that of any child under 2 years of age. Adopters can work domestically, with private agencies or independent attorneys and facilitators. In these adoptions, there's a good chance that the adopters will be placed with a pregnant woman who plans to place her child up for adoption after the pregnancy comes to term. Another way to adopt an infant is to look beyond the border at children born internationally. International adoption has been on a slow decline the last few years, but it still remains popular among countries like China, Ethiopia, Korea and Russia. Infants from these countries may be adopted from orphanages or foster homes. Infants are of the age with the most adoption fees associated with them.

How you adopt an older child can be done internationally or domestically from public agencies. Domestic older child adoptees are from the national foster system and may be available for fost-adopt or legal risk programs, in which an adopter can foster a child that may soon be adoptable. Older child adoption is among the most transparent because the child is old enough to communicate and demonstrate any special needs. Older child adoption is among the easiest to be placed and is also the adoption with the least amount of fees - the home study may be the only expense.