There are lots of questions you’ll need to ask when considering infant adoption. The first one is often “can we adopt”? More adoption opportunities exist now than they have in the past. An adoptive parent can be single, married, older, and with or without children currently. There are many ways to become a family through adoption! Today, we’re sharing four of the most common myths surrounding whether parents are qualified to adopt.
Many prospective adoptive parents feel they can’t adopt because they:
1. Feel they’re too old
2. Aren’t married
3. Live in an apartment, and not a house.
4. Already have biological children
Let’s break down each of these four adoption myths:
Myth #1: We’re too old to adopt!
Not too long ago, being under 40 was a requirement for adoptive couples. “When my husband and I were trying to adopt years ago, we were turned down because he was 39, soon to turn 40. Adoption agencies felt he was too old to adopt. I was 29 at the time, and I was devastated at that assumption,” says Lifetime’s Founder and adoptive mom Mardie Caldwell.
Currently, most adoption professionals are loosening their restrictions on what age of hopeful adoptive parents they’ll accept. You will find adoptive parents well into their 50’s successfully adopting. Lifetime has worked with active couples in which the husband was in his early 60’s, and the wife was younger.
Myth #2: I’m single, no one would want to place their baby with me.
In domestic adoptions, you’ll find that the birth mothers make most of the choices in who will parent her child. So, many times, marital status isn’t a restriction to adopting. Lifetime has helped numerous single women adopt a baby or child successfully! With that being said, we’re careful to work with just a limited number of single parent adoptions at one time, as they may take longer to be selected by a birth mother.
Myth #3: We rent an apartment, so we’re not eligible to adopt.
You don’t have to own your own home or meet a specific income level to be eligible to adopt. You must show that you can afford to provide for another person on the income you currently have. It’s important to be realistic on the timing of your adoption, and determine what your financial stability is before you start the adoption process.
Myth #4: We can’t adopt a baby because we already have children at home.
Some agencies and countries have requirements that an adoptive parent have no other children yet. They also require that in order to adopt with them, you must have faced fertility issues. Happily, Lifetime Adoption does not have these restrictions in place. We’ve assisted thousands of adoptive couples who came to us with children already in the home! Lifetime has seen that birth parents prefer families with less than three children, either biological or adopted. So, these are the adoptive couples that do best in our program.
To close, we want to share this: birth mothers often tell us that they want to place with a loving family, and that the adoptive couple’s age, marital status, and appearance wasn’t even a consideration. Most birth mothers are seeking a stable family life for their child, with an extended family who will accept their child with open arms. They want their child to have a loving and safe family life!
Discover how Lifetime can help you achieve your dream to adopt a baby!
Fill out our free application to get started on the path to find the baby of your dreams.
Founder of Lifetime Adoption, adoptive mom, adoption expert, and Certified Open Adoption Practitioner (C.O.A.P).
Since 1986, adoption expert Mardie Caldwell has been dedicated to bringing couples and birth parents together in order to fulfill their dreams.
“Many years ago, I was also searching for a child to adopt. We didn’t know where or how to get started. Through research, determination, and a prayer, our dream of a family became reality. I started with a plan, a notebook, assistance from a caring adoption consultant and a lot of hard work; this was my family I was building. We had a few heartaches along the way, but the pain of not having children was worse!
Within weeks we had three different birth mothers choose us. We were overwhelmed and delighted. Many unsettling events would take place before our adoption would be finalized, many months later. Little did I know that God was training and aligning me for the adoption work I now do today. It is my goal to share with our families the methods and plans which succeed and do not succeed. I believe adoption should be affordable and can be a wonderful “pregnancy” for the adoptive couple.
I have also been on both sides of infertility with the loss of seven pregnancies and then conceiving by new technology, giving birth to a healthy daughter. I have experienced first-hand the emotional pain of infertility and believe my experience allows me to serve your needs better.
It is my hope that for you, the prospective parents, your desire for a child will be fulfilled soon.”
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