Infant Adoption

Infant are the most popularly sought after adopted children. They generally fall between the ages of 0 and 2 years. Many first-time parents prefer infants because they feel in control of the child's environment and want to watch the child grow and influence it along the way.

There are three ways to approach infant adoption: private agency, independent adoption and international adoption.

Independent adoption is among the most popular for infant adoption. This is an adoption facilitated by an attorney between an adoptive couple and birth mother. Although this is a non-agency adoption, couples will still need a homestudy and may want to pay for birth mother counseling.

With an agency, a couple will still need to work with an attorney, however, they'll have additional services provided to them such as post-placement visits and extensive counseling for the birth mother.

International infant adoption usually means adopting a child from an orphanage or foster home, depending on the country's resources. It's important to have the adoption process well underway before applying for placement, that way the placed child will not have to wait too long in the orphanage or foster care for paperwork to be finalized.

Most couples will be able to find a child of their preferred skin color and most babies will be healthy. In some cases of international infant adoption, the child may be malnourished.