You’ve Decided To Adopt, Now What?
You’ve decided you’re ready to adopt a child. Or children? More than one child? “Are we really doing this?” You’ve thought about it for years or maybe it’s a brand new idea, but either way it seems like something you can’t walk away from. This is exciting! And scary. And wonderful! So where do you start?
The decision to adopt is filled with emotions, not the least of which can be confusion about how to get started once you’ve decided to take the first steps forward. Here are some questions to consider to help narrow down your process:
“What are our motivations for choosing to adopt, and what do we know are our limitations?” - Sit down together and have a very honest conversation about your expectations surrounding adoption. Decide early about your comfort levels with issues like infant vs. older child adoption, open adoption and birth family contact, parenting a child with special medical needs or drug/alcohol affect, and incorporating an ethnicity and culture different from your own into your family life.
“What age(s) are any children who are already a part of our family? How will adopting affect the birth order of the children in our family?” Narrowing the age range of the child(ren) you hope to adopt to within a 2-4 year age range is an important first step in deciding how to proceed with choosing your method of adoption (adoption agency, private attorney, foster care, etc.).
“What method should we choose for moving forward with adoption?” - If your hope is to initiate adoption of a newborn infant, you have two choices in the form of either a private adoption attorney or an adoption agency. Private adoption attorneys in the state of Oregon can be found here and all licensed Oregon adoption agencies are found through the Child Welfare Information Gateway here. Another avenue for building your family through adoption is to pursue an international adoption. Agencies approved to facilitate inter-country adoptions in Oregon can be accessed here. And finally, if you are interested in adopting through the Oregon foster care program, please find your resources for going forward, here.
The adoption process can be both incredibly difficult AND incredibly fulfilling. There are all kinds of steps, safeguards, speed bumps, and snags along the way, but getting started is the exciting part. Once you’re ready to complete your adoption home study, let Integrity Home Studies ease the way.
