If you are not looking to adopt a new born child, the quickest way to get started is to contact the local agency that handles the state foster children program. They are normally located in the phone book under the state listings. Or, you can contact your minister or family doctor; they frequently have close contacts within these agencies. This agency can put you in contact with an agency counselor to start the process. They will also be able to provide you a list of lawyers in your area that routinely deal with the adoption process to help make the adoption legal.
Once you complete the evaluation process and background checks that these agencies require, you will normally be initially enrolled in the Foster Parent program. This will enable you and the child to get to know one another and to determine if the relationship will work out. Unfortunately for your initial piece of mind, this means that you frequently end up going through fostering a couple of children before the correct match is made. For the long term health of the family relationship, this certainly helps ensure that you and the child have the best chance to establish a family. The main job for your adoption attorney in this type adoption is to ensure that your rights are protected during the process.
If you want a new born baby for adoption the process becomes a bit more complicated, and the adoption legal requirements will be much more involved. First you have to decide if you are looking for an open or closed adoption. An open adoption allows you and the mother to know each other and often allows for the mother to have limited contacts with the child as it grows up. A closed adoption puts a wall between you and the mother with an adoption agency being the only ones to know all of the information about the parties involved. The mother and the child will only be told who the other is after the child reaches majority and both the child and mother agree on allowing the contact.
An open adoption is usually easier to get started. You can contact your minister, a local family planning clinic or an adoption broker to find a woman that is about to have a child, but cannot or will not raise the child as her own. You will usually meet with her multiple times before both sides agree to the adoption. Your adoption lawyer will guide you through the paperwork necessary to protect your interests. You will normally take possession of the child shortly after birth, but the adoption will not be finalized for a number of weeks to ensure that both sides continue to accept the adoption. The court will then make the adoption legal.
A closed adoption is a bit more complicated since the negotiations are made through an intermediary. It is very important in these adoptions that your lawyer works closely with the adoption agency to make sure that all of the legal paperwork is completed in a timely manner, but even your lawyer will not normally know who the mother of the child is. Again, while you will normally receive the child shortly after it is born, the adoption will not be finalized until a judge decides that the parental rights of the mother are terminated. In this case the court’s order for adoption will result in a new birth certificate being issued with your names as the child’s parents.
In any case, the process of adopting a child is not easy. Every one wants to ensure that the rights of the biological parents, the child and the adoptive parents are all protected. The court that makes the final adoption legal wants to ensure that the new family is in the best interest of the child.