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International and domestic adoption appeal to different people for different reasons. Neither is inherently better than the other, although one or the other may be better for you. I hate the competition that sometimes surfaces between proponents of either domestic or international adoption, with each side attempting to scare prospective families away from the other choice. Anytime a family finds a child and a child finds a family, regardless of whether that child is from Beijing or Boston, the world is a better place. I didn't write this book to discourage families from considering domestic adoption. I wrote this book to help you decide between these options and, if international adoption is the right choice for you, to guide you in the process.

In my experience, most people will instinctively feel more comfortable with one type of adoption, depending on their priorities.

• The top priority for parents who are drawn to domestic private adoption is getting a child as young as possible with as much health information as possible.

• The top priority for parents who are drawn to the public foster-care system is providing a home for a child who really needs them.

• The top priorities for parents who are drawn to international adoption are the predictability of knowing that they will get a baby or toddler within a set period of time and a discomfort with the domestic adoption process (for example, the amount of time a birth parent has to revoke their consent to adopt or open adoption post-placement).

It helps to have a basic idea of how domestic and international adoptions differ. If you decide that domestic adoption is for you, look at the Resource Guide for suggestions on how to proceed.

Domestic Adoption

Domestic adoption covers both private adoptions (usually of infants) and public adoptions from the foster-care system (usually of older children).

Private domestic adoptions

Private domestic adoptions are about evenly divided between agency adoptions and independent adoptions, with the distinction being whether the birth parents place the infant with the adoptive parents through an adoption agency or independently (usually with the help of an attorney or facilitator). If you don't work through an agency, you must hire an adoption attorney to handle the legal aspects of the adoption.Most private domestic adoptions are of newborns and gender selection is usually either prohibited or strongly discouraged. In almost all domestic adoptions, the birth parents (usually the birth mother) choose the adoptive parents based on pictures, biographical information, and meetings.

Adoption is governed by state law and a great deal of variation exists between the states, but in every state birth parents must either consent to the adoption through relinquishment of parental rights or have their parental rights terminated. In most private domestic adoptions, birth mothers relinquish their parental rights through consent. In most states, a parent must wait a set period of time after birth (ranging from one day to fifteen days) before they can consent to the adoption, and up until this time, they can change their mind. Estimates are that up to 50 percent of birth mothers who start the adoption process change their mind during the process and decide to parent their child. They can change their mind before or after selecting an adoptive family, before or after their expenses are paid by the adoptive family, and before or after birth. The parental rights of unknown birth fathers present a special problem, and each state handles this situation differently. You should consult an experienced agency or attorney for advice.

Many states also give birth parents a set period of time after they have signed the relinquishment papers and placed the baby with the adoptive parents to change their mind (range is from 0 to 180 days). Although this is a nail-biting period for adoptive parents who are parenting the child during this time, it is required to make sure the birth parents are truly committed to the adoption. Once this legal time period has passed, it is extremely rare for a birth parent to successfully challenge the adoption. A good adoption attorney knows how to reduce this possibility. The media tend to focus on these cases since they are unusual and sensational, just as they focus on the unusual and sensational plane crashes while ignoring the millions of safe landings. Crashes, whether of planes or adoptions, are always going to get more attention, but you shouldn't make the decision to fly or adopt based on them.

Finding birth mothers who want to make an adoption plan for their child is key to private domestic adoptions, and there are many more families who want to adopt than birth mothers who want to place. How adoptive parents find birth mothers depends on the agency or attorney/facilitator. With some agencies, adoptive parents need only apply; the agency finds the birth mother and shows her biographical information on prospective adoptive families. She meets with several and then chooses one to parent her child. The waiting time to be selected varies greatly, depending on how flexible the adoptive parents are on health, race, and prenatal risks and how attractive their profile is to birth parents. Serendipity plays a role as well. To speed up the process, many facilitators and some agencies require adoptive parents to independently look for birth mothers. Print and Internet advertisements and toll-free telephone numbers are the norm. Usually independent adoptions with the proactive approach are faster and more expensive than agency adoptions, again depending on the flexibility of the adoptive parents.

Copyright © 2006 by Dawn Davenport.

Tags: Adoption

About the Author

Dawn Davenport is a mom of four through both birth and international adoption. She is a researcher, writer, attorney, and adoption expert. She can be reached through her website at www.findingyourchild.com. She speaks at many conferences on this topic and is interviewed frequently by national media. She lives in North Carolina.